Should a candidate stuck at 45 in CAT VARC keep optimising VARC or shift effort to other sections?

A candidate scoring 45 raw in VARC should shift primary effort to DILR and QA rather than chasing marginal VARC gains. At 45 raw, you're already in the 98–99 percentile range for verbal, and the next five marks require disproportionate effort compared to equivalent gains in logic or quant.

Why VARC hits diminishing returns above 45

VARC improvement beyond 45 raw becomes exponentially harder. The difference between 45 and 50 raw might be just one percentile point, while the same five marks in DILR or QA can move you from 85%ile to 92%ile.

From Reddit, we learnt that candidates who plateau at 44–46 in verbal often waste October and November re-reading comprehension strategies instead of fixing calculation speed or set selection in logic.

If your DILR sits below 90%ile or QA below 92%ile, those sections offer far better ROI. A 10-mark jump in quant is achievable in four weeks with targeted topic revision (geometry, number systems, algebra), whereas a similar VARC jump demands months of reading habit changes that rarely materialise under exam pressure.

When to maintain (not abandon) VARC

You still need 20–25 minutes per mock on VARC to prevent score decay. Candidates who completely ignore verbal in the final month often drop from 45 to 38 raw due to rust in parajumbles and summary questions.

Maintenance means attempting three RC passages and all VA questions in every mock, then spending review time on the other sections.

If both DILR and QA are already at 95+ percentile, then yes, optimise VARC further. But this scenario is rare.

Most 45-raw VARC scorers have at least one weak flank, and compare colleges data shows that IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow, and FMS Delhi all weight sectional balance heavily in shortlisting.

Rebalancing your final 30-day plan

Allocate 60% of daily prep time to your weakest section, 25% to your second-weakest, and 15% to VARC maintenance.

If DILR is the laggard, that means four hours on logic sets, 90 minutes on quant, and 45 minutes reading one Economist article plus solving five VA questions. Use build a CAT prep plan to model different time splits and track sectional velocity.

On mocks, attempt VARC first to lock in your 45-raw baseline under fresh conditions, then spend the bulk of analysis time on DILR and QA errors. Tag every mistake by topic (caselet misread, percentage error, set-selection blunder) and drill those micro-skills daily.

Sectional cutoffs demand balance

Even with 99%ile in VARC, a 75%ile in DILR will eliminate you from IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, and IIM Kozhikode shortlists. The table below shows why balanced sectionals matter more than one standout score:

A 45-raw VARC with 80%ile DILR won't clear IIM Calcutta or IIM Lucknow bars, but a 42-raw VARC with 90%ile across all three sections will.