Are you ready to crack CAT?

Building concepts and optimising test performance should be the two objectives of preparation.

With less than a month to go for CAT 2015, the question on most student’s minds is “What should I do between now and the exam to be able to crack it?” Right up there on the to-do list is checking your familiarity with the online test format. If you have not given enough mock CATs, you have to get familiar immediately. At the fag end, your preparation necessarily needs to cater to two objectives: Building concepts and optimising test performance.

Methods for building concepts

Conceptual clarity would have implications for performance during the tests by way of question selection, accuracy, time-per-question and so on.

Reading comprehension

Reading newspapers, especially editorials, over the next few weeks.

Categorise the different types of questions. For example (a) critical reasoning, (b) specific questions, (c) vocabulary-based questions and so on.

The key skill to doing well in the language section is to read carefully, get into the meaning of the sentences – understand what is implied and what is not.

Practise critical reasoning.

Verbal Ability

Each question type in VA is governed by a set of specific rules. Have a list of these rules for each question type. Use it.

Data interpretation and reasoning

Begin with a simple reference book for practising these areas.

For advanced questions, you could bank on the mocks you take.

Quantitative Ability (QA)

If your QA score is under the 80 percentile mark, begin with a basic book. Remember, there are many other MBA entrance exams that you are going to take towards the end of the year, and most of these ask much simpler questions in QA compared to CAT. So, hang on!

General Pointers

Observe your performance in mocks and segregate the topics into three areas:

(a) Topics where both your attempts and accuracy are high — you can bank on mocks for practice in these topics.

(b) Topics where your attempts are high but accuracy is low — you only need to solve high-difficulty exercises in these topics.

(c) Topics where you typically tend to skip questions — You should solve these chapters from the basics upward.

It is not necessary to study each area everyday, but try to revise about two or three areas everyday. You can take up one assignment, finish it and then get on with another.

The idea is that the overall balance should be maintained.

The scores in the mocks have a direct bearing on your self-confidence. Never leave a mock in the middle! Taking as many mock tests as possible, very close to the exam, is not the right way to go about it. A thorough analysis of the mocks taken so far will yield far better dividends than taking more such mocks now.

From all the mock papers, identify questions from a particular area and solve them. This is useful for solving questions of CAT level or above CAT level.

Do not expect miracles. Think things through.

Shut your mind and ears to rumour mills about the exam. Always remember — all that is in your control is to put up your best performance in the exam. Do not think of the cutoffs before or during the test, remember that they are fixed after the test.

If you have prepared for CAT earlier, begin with an analysis of your strong and weak areas. Spend the next few days working on your weak areas.

The strong areas do not take very long to prepare.

The author is director, T.I.M.E., Chennai.

Keywords: CAT 2016

Source: The Hindu, 9-11-2015