Hard work with Smart work will enable you to ace CAT

By: Reeju Barman

The preparation in the last month prior to the CAT entrance exam is crucial, as there are a few things that can make it or break it. Focus on previous years questions, analyze the pattern and keep away from learning new concepts.

When an aspirant decides to appear for a competitive exam like the CAT, he prepares himself for the hard work ahead of him. However, not all aspirants think about smart work. There is no replacement of hard work, but to ace the CAT exam you must do some smart work as well. It will not reduce the need for hard work; rather it will increase your chance of getting into top B-Schools of India.

Understanding and analyzing the exam pattern:

You must fully understand the exam pattern and analyze questions from the previous year’s question papers carefully. After the review, you need to identify the questions, which you can answer right now and which questions go over your head. From this analysis, you will get an overview of the strengths and weaknesses you have.

Study and Preparation:

From the above-mentioned method, you will be able to make a good decision about the topics that need more attention when you start studying. I would suggest starting with the topics from your weak areas; do as many problems as you can from those topics. You might face some difficulties when solving the problems for the first time however, if you practice enough then you will be able to get a grip on those topics.

You need to have a command on the topics in which you are already comfortable. You have to prepare those topics in the way that every question from your strong areas can be answered correctly in the CAT. These questions will boost your percentile.

There will be some topics that you might find difficult even after solving many problems. I would suggest leaving those topics. Do not practice more problems from those topics, as the CAT exam is more about the accuracy than a number of questions attempted. You need to answer a few questions but correctly. Your target should be, whatever questions are attempted must be correct.

Mock tests:

After finishing a topic, taking a Topic Test (mock) is helpful for self-assessment and getting a clear idea about your understanding of the topic. You should take at least 10  tests from each topic. You can easily review your performance from the scores of these tests and determine your weak areas, which can be improved.

After you have taken Topic tests from all the topics, start taking Sectional Test (mock).  This will give you a good idea about your performance in the whole section. This analysis is important in order to increase the sectional percentiles.

After taking at least 10 sectional tests and improving the weak areas based on your analysis, you are now ready to take Full-Length Mock Tests. This is usually recommended when 2 months are left for the CAT. Before you start taking full mock tests make sure that you have fully prepared for all the sections, otherwise, underperformance might demotivate you. Therefore, please make sure that you do not attempt any full Mocks before completing all the topics from all the sections.

Most of the Mock test platforms will provide you with the analysis, follow those, try to find the flaws and improve. This must be the strategy for the last 30 days.

A rough estimation is that you need to answer 15 questions correctly from each section in order to score 95+ percentile. Therefore, the target should be to answer a minimum of 15 questions from each section correctly.

About the Author:

Reeju Barman is a current student of IIM Bodh Gaya. He completed B.Tech in Power Engineering from National Power Training Institute, Durgapur.