CAT

There is the usual phobia with the non-engineers with regards to CAT. They feel that the Engineers are better than them. The normal queries I get from students from non-engineering background before they join the batch is that are there Engineers in the class. If they are then how will we cope with them, they are better than us. Unfortunately, this attitude is what lets the students from Non Engineering background down. They already feel that Engineers are better than them and it will be difficult to compete with them. My experience with teaching students for the CAT exam shows just the opposite. I feel non engineers can cope as well as if not better than engineers when it comes to topics in Quant. Usually I start teaching short cut methods right from the first lecture. To adapt to those methods, students have to unlearn their old methods to learn the new methods. Some engineers feel that they know a lot and come with a lot of prior learning. This makes it difficult for them to unlearn their old methods and therefore they are not able to learn the new methods completely. Non Engineers come with an open mind in the class and they can easily cope with the new methods taught to them. They are able to grasp the new methods better. Statistics from my class is that about 50% of the students who have got calls from the Iims (this is even true for CAT15) are non-engineers. This itself shows that non engineers are no less than engineers when it comes to scoring marks in the CAT exam. What non engineers need to do is to build a right attitude towards exam. Firstly they need to believe that they can crack the exam. Secondly they need to go through the right methods. If you go the formula way that is taught in books - which is the forte of engineers - you will lag behind engineers as they are much better as using them. Instead learn methods where you can use options or any other nontraditional method. The sums are CAT are designed in such a way that there is not great advantage for engineers. So if you learn the right methods you can definitely perform better. It is said that 'Faith can move mountains. Doubt can create them. '. Believe in yourself and work hard.