MBAUniverse.com will help you to best utilize your last few days to CAT. Next article in this series will be on Verbal Ability.
Expert article by ARKS Srinivas follows.
‘Last 15 Days to CAT: What’s the right strategy for Quant’
Panic wastes precious time:
In such an exam as CAT, you are never fully prepared. Every time you look at a Mock CAT paper or discuss with a friend, you realize that there are enough areas where you are not good at. One fine day you get 7 correct out of 9 questions in RC (or for that matter any area) and the next day you end up with just 3 or 4 corrects. This leads to more despair.
You end up doing more or less of one thing in the process and diverge from your planned action. If any area is tough – be it QA, DI, LR, RC or VA, the marks you get will suffer. Hence, take that in your stride.
Make a plan for the next 15 days (or how many ever days you are left with) and stick to that plan irrespective of the outcome of your Mock CAT results.
How many Mocks are enough for the last two weeks?
There are two ways of looking at this. If you are a person who has been regularly taking the Mocks (say, once a week), then it makes sense to just stick to a similar schedule.
However, if you are a person who has not taken more than 5 to 6 Mocks till date and have been preparing only from June/July, then it makes sense to take two or three Mock CATs a week and hence about 5 weeks in two weeks from now (provided you are writing the exam before the October 20). Please plan as per your actual exam date.
Acclimatize
However, see that you write the Mock CATs at the same time as your actual CAT. If you have chosen the timing for your CAT as 10 am, then take the Mock test at 10 am otherwise take the same at 3 pm (second slot).
Reviewing of Mocks & Strategy
The whole idea of writing Mock CATs is to get you battle ready. Hence you have to ensure that you write these Mocks as if they are the real ones. Only then would you be able to figure out the issues with your strategy.
After every Mock, plan to spend at least another 2 to 3 hours to review the exam you have written. Re-solve all the questions that you have got correct and spend time on those that you have not been able to crack. Try solving the questions without seeing the solutions.
At the end of the analysis, pick up at least two areas for REVISION. For e.g.: After one Mock CAT, you may decide to look at couple of topics from Quant to work on. Similarly, if one type of LR or DI questions has gone wrong, then you will take that up for revision. The revision should be done from the previous CAT papers or Smart CAT (Mock CAT) papers.
Important Chapters in Quant:
Since CAT is not a SINGLE exam, it is impossible to predict as to which chapters one should concentrate on in the last two/three weeks. It may happen that one student may get 6 questions of Geometry (out of 21 overall) and another may just get 2. However, looking at what has happened over the past so many years, it is safe to say that the following areas/chapters have to be revised without fail.
Basic Areas - Numbers, Geometry, Mensuration
Arithmetic – Percentages, Averages, Time & Work, Time & Distance
Algebra – Indices, Logs, Quadratic Equations, Inequalities, Progressions
Pure Math – Permutations and Combinations
Data Interpretation
It is largely expected that DI for CAT, would be more of traditional, calculation oriented DI. Concepts of Averages, Percentage increase/decrease, Market shares, are the most repeated questions through Data given as Tables, Pie Charts, Bar Charts and Line graphs. Last year, special charts such as Spider Graphs and Triangle graphs were used to depict data.
It is recommended that you spend at least 30 minutes in solving DI sets (3 to 5) of them everyday.
Importance of the last two weeks
While most of the preparation and study should have been done by now, the mental make up of the last two weeks before the exam is a crucial ingredient for success in the exam.
The belief that the last two weeks will be very useful in improving one’s performance is essential to keep the motivation high.
Not despairing at the last moment is the need of the hour. Make every moment count!
The author ARKS Srinivas is an IIM Calcutta alumnus. Arkss, as he is popularly known, worked with Maruti Udyog and Calcutta before joining T.I.M.E. Hyderabad as the CAT Course Director. For five years, he was also that Centre Director at T.I.M.E. Mumbai.
