CAT 2015: How to win the race in one Day: Utilize the night to revise; do not begin anything new

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MBAUniverse.com News Desk |
November 27, 2015
Only tonight and tomorrow are left to appear in CAT 2015 and this is the time to maintain your cool, remain relaxed, utilize the night to revise whatever you have studied
If you are determined to get your desired B-school, attempt the questions with a clear methodology

With the D-day coming close, the CAT 2015 exam anxiety has started overpowering the aspirants although the need is to remain calm and composed. Only tonight and tomorrow are left to appear in CAT 2015 and this is the time to maintain your cool, remain relaxed, utilize the night to revise whatever you have studied and learned but not begin anything new.

MBAUniverse.com brings forth the one day tips shared by Prof. S K Agarwal, author and expert in Verbal Ability and mentor on CAT preparation for the benefit of CAT 2015 aspirants how they could score high in the modified new exam pattern. With an insight and focus on different type of questions, Prof S K Agarwal shares below important tips on how to arrive at a high percentile in CAT and be a winner. We suggest you to thoroughly go through the other   published articles on MBAUniverse.com site in regard to CAT 2015 on types and tricks to solve CAT questions.

These published articles  will not only be of  great help to the aspirants on Testing room strategy  while navigating through the questions but also will serve as the last minute guidelines on various points which you may not recall at present.

IIM Ahmedabad has totally changed the CAT 2015 test paper and now aspirants are going to face 3 sections instead of 2 with 34 or 32 questions in each section. The practice test reveals that questions on number of topics may go missing while many questions on other topics that have not made their presence in last few years may surface again in actual CAT 2015 exam.

Another important aspect is that more candidates have registered for CAT 2015. The number has gone up from 1.97 lakhs in CAT 2014 to 2.18 lakhs in CAT 2015 and thereby further increasing the competition for top B-schools.

Those who study too much during the last few days may not sometimes get a high percentile than the aspirants who work steadily on certain tips and tricks along with the meticulous study pattern. The time for concept building is over and the time for action has begun.

Everyone is anxious to find where he or she stands in CAT 2015 and this you must have judged through the analysis of various Mocks that you have already attempted. If one is low on percentile, the thought how to improve spontaneously comes to mind as everyone wants to be a winner in CAT 2015. You may not need any more mocks now as time is short, just understand the next 2 days strategy for your CAT 2015 which is going to be held on November 29, 2015 in 2 sessions.

Revise the stuff
It is recommended that you should revisit the topics that you have strongly prepared. But remember don’t fall into the trap of beginning anything new as it may bring more confusion than clarity. Refresh whatever you have learnt and find out whether it synchronizes with the newly announced CAT 2015 exam pattern.

Since more changes and modifications have been brought to Verbal Ability section the suggestion is to assess your strengths segmentwise in this section. For example, while revisiting the preparation in Verbal Ability section segmentalise it in different parts like- Questions on paragraphs of various types, para summary, odd sentences and Questions on Reading Comprehension.

For DILR sections please see if you are ready with questions like Team Formation, Blood Relations, Seating Arrangements, Binary Logic and so on.

Although CAT 2015 practice test shows there are no questions on Vocabulary usage, CAT has the reputation of throwing more surprises in its exam. So if you have prepared well on Vocabulary also, don’t think it will be a waste. On the contrary you will get an edge if you have good vocabulary especially in Reading comprehension, questions on summary of paragraphs and jumbled paragraphs. Besides a good vocabulary will help you in case you get questions on usage of vocabulary and phrases.

Your preparation and performance level in some of the above areas may or may not be very good. You must find out what your strong holds are and which are the areas that will have more questions as they will give you more answer opportunities than the ones, where you find lesser number of questions.

There is no need to go into the intricacies of how to solve the confusing problems. It will be better to practice a little on your strong areas. No time is left to study, understand and practice the unknown or confusing topics however important they may be.

Reading comprehension is another area where aspirants tend to lose track. It will have 24 questions based on 5 RC passages. If you can crack even 12-14 questions out of 24, you stand a very good chance to get through.  One passage is followed by at least, 3 to 6 questions; you may solve it in 10-12 minutes as the passages are not very long. Three questions in ten minutes is not a big deal that too, when their answers directly or indirectly, are lying in the passage.

Again, the new DILR section will have 16 questions on data Interpretation and 16 on Logical reasoning. All the questions are proposed in sets.

For example LR questions are based on natural human instincts, displaying logic.  Go for those ones, where you are little more comfortable, for example some aspirants are good at questions on Team Formation, seating arrangements while other are skilled enough to understand blood relations, binary logic, arguments. It does not require as much calculation as Quant and DI but with a little systematic and to the point approach, may raise your percentile substantially.  If you can practice 5-6 types of questions in this area and can solve 7-8 problems in the examination, you are the winner.

It is better to leave the weak areas and work more on strong areas. If you are able to crack 18-20  in DILR section with 100% accuracy, you may get a high percentile and can expect a call from very good B-school

Maximise attempts: Key to improve score
CAT 2015 will have 100 questions to be solved in 180 minutes with sectional time constraint of 60 minutes each. No one may be going to solve all of them nor may they do it accurately in the given time frame. You need to focus on maximising your attempts with accuracy.

If you are determined to get your desired B-school, attempt the questions with a clear methodology. The first attempt is supposed to crack those questions which are from your strongest domain of understanding. First choose the preferred part and topic in the section and then the preferred question type.

Out of 34 or 32 questions in a section you may be able to solve 7-8 of them in your first attempt. Second attempt with more thoughtful understanding may get you another bunch of  5-6 questions. The third attempt has to be with a little more caution since the remaining questions are the toughest ones for you and you may lose your accuracy on them. So move cautiously on each of the questions- you may crack 5-6 more. But you need a few more questions to solve with accuracy.

The strategy is that in three attempts you have already got a fair idea of understanding of these un-attempted questions, catch those questions which appear comparatively friendly to you and attempt them with an accuracy level of not less than 90 percent. This will enable you to solve another 4-5 questions. By now, you must have attempted and solved around 23-25 questions.  If you have still time, go for more without any preoccupation as this number in one section is good enough to get you a call.

Strategy to solve RC based questions
24 questions on RC are pretty good percentile booster and could play an important role to crack CAT 2015. The 24 RC questions out of 34 questions on Verbal Ability constitute roughly 70% share in the entire section which will be a major part to push the percentile up in CAT 2015.

Reading Comprehension passages although consume more time in reading, understanding their twisted, figurative and phrasal type of language and then choosing the correct answer option out of the closely placed answer options, it is also true that one passage is followed by multiple questions and if you can decode one RC passage in 10-12 minutes, it may not be considered a loss of time for you as you will be able to answer 3-4 questions in one go after reading one RC passage.

Try to give 2 readings to RC passage. In the first attempt read the passage fairly quickly to get the general idea, it will take your 2-3 minutes. Read again a little slowly so as to understand the details, it will again consume 4-5 minutes. By now you would have understood well the passage.

In the testing room you will be provided with the scratch sheet and the pen to do rough work and calculation. Make use of the scratch sheet provided in the examination hall and write down the keys words, sentences indicating the main idea in each of the paragraph of the passage. Important key words in each sentence can also be jotted down. By the time the passage is over, you will not only have the good understanding of the passage but also will be fairly equipped to answer almost all the questions based on the RC passage.

IIMs not looking for a Professor
CAT 2015 is not searching for a professor in the area of Quant or English. The need therefore is to have intelligent approach to the examination.  They have stopped asking conventional type of questions and CAT 2015 will have further modified questions. Length of the passages has been shortened. Now CAT 2015 requires to test your skill in application of  language. Be on your own, and avoid being a copy-cat. You are genius and that’s the reason you are going to take CAT. So be your natural self and attempt the examination. When you are high on morale, you stand greater chance to be a winner.

Please remember there will not be any pre exam tutorial in the CAT 2015 testing room before the actual test. It is suggested to go through the practice test well before going to take actual CAT 2015 exam. There are some changes in navigation tools also, so be familiar with them to avoid any last minute confusion in the test.

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Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more tips on CAT 2015