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What is Para-Completion?
Para-completion is nothing else but a test of your comprehension skills. All it asks of you is to complete a missing line from a paragraph, and this line is generally the last line of the paragraph. It is a pretty simple thing to do, isn’t it?
Well, not quite. CAT is a peculiar paper and it does have its little pitfalls here and there. Let us study a few CAT questions and try to catch hold of some tricks of the trade.
Steps To Follow For Para-Completion
Have a look at this CAT question:
The audiences for crosswords and sudoku, understandably, overlap greatly, but there are differences, too. A crossword attracts a more literary person, while sudoku appeals to a keenly logical mind. Some crossword enthusiasts turn up their noses at sudoku because they feel it lacks depth. A good crossword requires vocabulary, knowledge, mental flexibility and sometimes even a sense of humor to complete. It touches numerous areas of life and provides an “Aha!” or two along the way. ( _____________)
- Sudoku, on the other hand, is just a logical exercise, each one similar to the last.
2. Sudoku, incidentally, is growing faster in popularity than crosswords, even among the literati.
3. Sudoku, on the other hand, can be attempted and enjoyed even by children.
4. Sudoku, however, is not exciting in any sense of the term.
First thing: Identify the gist of the paragraph.
This paragraph is about crossword and how they are better than Sodoku.
Second thing: Identify the continuing thread of thought.
In this, the thread where the author leaves us is how multi-dimensional crosswords are.
Third thing: Continue the thread of thought keep in mind the ‘first thing’.
Well, the one thing we have done for sure is use confusing language for our rules. All we want to say is that continue the last thought of the author keeping in mind the overall idea of the passage.
Do not do the following:
Do not get stuck on words.
Do not get stuck on the last line. The last line is vastly different from the last thought. Para-completion in a way is thought completion.
Keeping the above in mind, we reach our answer: Option 1.
It continues the main theme of the paragraph, while moving away from the last line but being in touch with the thought of the last line. It acts as the perfect contrast for crosswords and what it does not offer in comparison.
Another Solved Example
Most firms consider expert individuals to be too elitist, temperamental, egocentric, and difficult to work with. Force such people to collaborate on a high- stakes project and they just might come to fisticuffs. Even the very notion of managing such a group seems unimaginable. So, most organizations fall into the default mode, setting up project teams of people who get along nicely.
1. The result, however, is disastrous.
2. The result is mediocrity.
3. The result is creation of experts who then become elitists.
4. Naturally, they drive innovations.
First thing: Identify the gist of the paragraph.
This paragraph is about negative character traits of expert individuals and how there are avoided by firms.
Second thing: Identify the continuing thread of thought.
The author leaves as at a peculiar place: how companies choose employees that get along well. These cannot be experts because it is not in their nature to get along well. So it has to be people who are not experts. A simple inference we draw.
Third thing: Continue the thread of thought keep in mind the ‘first thing’.
We continue the inference we have drawn above. Pretty simple to continue it actually. People who are not experts are not in a position to drive innovation or become experts. But we cannot say their results will be disastrous as the passage mentions how well they get along. So, we adopt a middle path and the choose that represents this balanced approach, option 2.
PostScript
There are the following things that you need to keep in mind while answering Para-completion questions:
- Identify the subject of the paragraph provided and try to summarize it in your own words identify what is happening in the paragraph.
- Identify the thread of thought that the author of the paragraph leaves us at.
- Continue the thread of thought and not particular words or phrases.
- Last but not the least, avoid extreme answer choices.
