CAT 2012 - Syllabus and Paper Pattern

Common Admission Test (CAT), the test conducted by IIMs as entrance exam for getting admissions in IIMs and leading B-Schools of the country, is an all India level entrance test. 

Like every year the CAT exam will be held between October, 2012 and November 2012. Based on scores and CAT percentile, candidates will be called for next stage of selection process which generally includes Group Discussion or GD, Essay and Personal Interview or PI in other words. 

The pattern of the CAT exam is objective type ie. multiple choice questions will be asked in the exam as usual. There is negative marking in the exam, for each wrong answer 1/3 mark will be deducted.

There will be only two sections in the exam. First section will be Quantitative Ability & Date Interpretation and the second section will be Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning. 


Also Read : How to Get Internship at Google

The time limit for each section is different. The duration of the exam is 140 minutes. Candidates will be given 70 minutes to answer 30 questions within each section, each section have an on-screen countdown timer. Once the time ends for the first section, students will move to the next section and will not be able to go to previous section.

Syllabus for CAT 2012

CAT 2012 Syllabus for English: -

• Comprehension of passage.
• Verbal Reasoning.
• Syllogisms.
• Contextual usage.
• Analogies, Antonyms, Idioms.
• Fill In the Blanks, Sentence completion and Sentence correction.
• Foreign language words used in English.
• Errors in word choice, mania & phobia, Incorrect words, Conditionals & Multiple Usage , Punctuation, Proverb, , one word substitution, Different usage of same word Phrasal verb etc.

CAT 2012 Syllabus for Quantitative Ability:-

• Geometry, (Lines, angles, Triangles, Spheres, Rectangles, Cube, Cone etc.)
• Ratios and Proportion, Ratios, Percentages, In-equations.
• Quadratic and linear equations.
• Algebra.
• Mensuration, Alligation & Mixtures, Work, Pipes and Cisterns.
• Installment Payments, Partnership, Clocks.
• Probability, Permutations & Combinations.
• Profit & Loss.
• Averages, Percentages, Partnership.
• Time-Speed-Distance, Work and time.
• Number system: HCF, LCM, Geometric Progression, Arithmetic progression, Arithmetic mean, Geometric mean , Harmonic mean, Median, Mode, Number Base System, BODMAS, etc.

CAT 2012 Syllabus for Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning :-

• Data Interpretation based on text, Data Interpretation based on graphs and tables.
• Graphs can be Column graphs, Graphs representing Area, Bar Graphs, Line charts, Pie Chart, Venn Diagram, etc.
• Critical reasoning, Visual reasoning.
• Assumption-Premise-Conclusion, Assertion and reasons.
• Statements and conclusions.
• Cause and Effect.
• Identifying Probably true, Probably false, definitely true, definitely false kind of statement.
• Linear arrangements, Identifying Strong arguments and Weak arguments.
• Matrix arrangements.

GK/GA/BA:-

• Current Affairs, Business, Punch line of companies, Top officials of big companies, Major corporate events.
• Science, History, Geography, International organizations.
• Important quotations.
• Social issues, Sports, Finance, Automobiles, Entertainment, Politics etc.
• Famous award and prizes.
• World Records.
• Books and authors.

Post By-
Alok Upadhayay 

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Verbal Ability - Know how to crack it....

In order to do well in Verbal Ability you need three things, reading, clarity on English grammar basics and building up your vocabulary. Verbal Ability holds a lot of weightage in the CAT entrance exam paper. This section consists of Verbal ability, verbal reasoning and reading comprehension. It consists of questions which are vocabulary based, English and grammar usage, verbal reasoning and reading comprehension. Like Quantitative Ability, this section also tests the Basic English language skills.

CAT 2008 exam threw a huge surprise towards the students by increasing the number of questions to 40. The questions were based on grammar, usage and vocabulary concepts. There were no new types of constructs in VA, while old constructs like fill in the blanks and inappropriate usage made a comeback this year. The only twist in the VA questions was that the grammar-based questions also involved identifying punctuation, spelling and logical errors. Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension consisted of 20 questions each in CAT 2008. The passages of the RC were of medium length and easy to understand. The questions were a mix of inferential and direct questions, with a handful of vocabulary-based questions thrown in. It was a fairly easy section and had plenty of chances to maximize scores. CAT 2006 and 2007 exams had 25 questions with four marks each. Of these, 12 to 15 questions were of RC and rest questions were of verbal. While CAT 2004 exam there were 0.5, one and two, marks questions in this section. In CAT 2005 exam, there were one mark and two marks questions in this section.

What is Verbal Ability all about?

The Vocabulary-based questions can comprise of synonyms & antonyms, fill in the blanks, matching words with their appropriate meanings etc. The grammar usage mostly comprises of questions which test your understanding of grammar. It could be questions where you are asked to spot the section of a sentence that is grammatically incorrect or it could be questions where a part of a sentence in underlined and you are provided with four or five alternative choices. You have to select the choice that corrects the error in the underlined part. The verbal reasoning questions could take multiple forms. The most common one is that of rearranging sentences of a paragraph. It could also include paraphrasing what has been said in a paragraph.

This section consists of basic questions of English language. In order to get a decent score in this section, all you need is to be well versed with grammar, words and verbal reasoning. The concepts have to be clear, as well as you should know the right usage of words, sentence construction etc.

Preparation for Verbal Ability

In order to do well in Verbal Ability you need three things, reading, clarity on English grammar basics and building up your vocabulary. You must start growing a strong reading habit for that. In this way, you can get accustomed to various words as well as get an idea about their usages, sentence construction etc. It is a very good habit to read newspapers, especially editorial pages. It will help in improving the RC skills as well as general English usage. Reading newspapers online will help you a lot. That will serve two purposes, it will not only keep you aware of the current affairs and the verbal preparation but it will give you a competitive edge for the computer-based test which CAT entrance exam has been introduced.

In order to increase wordlists and knowing the meaning, context and usages -Find out multiple applications of commonly used words and phrases, if any. While reading, note the context in which words and phrases are used. This helps in tackling a number of Verbal Ability questions. In order to deal with the Reading Comprehensions, especially the unfamiliar topics, the only way is to broaden your reading and get familiar with various issues. To tackle Reading Comprehension passages about unfamiliar topics, broaden your reading to topics that challenge you.

Though extensive reading on all possible subjects and topics is necessary, to retain your learning is more important. Read as much as possible. The idea is to read and comprehend. Reading with the aim of retention and building the capability to identify the keywords, clues and signs. The only way to this is read more and more.

Knowing the words and their grammars is very important. It is also necessary to associate them properly. He suggested associating an image or a context with a word, in that way one can never forget its meaning. For e.g. associate the word Cornucopia (excess) with SACHIN . Don’t try to mug up grammar as set of rules. See the meaning and understand the connection.

In general, focus on building speed and accuracy, through practice, and careful analysis following practice.

Books and preparation material

By now you must have got the idea that the best material for the Verbal Ability section can be anything from daily newspapers, magazines, basic grammar and work books as well as books of fiction. First you have to start reading. Start with anything that you like. It can be fiction, nonfiction or any other book. Then gradually you can shift towards more serious books.

Intensive reading of newspapers, periodicals and reputed books and novels is paramount to tackle the Verbal Ability Section. It is important to understand whatever you read. The ‘Daily Wordlist’ sent by MBA INFORMER helps students to learn new words, their meanings.

“Use basic English grammar books to learn your fundamentals and there are a large number of books and online resources available which would help you to build your vocabulary, besides learning new words from there try and make an effort to use them in your normal conversation, even at the expense of sounding not your usual self to others and importantly build the capability of contextual comprehension, you cannot and are not expected to memorize the whole dictionary.

High School English Grammar and Composition’ by Wren and Martin, ‘Word Power Made Easy’ by Norman Lewis, ‘Verbal Ability’ by Arun Sharma, ‘A Communicative Grammar of English’ by Geoffrey Leech, ‘A Word A Day: A Romp through Some of the Most Unusual and Intriguing, Words in English’ by Anu Garg, ‘Business English and Communication’ by Clark Grade C, ‘All about Words’ by Rosenblum and Nurenberg, ‘30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary’ by Wilfred Funk and Norman Lewis, The GRE and GMAT exam preparation books like ‘Kaplan GRE Verbal’, ‘Princeton GRE Verbal’, ‘Princeton GRE Verbal’ and ‘Kaplan GMAT Verbal’.  These books make your work easier.

You can find out the links to some news papers below:-

We feel the following News Sites will add miles to your gyaan.

1 . http://www.indianexpress.com/

2. http://www.hindustantimes.com/

3. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/

4. http://beta.thehindu.com/

5. http://news.google.com

6. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/

It is important that you don't get lost in the web of information.

Keep restraint on what you are doing, by periodically asking yourself,

"Why am I doing it?”

 For magazines, he Business and Management Chronicle’ by Chronicle Publications, ‘Business Line’ by The Hindu Group, ‘Competition Success Review’, ‘Business Today’ by India Today Group, ‘Business World’. There are some must have materials.

 Apart from that, you should read and practice the Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension.

You should also solve previous years’ test papers to get an idea about the question pattern as well as to rate your performance. “All this should necessarily be supplemented by solving examples from previous exams as well as from books or course material developed by experts exclusively for CAT entrance exam.

Stay connected to www.mbainformer.tk for more on CAT Prep.

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Verbal Ability for CAT- Verbal Reasoning

Verbal Reasoning is more about testing your logical ability rather than English knowledge. Rather than mere English knowledge, for the sub section of Verbal Ability, you need to enhance your logical skills.

English, the world’s local language has various intricacies which are tested in all its forms in the CAT exam and other MBA Exams.  Verbal Reasoning is another predominant part of CAT. Verbal Reasoning is more about testing your logical ability rather than English knowledge. For verbal reasoning, you need to have the ability to use logic. Thus, rather than mere English knowledge, for this sub section of Verbal Ability, you need to enhance your logical skills regarding MBA Exams Preparations 2010. A look at the question pattern will help you understand what you can expect and how you shall prepare for the Verbal Reasoning part for MBA Exams Preparations 2010 and specially for the CAT Exam.

Types of questions in Verbal Reasoning

The most common form of questions is that you will be given a paragraph where the sentences will be jumbled. You will have to rearrange the sentences and make the paragraph meaningful. Another type of question that is found in the Verbal Ability section of the CAT exam is paraphrasing a given paragraph. This calls for your understanding of what is given and hence is some what similar to the Reading Comprehension section of the CAT Exam and other MBA Exams.

Since CAT 2006, the questions on Fact, Inference, Judgement became common. In this kind of questions, you will be given a set of sentences and you will have to identify which one is fact, which one is inference and which one is a judgement.

MBA Exams preparations 2010 for Verbal Reasoning

As mentioned earlier, Verbal Reasoning is more about having the logic and clear understanding rather than learning. MBA Preparations will also be on that line. But you can initiate the MBA preparations with the same method as you have done for Reading Comprehension and English Usage parts, i.e. reading. When you read an article or a chapter of a book, you will follow a pattern of the sentences. They will start with an introduction, followed by that would be the main theme. Similarly, in the questions of para jumbling too, you can follow the same. First read the entire paragraph and then find out the link between the sentences. Identify the introductory sentence and you will automatically recognize the order of the paragraph.

Often the first sentence gives an overview that helps in forming the framework of the passage. Transitional words, phrases or paragraphs that change the topic should be checked. Try understanding the type of reasoning used i.e. cause and effect reasoning, hypothesis or model building for your CAT Exam MBA Preparations.

For the paraphrasing questions, the advice is to write a summary of an article or paragraph after you read one. This not only expands your comprehending skill but also helps develop an independent thinking process and your ability to express. After finishing an article, write the gist of that. This will help you know how much you remember of that passage. Write a summary of about 100 to 150 words every day on the editorial as it will help in building thought process.

Fact, Inference and Judgment questions can be dealt totally on your understanding. You can identify a sentence as fact if it gives hard core information, universal or applied truth. Inference sentences can be identified by conclusions drawn on the basis of facts. For e.g. if the sentence starts with ‘So, Thus, Due to’ etc. it can be considered as Inferential sentences. Judgment sentences are easy to identify as it gives the personal opinion. Initially, identification of fact, inference and judgment might be confusing but with regular practice, you will get comfortable in this sort of questions for your MBA Exams Preparations 2010.

Only practice and clear understanding will help you score well in the Verbal Reasoning portion of the section of Verbal Ability section in CAT 2010. For your MBA Preparations, supplement your learning by solving examples from previous exams as well as from books or course material developed by experts exclusively for CAT entrance exam.

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Verbal Ability for CAT: How to score in English Usage

Verbal Ability is an important section of CAT test. It is consists of three sub sections, Reading Comprehension, English Usage and Verbal Reasoning. Here we will talk about English Usage.

English Usage part consists of the grammar and vocabulary. They form a major part of Verbal Ability section in CAT Exam and other MBA Exams every year. The question patterns which are seen here are similar to the ones which you are familiar in getting during your school level exams. But that does not ensure that the questions will be a child’s play for you. You need to go through rigorous MBA Preparations & practice to ensure zero negative marking in this part for your MBA exams. As most of the time, CAT Exam takers are prone to lose marks by getting confused with the close and tricky options.

Question types on Grammar

The pattern of grammar questions range from sentence correction to locating the error in a sentence. Another question type could be, in a sentence, a portion remains underlined and the CAT Exam takers have to identify the error. You have to choose the option which will correct the error in the underlined part of the MBA Exam section for your MBA preparations 2010.

Another form of question could be that, you will be given four sentences, and you have to find out which of the four sentences are grammatically correct. This type of question was given in CAT 2005.

Questions types on Vocabulary

The questions on Vocabulary basically test your word power. The questions give you a word and ask you to choose the option with the closest or most different meaning with the given word. In simple words, the question tests your synonym and antonym knowledge. Questions like ‘Fill in the blanks with the appropriate word’ are also quite common in MBA Exams like the CAT exam.

Another form of question is, a single word is used in four different sentences with four different usages. You have to choose the sentence which uses the given word in the most appropriate manner.

You are usually not asked to choose the correct meaning of a difficult or less-known word or its antonym or synonym from among the options, a good Vocabulary is still quite crucial for doing well in the English section of any MBA Exam..

MBA Preparations 2010 for the English Usage section

The MBA preparations for English Usage section requires thorough practice and understanding of the basic concepts. In order to do well in Verbal Ability you need three things, reading, clarity on English grammar basics and building up your vocabulary.

For grammar practice, the best way is to consult the basic grammar book, ‘High School English Grammar and Composition’ by Wren and Martin. Not only will you get accustomed to the concepts, but you can also do ample practice from it. Another book which you shall refer for the improvement of your grammatical abilities is ‘A Communicative Grammar of English’ by Geoffrey Leech for advanced knowledge. “Don’t try to mug up grammar as set of rules. See the meaning and understand the connection.

MBA Preparations 2010 for the Vocabulary

The more you read, more often you will come across new words you will come across and hence you will be accustomed to its meaning. Find out multiple applications of commonly used words and phrases, if any. While reading, note the context in which words and phrases are used. This helps in tackling a number of Verbal Ability questions.

You should also keep a pocket size dictionary handy with yourself so that you can know the meaning and note it down whenever you come across a new word. Some books for MBA Preparations 2010, which you can refer for enhancing your Word Power are ‘A Word A Day: A Romp through Some of the Most Unusual and Intriguing, Words in English’ by Anu Garg, ‘All about Words’ by Rosenblum and Nurenberg, ‘30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary’ by Wilfred Funk and Norman Lewis.

Also, try to understand the meaning of the words from its roots. “The best strategy is to understand the ‘roots’ or the origin of certain words. From what ‘main root’ has a particular word been derived? If you approach Vocabulary is a systematic manner, you can rapidly improve on it,” says Balakrishna.

At an overall level, you need to be prompt and accurate while your MBA Preparations 2010 for MBA Exams, for this part of Verbal Ability section. Adequate practice and having conceptual clarity is best in this regard. “In general, focus on building speed and accuracy, through practice, and careful analysis following practice.

Stay connected  to www.mbainformer.tk for more on CAT Exam 2010 preparation

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Improving Your Vocabulary-I

Is Vocabulary Important?

In this article, we shall discuss Vocabulary. Although direct Vocabulary-based questions may not make an appearance in CAT (though it definitely does in other entrance exams such as FMS, IIFT etc as discussed later) in the sense that you are usually not asked to choose the correct meaning of a difficult or less-known word or its antonym or synonym from among the options, a good Vocabulary is still quite crucial for doing well in the English section.

It is important to note that CAT does test your Vocabulary indirectly. Often questions have appeared in which you need to choose the correct usage of simple, every day words. Quite often, these common words have multiple meanings, depending on the context of their use, and the CAT has tested whether you understand which all possible uses a common word can be put to. An example will serve to illustrate my point.

Consider a word such as ‘book’. The most common use of the word perhaps is when we use it in the sense of referring to a textbook or story book (fiction or non-fiction). But the word ‘book’ does have other usages. For example, we can say that ‘He booked a ticket’. Similarly, you can say that a show was ‘fully booked’. Another usage is when we say “The policeman booked the errant driver for over-speeding’.

In addition to being prepared for such kind of questions, a decent Vocabulary will be important to do well in the Reading Comprehension section. Your failure to understand or misinterpretation of a particular word could result in your having greater difficulty in understanding the passage as a whole and answering the questions based on it. This is especially true for phrases or aphorisms that the writer may use-very often, these short aphorisms convey a lot in a few words, something which would have otherwise taken several sentences to explain. For example, if the author of a particular passage states that “the chickens have come home to roost”, what does he mean? Similarly, he may state that a particular situation was a ‘Catch-22’ situation. Rather than explain in long sentences what the situation entailed, the usage of the single phrase ‘a Catch-22 situation’, conveys a lot to a reader who knows the meaning of the phrase. Incidentally, this phrase was the title of a famous novel by Joseph Heller.

Of course, the answer options may contain some words which test your Vocabulary to some extent. This is particularly true when you are asked to choose the ‘tone of the passage’. And you shall be in a real soup if you do not know the meaning of words in the answer option!

Non-CAT exams

As mentioned before, the type of questions that you are given in the FMS, IIFT etc entrance tests are a little different. These entrance tests do contain direct Vocabulary questions. The FMS entrance exam, in particular, is known to bowl students over with some really esoteric words, which are not even used all that often in daily conversation! (don’t worry, there will be only a few such words, if any).

Hence, Vocabulary is something that you will need to work on during your preparation. As mentioned, doing well in Reading Comprehension does call for a decent Vocabulary. Plus, some entrance tests do test your Vocabulary directly by asking you the meaning of a particular word, its synonym or antonym etc.

How to Build your Vocabulary

Now let us come to the crucial aspect of how you could build your Vocabulary. What is the best way?

In my opinion, in order to truly be good in Vocabulary (and also, not forget the meaning of a word just a few hours after you have learnt it), you cannot just mug up the meaning of words-after all, how many word-meanings can you just learn by rote? So what then is the best way?

The best strategy is to understand the ‘roots’ or the origin of certain words. From what ‘main root’ has a particular word been derived? If you approach Vocabulary is a systematic manner, you can rapidly improve on it.

Let’s understand this ‘root-based’ approach. Consider a word such as ‘demographics’. What does it mean? If you plan to mug up the meaning, it isn’t a good idea! Instead, look at its root: the root is ‘dem’ in this case.

What does ‘dem’ mean?

This root, from Greek, means ‘people’. We all know that India is a democracy. So it should be easy to remember the root ‘dem’ and people (democracy means ‘a Government of and for the people’.

Now ‘demographics’ refers to a population study, or the study of the various characteristics of the people that comprise the population.

• A related word is ‘Demographist’ : it refers to a person who studies demography

• Let’s take another word with the root ‘dem’: ‘demagogue’. You may have heard it a few times-what does it mean? It has the same root, so it must refer to people. You can check it out in any dictionary.

• Similarly, consider the word ‘demogenics’. It means ‘relating to a society based on citizenship’

• Have a look at these two words: ‘Demophile’ and ‘Demophobe’. While the former means ‘A friend of the people’, the latter refers to a person who has an aversion to people (the root ‘philo’ means to have an affinity for/ to love, while the root ‘phobe’ has the opposite meaning).

Hence you can see that knowing the meaning of the root of a particular word helps a lot-not only in understanding the meaning of that particular word, but also the meaning of words with the same root. If you now come across any word with the root ‘dem’, you shall know it has something to do with people.

In subsequent Vocabulary articles, we shall discuss some other important roots.

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VOCAB Through roots-2

Having a strong vocabulary is a boon for all CAT 2010 takers. But what about those who are not armed with the word power? Do they not stand a chance to clear the Verbal Ability section of CAT 2010? They certainly do, if they utilize the remaining time left for CAT 2010 in working for a strong vocabulary base.

By now, you must have a fair amount of words in your vocabulary account. As our experts had suggested, there are several ways to bundle up your stock of words such as going through dictionaries, vocabulary books, using flash cards etc. But the most basic of them is to learning words through its roots.

Let us first consider the root Ver/Veri. “This root means ‘true’ or ‘genuine’. These are derived from Latin.

• Verify: To check the accuracy or truth of something-could be a statement, some data, fact or figure etc

• Verifiable: Something that can be checked-the accuracy can be ascertained etc

• Veracity/ Veracious: These words mean something that is correct, truthful, genuine or accurate

• Verisimilar: Something that appears to be true

• Verily: Something that is true or certain, correct or accurate

• Veridity: Something that is genuine and true

• Veritable: Again, this means something that is true

The second root is Chron. “Whenever you see the root, ‘chron’, you should immediately think of ‘time’ for that is what the root means.

• Chronology:  This means “of, relating to, or arranged in or according to the order of time”

• Chronicle:  A record of events in a chronological sequence (in order of time when they occurred)

• Chronic:  Means occurring at frequent intervals of time

• Chronometer:  A device used to measure/ keep time. A clock is therefore a chronometer

• Anachronism:  Something that is out of place in time/ chronologically out of place. For example, if you see someone wearing a dress that was usually worn only in the medieval period, you could call that an ‘anachronism’

The third root which is considered is ante. “This root means the same as the well-known prefix, pre means i.e. it means ‘before’.

• Ante-room:  A room that leads to a bigger room (literally, a small room before a bigger one)

• Antediluvian:  Literally, of or belonging to the period before the great Biblical flood, generally used to refer to someone or someone who is old-fashioned, out of date or antiquated

• Antebellum:  The root ‘bell’ means aggressive (think of the words ‘bellicose’, ‘belligerent’ etc). ‘Antebellum’ therefore literally means ‘before the war’ (here the reference is generally to the American Civil War)

• Antedate:  To be of an older date than something else, thus precede in time

• Antecedent:  refers to a preceding circumstance or event; thus a precursor or fore-runner.

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Vocabulary through Roots-Part I

Dear friends,

Vocabulary plays an important role in verbal section of CAT, but getting well prepared for Vocab. Is a job   which needs regular studies and smart studies. You might have been noticed that several words which are in common use have some common roots like 'CIRCUM', 'PRE' etc. Its easy to learn those words if you know the meaning of these roots. Today we will discuss about some word roots.

Let's start with the root word 'loq' and (related roots such as 'loqui', 'loqu' and 'loc'). These similar roots all mean 'To speak' and are derived from the language of Latin.

Here are some of the many words derived from these roots and their meaning:

• Loquacious : Means extremely talkative (a synonym for this is garrulous, verbose etc, while antonyms would be taciturn, laconic, pithy, terse etc)

• Circumlocution: Another root that you should know is 'circum', meaning 'around'. Circumlocution therefore means an indirect or roundabout way of expressing oneself, not coming to the point, 'to beat around the bush' etc

• Elocution: Is a word that we are all familiar with; meaning a public speech. Remember the elocution contest you may have participated in or watched in school?

• Eloquent: A similar word. It means to be fluent, expressive/ clear in communicating while speaking.

• Soliloquy: Another word using two roots-'loq' and 'solo' (meaning one/ single). A 'soliloquy' therefore means a speech or talk to oneself/ a monologue

• Interlocutor: Again a word with two roots- 'loc' and 'inter' (which means 'between' or 'among'. The word 'interlocutor' therefore means one who takes part in a conversation/ speech.

There is one caveat here. Do not confuse this root with the other ‘loc’ which also comes from Latin and means 'place'. The most common word with this root is perhaps ‘location’.

Other words using this root, referring to place, are: ‘Locomotion’ (also ‘Locomotive’) –the act of moving from place to place; ‘Locate’ – to specify a place to or to find the place of etc

Now let us consider another important root: the root ‘peri’ means ‘around’.

• Pericarp: Refers to the skin or shell of a fruit or vegetable (it is something that goes ‘around’ the fruit or vegetable

• Pericentric: As the word clearly suggests, means to be ‘around’ the centre of something

• Periphery: refers to the boundary ‘around’ something

• Perimeter: Every Maths student knows this word only too well! It means the measurement ‘around’ a closed figure

• Peripatetic: Means to be walking or wandering 'around' from place to place, having no fixed place (like a nomad)

Here are some more roots-which all mean the same thing-'power': 'poten', 'potes', 'poss'

.

These roots are derived from Latin.

• Potent/ Potency: A commonly used word. To be 'potent' means to be powerful or capable of doing something

• Potentate: A 'potentate' is a ruler, a king, a monarch ('mono' means 'one', so 'monarch refers to a single or one ruler)

• Potentiate or potentize:Means to imbibe with potential or to make something powerful

• Omnipotent: Means to be all powerful ('omni' is also a root, meaning 'all')

• Potential: A very common word, meaning having the power to develop further in the future

• Posse: A posse is an armed group, or a group with legal power

• Possess: Another common word derived from the same root and meaning to have in power

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