This year there has been major changes in the exam pattern. you still have some time left to improve your weaker areas
There are less than 50 days left for the CAT 2011 exam. This year there has been major changes in the exam pattern. The CAT has also become a bigger exam with reputed B-schools like FMS Delhi, DMS of IITs and MICA switching over to CAT scores for admissions 2012.
At this stage, you need to be well versed with both the sections of CAT 2011 exam. Since you still have some time left to improve your weaker areas and turn them into stronger areas, AskMBAUniverse.com Live Expert Chats are giving you the opportunity to ask the top CAT experts and get tips.
Continuing with our live chats MBAUniverse.com held on Monday, September 5, 2011 live chat with Gejo Sreenivasan, Principal Consultant, Career Launcher. He answered questions on the topic ‘How to prepare for Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning'.
Following are the excerpts of the chat:
Q: Purvesh: Verbal Ability is my weak area. Please give me some tips on increasing my mock scores which will give me good scores in CAT eventually.
A: Verbal Ability is an area which can be improved by reading. You should start reading the lead articles in the editorial page of Hindu. That will help you a lot in understanding RC passages and taking up para jumbles and para completion questions.
Q: Vikrant Gupta: Please tell how many questions shall I attempt in Logical Reasoning and Verbal Ability to make the score 99 percentile?
A: It depends on the question paper you get as different days will have different difficulty level questions. But you can safely assume that you should definitely get 25+ correct in both sections to get a 99+ percentile.
Q: Arjun Rastogi: How can I prepare in these last 50 days to be ensured of good percentile. How can I improve my Quant & DI-LR skills in these two months?
A: I would say first go through all the previous year CAT questions. Then you can try out some mock tests which will help you gauge your level. Read the lead article of The Hindu that appears on the editorial page or you can also read Deccan Herald. The key is: believe in yourself.
Q: Raaj: For the new pattern, how should I practice for VA & LR together? How should I prepare for the next 50 days for the VA part?
A: You don't have to prepare for VA and LR together. You just have to take both these sections together. Preparation will anyway be separate. So don't bother too much about how the sections are distributed. Ultimately what matters is your confidence level in these sections. Once you gain confidence in these sections separately, and then take some mock tests in the pattern of CAT. That will do the job.
Q: Naresh: Dear sir, I want to know that how many question we need to attend correctly in every section and in the entire paper to get selected by IIMs?
A: One cannot exactly say how many questions you should get correct in the paper to get selected in the IIMs. But you should definitely get more than 20 questions correct to be at the bare minimum level to qualify for the IIMs assuming that the paper will be from moderate to difficult level of difficulty.
Q: Deepak Kanauja: Sir, I am preparing for CAT 2011, I performance is not so good. I need to know about the Quant portion, I am using Career Launcher material.
A: Finish the test gym and funda book. Take the proctored and unproctored mocks. That will be enough. Try to find out the solutions yourself rather than looking at the answer key.
Q: Rajadyuti: Sir, I always have problem in selecting doable question and many times I just get stuck in difficult one. Is there any strategy?
A: We don't have to prove ourselves to be Ramanujam. So don't take a question on your ego. Just ensure that you avoid silly mistakes and if at all you take more than three to four minutes on a question, move on. Practice is the key.
Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more CAT 2011 Live Expert Chats.
