Students’ Speak: Last-minute brush-up tips for CAT exam

Before starting the exam, invest five minutes in scanning the questions from the section and attempt those questions first for which you are comfortable. Also during the exam be calm and focused on your own paper.

Only a few hours left to CAT 2019 exam, every aspirant needs to read this for last-minute brush-up. Here’s what you need to do:

• Avoid studying any new topic. Starting with new topics will only confuse you and hinder your existing preparation level.
• Just go through the formulas, concepts and problems from topics you are familiar with. Brush up your QA formulas by revising them constantly.
• Take proper sleep of eight hours. Avoid oily/junk food. Prefer only home-made food.
• Make a positive environment around yourself and try to avoid all types of distractions and negativity.
• Take only one or a maximum of two full-length mock tests. Take that mock on the same timing of the exam, sit in a proper way like exam hall, follow the same routine (i.e. table-chair setup and avoid any break during mock) that will follow on exam day. And importantly do not count marks of this mock, only analyse how many mistakes you have done and which topics make a problem during this mock. Try to minimise negative marking and calculation mistakes in the exam.
• Be ready with your sectional exam day strategies. However, CAT exam is unpredictable, don’t blindly rely on them. You should be able to change your strategy as per a given question paper.
• To achieve 90+ percentile you must target 50-55 questions and for 95+ percentile, 60-65 questions, and be in the bracket of 99 percentile target 75 questions overall with 90 percent accuracy and also take care of your sectional cutoff. As suggested by toppers, try to attempt the theoretical portion first because of time limits as well as doing a numerical first and getting stuck at it, will only result in wasting time.
• Before starting the exam, invest five minutes in scanning the questions from the section and attempt those questions first for which you are comfortable. Also during the exam be calm and focused on your own paper. Try to pick up all the easy questions first as there are many questions which are there to halt your speed, don’t get stuck there just avoid them and focus on easy questions. Avoid guesswork as there is negative marking.
• In the examination hall, try to avoid the disturbance/noise that will be created by the other candidates. Don't panic because of any kind of technical glitch, it will hamper your performance.
• The night before the exam, make sure that you have everything you need on the day of the exam (CAT Admit Card, photograph and valid original photo ID proof) and don’t forget them along with you to the CAT Exam Center.

At last keep in mind this golden statement, “ Start a WAR after you have WON it”. All the Very Best!

About the Author:

Manmeet Singh belongs to Amritsar, pursuing PGDM with a specialisation in Marketing and Operations from FOSTIIMA Business School, Delhi. Along with his SIP from Finamigo Consultants Pvt Ltd, he has also done two live projects, one each with ITC and another with Shiksha.