Handy tips for students preparing for CAT 2013
Call 8585951111Got Doubts?
By Ankur Agarwal
I hope all the serious aspirants would have by now prepared a must-do list for the last 26 days. Let us dig deeper into what should be done in the run-up to CAT in order the deliver the best on the D-day.
Where are we:
I believe that by now we would have taken at least 5-8 Mocks in order to understand our performance and would have completed the entire course by all means. Hence, we can look at a three pronged strategy:
Identify our performance across a section keeping in mind that all the top colleges have a sectional cut-off along with an overall percentile cut-off. How do we do this: In Verbal section we have 30 questions consisting of RC, VA and LR and in Quantitative section we have DI and QA. We should look into the question-wise analysis and topic-wise analysis of the section in order to get to know where we lose time or where we go wrong. This will not just help us identify the areas to work on i.e. our weaknesses but also our strengths where we need to capitalise on. Let us understand this carefully we should do the following correctly:
a) Not Waste time on wrong questions by identifying them earlier. (read report: Time report on un-attempted questions).
b)Identify easier/familiar topic questions faster to get them finished in the first round of attempts.
c) Keep the toughest/unfamiliar topic questions for the last so that we do not miss out on easier questions by wasting time elsewhere.
- Using the Sectional tests to practice different strategies to take up the section in isolation. Since CAT gives us dedicated time to take up each section it is very important to formulate a clear strategy to take up a section. A reasonable practice of sectionals and its implementation on actual mocks should be able to give you a good strategy to take it up. It is however recommended that one has at least two alternative strategies in order to tackle a regular/predictable format and another case of a tough/unpredictable format. At the end the objective is to clear the cut-off of each section which will lead to overall cut-off.
- How much is good enough? All of us know that no matter how much to practice it may just not be enough to crack CAT or we may just skip one thing which ultimately proves disastrous. Since the CAT is spread over 27 days it is even more important for the ones taking CAT later to keep the tempo up till the D-Day. Hence make sure you do not in a vacation mode once you run out of Mocks. Having enough Mocks will help you in that preparation to keep it going till your date. Let’s keep it in mind that your performance goes up till the time you are at it and taking tests regularly, the moment you take a break it may just dip there-after, therefore it is important to keep it going so that on your day of CAT you are at the peak of your performance.
Keep one thing in mind Practicing-Identifying-Reworking is a cycle which cannot be ignored in order to push up your scores and there is no substitute for it.
All the Best!
About the author:
Ankur Agarwal heads the IT and Publishing verticals of Endeavor Careers and Catgurus - a leading online Testing portal for CAT Aspirants.
