Should You Attempt VARC First or Last in the CAT Exam?
This question rests on a misunderstanding that is worth clearing up immediately, because the answer to the question as asked is that you do not get to choose.
CAT runs its sections in a fixed order with a hard sectional time limit on each, and VARC comes first. You cannot move to another section early, you cannot return to a section once its time has gone, and you cannot borrow minutes across sections. What you do control is the order in which you work the questions inside VARC, and that decision is genuinely consequential.
Order within the section is where the real decision lives. Practise it under a clock with CAT VARC practice chapters.
- Section order is fixed with hard sectional timing, so VARC first or last is not a choice you make.
- The real decision is question order inside the section, and it changes scores materially.
- Working top to bottom is the default and it is usually the wrong order.
- A ninety second scan before committing lets you open with the passage you handle best.
- VARC coming first means a bad section can contaminate the two that follow, which needs its own plan.
What You Actually Control
Separating the fixed from the chosen makes the rest of this straightforward.
Fixed: the sequence of sections, the sectional time limit of forty minutes each, and the fact that you cannot revisit a section after its time expires. The exam is computer based and the interface enforces all of this.
Chosen: which passage you open first, which questions inside a passage you take, where the verbal ability block sits in your order, and when you abandon something that is not working.
Those choices are where sections are won and lost, and most candidates make none of them deliberately. They start at the top and proceed downward, which is a decision by default rather than a decision.
Planning a strategy around choosing your section order, and discovering on the day that the interface does not offer it. Aspirants carry this assumption from other exams where section navigation is free. Build your plan around what CAT's interface actually permits, which is order within a section.
Why Top to Bottom Is the Wrong Order
Three things go wrong when you take the section in the order it is presented.
The first is that you open with whichever passage happens to be first, which may be the one whose subject matter suits you least. A difficult opening passage costs marks and also costs confidence, and the second effect carries into the rest of the section.
The second is that you meet the verbal ability questions last. Para summary, para jumbles and odd sentence out are individually fast for a practised candidate, which makes them the cheapest marks per minute in the section. Reaching them with four minutes remaining allocates the worst time available to the best value questions.
The third is that you never see the whole section before committing to part of it. You cannot judge whether a passage is worth ten minutes without knowing what the alternatives are.
| Decision | Default behaviour | Better behaviour |
|---|---|---|
| First passage | Whichever appears first | The subject you handle best |
| Verbal ability block | Reached last, rushed | Scheduled with time to think |
| Passage budget | Implicit, overruns | Section time divided by chosen passages |
| Abandonment | When the clock forces it | At a decided point |
The Order That Works
The sequence below is built to survive any composition you find, since the number of passages is not published in advance.
- Ninety second scan. Note how many passages there are, how many questions attach to each, and which subjects you are comfortable with. Solve nothing.
- Decide your count and budget. Divide the remaining time by the passages you intend to attempt properly, holding minutes back for the verbal ability block.
- Open with your strongest subject. Not the first passage, not the shortest one.
- Take the verbal ability block before the clock gets tight. After two passages rather than after all of them.
The Scan Pays for Itself
Ninety seconds spent looking at everything feels expensive and returns more than it costs. It converts an unknown structure into a known one, lets you choose your opener deliberately, and prevents the specific disaster of discovering a fifth passage with eight minutes left.
Opening Well Sets the Section
A first passage that goes smoothly establishes a pace and a state of mind that carries. One that collapses does the opposite, and the damage is not only the marks lost on it. Choosing the opener on subject familiarity is the cheapest available protection against that.
The Verbal Ability Block Needs Real Minutes
These questions reward a considered judgment that takes a minute or two. Given that time they are reliable; given ninety seconds in a panic they become guesses with negative marking attached. Moving them earlier costs nothing and converts several rushed answers into considered ones.
Decide before the section how many passages you will attempt properly, and accept that the remainder may go untouched. Three passages read carefully usually outscore five touched briefly, because half-read passages produce confident wrong answers rather than harmless blanks.
The Real Problem With VARC Going First
Since the order is fixed, the useful question is how to handle the consequence, and there is a specific one.
VARC is the section where you have least feedback about how it went. In quant you usually know which questions you got right. After a VARC section you often have no idea, which means you walk into DILR carrying an uncertainty that can turn into a story.
That story is expensive. A candidate who decides during the break that VARC went badly is making a judgment on almost no evidence, and then makes DILR decisions under the pressure of needing to compensate. Compensating is how people commit to unsolvable sets.
The discipline is to refuse the assessment. The section is over, the marks are fixed, and no decision you make in DILR should be influenced by a guess about a section you cannot change.
Mentors debriefing exam day hear the same account repeatedly. The candidate felt VARC went badly, resolved to make it up in the next two sections, took risks they would not normally take, and produced a worse paper than the one they were trying to rescue. The VARC section itself frequently turned out fine.
The Choice Is Inside the Section
Scan, choose your opener, budget your passages, place the verbal ability block early.
Work Through CAT VARC ChaptersHow to Practise the Order
An ordering plan that has only been read is not a plan, because the opening two minutes of a real section are when deliberate thought is least available.
Rehearse the scan until it needs no thought. In every timed practice section, spend the first ninety seconds reading everything and writing down your intended order and budget. Do that fifteen times and it becomes automatic. Building those sections from CAT reading comprehension practice keeps the passages varied enough that the scan has something to judge.
Vary the structure deliberately. Practise blocks with three passages, five passages, and uneven question density, so that no composition on the day requires recalculation.
Review by decision rather than by answer. For each passage, ask whether opening it when you did was right given what the scan showed, which is a different question from whether you answered its questions well.
What to Do When a Passage Collapses
Take only the questions answerable from a specific line, usually the detail ones, and leave the inference and tone questions. Do not re-read the whole passage under time pressure; that rarely works and costs the minutes another passage needed. Our guide on the signals that decide your RC attempt order covers how to choose between passages once you can see them.
The One Sentence Checkpoint
Before looking at the questions, state the author's position in one sentence in your own words. If you cannot, you have not finished reading, and that is the moment to decide whether to invest more or move on. It takes ten seconds and it tells you which of two very different situations you are in.
Why VARC Going First Is Defensible
Since the order is not negotiable, it is worth noticing that the fixed sequence is not arbitrary and is arguably in your favour.
VARC is the section most damaged by fatigue. Reading accurately on a fourth dense passage requires sustained concentration, and concentration is a resource that depletes across two hours. Placing it first means you meet it at full capacity, which is when it is most winnable. A candidate who sat VARC after eighty minutes of quant and reasoning would read measurably worse.
It also means the section with the least reliable self assessment happens before you have any results to react to. That sounds like a small thing and it removes a real risk: a candidate who knew their quant had gone badly would approach VARC needing marks, and needing marks in VARC produces exactly the confident wrong answers that negative marking punishes.
Neither argument changes what you should do, since you have no say in it. Both are worth holding on the day, because a fixed constraint is much easier to work inside once you can see why it is not working against you.
The Answer
Should you attempt VARC first or last? You do not choose. CAT fixes the section order and enforces a hard sectional limit, so the question as usually asked has no available answer.
The question worth asking instead is how you order the work inside VARC, and there the default is costing people marks. Working top to bottom means opening with an arbitrary passage, never seeing the alternatives before committing, and reaching the cheapest questions in the section with the clock nearly gone.
Ninety seconds of scanning fixes most of it. Choose your opener, set a per-passage budget, place the verbal ability block where it gets real minutes, and decide in advance what happens when a passage will not come. Then walk into DILR without a verdict on a section you cannot change.
- Do you scan every passage before committing to one?
- Is your opener chosen by subject familiarity rather than position?
- Does the verbal ability block get real minutes in your order?
- Do you avoid judging the section after it ends?
If your VARC sections end with passages unread or the last block rushed, the constraint is ordering rather than reading. A CAT preparation strategy review will separate the two, and a personalised CAT preparation plan can build varied timed sections into the week.
You Choose the Order Inside, Not Outside
The sections are fixed. The ninety seconds that open yours are entirely yours.
Build My Weekly PlanFrequently Asked Questions About VARC Section Order
Can I attempt VARC last in the CAT exam?
No. CAT runs its sections in a fixed order with a hard sectional time limit on each, so you cannot move between sections or return to one after its time expires. The order you control is within the section.
What order should I work questions inside VARC?
Scan everything for about ninety seconds, decide how many passages you will attempt properly, open with the subject you handle best rather than the first one, and place the verbal ability block early enough to get real minutes.
Should I attempt every passage?
Not necessarily. Three passages read carefully usually outscore five touched briefly, because half-read passages produce confident wrong answers carrying negative marks rather than harmless blanks. Decide the count after the scan.
How do I stop a bad VARC section affecting the rest of the paper?
By refusing to grade it. You have very little evidence about how a VARC section went, and deciding it was bad leads to compensating risks in DILR, which is how candidates commit to unsolvable sets.
Practice VARC, chapter by chapter
CAT VARC practice across reading comprehension, para-summary and para-jumbles, each with a worked solution.
More from VARC
Continue reading
Using a Study Journal for CAT Without Overdoing It
How to Stop Comparing Your CAT Prep With Everyone Else
SPJIMR Admission Process: Why the Profile Leads It
How to Solve CAT Quant Faster Without Skipping Steps
Put it into practice