In this CAT series on MBAUniverse.com, expert from Career Launcher offers advice on how to prepare key sections: Quantitative, Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning, Verbal Ability. After advice on Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning, this second article looks at how to go well in all important Quantitative section.
Next article in this series will focus on Verbal Ability
Quantitative Analysis
By Mr. Shiva Kumar, Director (R&D) & Academics, Career Launcher (mba.careerlauncher.com)
- There are 3 major areas of critical importance in the quant section: Algebra, Number systems and Geometry. Take one section at a time and revise it thoroughly. Revise all the fundamental concepts and identify and attempt as many types of questions as possible, in the given topic. This helps to build focus and understand the concepts of each section in detail.
- Whenever you have taken a mock test, analyse it thoroughly. While revising your intention should be to identify alternative methods of solving the same question. Also analyse whether your choice of questions was appropriate or not.
- Do not harp too much on the topics which you are not comfortable with even after repeated revisions and tests. They better are left for now. In any case you are not going to attempt all the questions in any section.
- Do make it a point to go through the last few years’ CAT papers. Analyse on the trends and the kind of questions. So there may be topics like similarity of triangles which come more or less each year.
- Avoid Silly Mistakes: Take a note of all different kind of mistakes you committed in the previous mock Test. Things like – Calculation Error (12+13=35), Unnecessary spending a lot of time in one particular question, Didn’t scan the paper/Section before started solving it etc. Do make it a point not to commit the same mistakes again.
Sample Question-
The price of Darjeeling tea (in rupees per kilogram) is
100 + 0.10n, on the nth day of 2007 (n = 1, 2, ..., 100), and then remains constant. On the other hand, the price of Ooty tea (in rupees per kilogram) is 89 + 0.15n, on the nth day of 2007 (n = 1, 2, ..., 365). On which date in 2007 will the prices of these two varieties of tea be equal?
(1) May 20 (2) April 10 (3) June 30
(4) May 21 (5) April 11
Solution- Answer (1)
Price of Darjeeling tea (in rupees per kilo gram) is 100 + 0.10n
Price of Ooty tea (in rupees per kilo gram) is 89 + 0.15n
Price of the Darjeeling tea on the 100th day = 100 + 0.1 × 100 = 110
Number of days in the months of January, February, March and April in the year 2007 = 31 + 28 + 31 + 30 = 120.
Therefore the price of both the tea will be equal on 20th May.
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