CAT Preparation: 99.87 percentiler's step-by-step guide to crack the exam

Saurjya Sen

 

When Saurjya Sen was preparing for CAT 2016, he made it a point to attempt as many mock tests as he could. He was confident about his preparations, but scoring a 99.87% in the exam was a pleasant surprise for him. 

Saurjya believes that there is no right time to start CAT preparation, but the earlier you start, the better it is. In his free time, Saurjya is fond of playing football, blogging and theatre. 

Here is the CAT preparation guide by 99 percentiler Saurjya Sen:

Taking coaching classes depends on how comfortable a person is with the basics. If a person is comfortable solving basic problems from all topics that are included in CAT exam, coaching classes might turn out to be a waste of time. But if somebody feels that he/she needs to learn some topics from the very beginning, coaching classes help a lot. Again, people who are taking a drop for CAT should go for coaching classes as they provide adequate revision for the topics that one already knows. 

Now is the right time to start. If you haven’t yet started, start right away. There is no perfect time to start in that sense, the earlier you start, the more opportunity you give yourself to be well-prepared on the D-day.

I can tell the strategy that I followed. I took 1-2 mock test per week initially, gradually increased that to a mock a day for the last week. This strategy might be useful to some, might even backfire some people if they do not get enough marks during the last week mocks. My advice to the CAT 2017 aspirants would be to take ample mocks and make sure that you analyse them fully. Spend at least twice of time per mock to analyse compared to what you took for taking it.

My advice here would be to learn from the practice problem sets that any coaching provides. The mocks (monitored and non-monitored), the sectional tests and topic-wise practice problem sets from any one or more coaching institutes should suffice as a strong base for preparation.

The approach should be as under:

Step-1: Take a mock. Analyse it. Solve the questions that you missed out on during the test and that you solved incorrectly, without looking at the solutions to make sure that you understood the analysis completely.

Step-2: Repeat for another 2 mocks.

Step-3: After taking 3 mocks, identify your weaknesses and work on them.

Step-4: If the weakness is in a particular section, solve sectional tests. Make sure you solve sectional tests and follow them up with rigorous analysis until you get confidence in that section.

Step-5: If the weakness lies with a particular topic, go back to the books, revise the topic, solve the sample solved questions, the exercise that follows. These many questions should bring the confidence in the topic.

Step-6: Once the above steps are done, move back to the mocks. Take another 3 mocks and analyze them. Then repeat steps 4 & 5.

Once you are comfortable with all the sections, take as many mocks as you can to improve on your confidence. After around 12-15 mocks, the time taken for steps 4 & 5 should reduce exponentially. If it doesn’t you are having issues with the concepts. Do talk to other people in that case for help.

The answer to this question should come from solving mocks. Once a person is thorough with mocks, a mere glance through the question paper should be enough to decide the strengths of a person. Also, some questions are very straight-forward and they can easily be identified while reading the question that those do not require any calculations. Those are the questions to be targeted first.

One and only tip – do not waste a moment on a question that you are stuck with. Simply move on. You can always come back to that question later if you are done with the section earlier than the stipulated time. Many-a-times, people miss out on solvable questions simply because they spent too much time on a single question.

Another thing that helps is the time taken analysis of mocks. Most institutes give the details of time taken to solve a particular question during taking the mock, and the time that the toppers took. Also, there are many shortcuts described in the solution that help in immensely reducing the time taken to solve particular type of questions.

The judgement also stems from taking mocks and analysing them.

- If a candidate finds that he/she is consistently scoring low in a particular section across 4-5 mocks, then that section is definitely his/her weakness.

-  If a candidate has marks fluctuating over a wide range in a section, then there are specific topics that the candidate is weak in, or that he/she has got some questions correct based on pure guesswork.

- If one finds a particular topic difficult to understand, or questions involving a particular topic difficult to solve, that again is his/her weakness.

Yes, definitely.

CAT is a one-day affair, and there is every possibility that one might not give his/her best performance on the D-day. It is always better to have some backups.

GMAT, XAT, NMAT, IIFT, SNAP, TISSNET, MAH-CET, MAT are some other management exams that candidates may look to attempt. 2-3 exams apart from CAT as per the candidate’s choice should be sufficient.

Do’s:

1. Take mock tests aplenty. Analyse each.
2. Identify shortcuts for questions, apply as and when convenient.
3. Keep a notebook handy for noting down important concepts and formulae to revise as and when required.
4. One RC a day – key to cracking RC for engineers who hate the VARC section.
5. Be thorough with the use of the on-screen calculator. It helps a lot in DI and QA.
6. Try to attempt all the non-MCQ type questions as they do not carry negative marking.

Don’ts:

1. Do not waste time on a particular question during CAT exam.
2. Do not try to improve on a weakness one month before CAT. Focus only on the strengths then. Improve on weaknesses earlier.
3. Do not go for guesswork – it backfires more often than not. 1 mark difference can amount to as much as 4-5%ile in actual scenario.