CAT 2016 preparation strategy gets focused direction when you receive guidance from the one who has already prepared well and cleared this exam with high percentile that led him to desired IIM.
Since CAT 2016 will be held on the same pattern and sectional division as was conducted in 2015, the tips and guidance from CAT toppers are more valuable than before. To clear the confusion and provide proper response to the preparation queries of the candidates preparing for CAT 2016, MBAUniverse.com conducted live session on September 2, with Shikhar Garg, CAT topper and IIM Tiruchirappalli student who participated and guided the CAT 2016 aspirants to help them come out of the dilemma and shared tips how to prepare in next 60 days to score high in the exam.
Shikhar Garg has done B.Tech in ECE from A K Garg Engineering College Ghaziabad. He scored 98.79 percentile in CAT 2015. Summary of the Live Chat session is shared below Give time to each section daily
Responding to the query on how to devise preparation strategy for each section so that it could help Shikhar shares tips that he gave time to each section daily. 2 hours are enough for each section. In his view CAT aspirants should start from level- 1 and must keep a target of doing, say 30-40 questions per day. He advises “At the end of the day, you should just go through the concepts in which you faced difficulty. Believe me, 2 hrs for each section DAILY is the simplest gateway.”
Accuracy more important
While both speed and accuracy are important to score high in CAT 2016, Shikhar suggests that prime target should be accuracy. The main reason behind it is that it gives you confidence and in turn you eventually start gaining speed. CAT 2016 aspirants therefore should focus more on accuracy while giving mocks.
Tricky DI-LR section
Since DILR is considered as one of the trickiest areas in CAT, Shikhar suggests “First attempt 2 sets of LR so that you are on a safer side then go to DI, if you are lucky, you might jump at an easy set since DI needs more practice so start looking at patterns.”
Explaining the term ‘Patterns’ Shikhar shares, “It means start making sense of the data just by looking at it. Some numbers are pretty obvious. And, the cases in DI are very real life so if you are arriving at an answer which is practically impossible then you are going wrong.’ In his view the only thing need in DILR is practice since the catch is speed. The fact about DILR is that if there is no time limit, you can do all the questions. Accordingly speed will come by practice only.
VARC: Anything can happen
Responding to the queries on how to prepare VARC in next 2 months, Shikhar suggested that Reading Comphension is the most important area in VARC section of CAT. Other than this, according to Shikhar the advice is to go through grammar as well because anything can happen in CAT 2016, but focus a lot on RC. Besides, practicing parajumbles, para completion will result in awarding good scores.
Shikhar reiterates ‘For VA, practice RCs a lot, as much as possible and advises to do it from your study material and try to understand the logic. By this, you will get automatically prepared for other types of questions as well.
Mocks: Don’t worry about scores
According to Shikhar last 100 days should be only about doing questions more like a self assessment of say 6 hours (2 hrs for each section) and after that just go through your notes to clear out any difficulty.
Accordingly if you are taking mocks regularly and find variation in percentiles like going as high as 95 and sometimes as low as 55, do not worry as it depends on number of factors. Shikhar advises to remain consistent on your preparation and don’t lose your pace, rather increase it. With this strategy, by the end of this month, your mocks will also show the same consistency.
Shikhar suggests that CAT 2016 aspirants should keep themselves surrounded by a conducive environment. By the end of October, take mocks as many as possible and keep a track like where are you facing major problem.
Install ‘Elevate’ to perform better in Quant
Candidates are worried as they are not able to attempt more questions in Quant while taking mocks but when they analyse it, they find that they can attempt 22-25 out of 35 questions. To overcome this problem, Shikhar advises CAT 2016 aspirants to install 'Elevate' on their phone and should speed up. And if their secured percentile is good, it is fine because the time taken by everyone else is pretty same and by some more practice you can score more. Shikhar suggests ‘Practice a lot, start from level 1 questions and then gradually go to level 3. This will maintain your speed.’
Time Management in CAT 2016
Sharing the Time Management formula for CAT 2016 Shikhar shares “While writing CAT, it is important to identify which questions you have to leave, so skim the questions before blindly attending it. Like for RC, choose a passage which is more of your field. Avoid choosing passages of psychology or literature.”
Synchronising CAT 2016 with other exams
Synchronising CAT 2016 preparation with other MBA entrance exams is one of the big problems as other exams have few different sections with different question patter. In order to balance CAT preparation with other exams, Shikhar shares “CAT is the mother of all exams. So don't worry. For things like IIFT and XAT, start reading newspapers. Newspaper reading is long-run profit item. Befriend it. For XAT, you have to read some topics such as decision making and assertion-reasoning.”
Don’t change preparation strategy
As IIM Bangalore has not yet informed about the total number or sectional number of questions in CAT 2016, aspirants are worried whether they will have to change their preparation strategy for the exam after the announcement of some changes. Shikhar, however advises not to change the preparation strategy but suggests to focus more on their weak areas also.
How many Qs suffice to score high
Along with the preparation queries, CAT 2016 aspirants are curious to know how many questions in each section they should attempt to score high percentile in CAT 2016. Responding to such queries, Shikhar shares that there is no limit on how many questions you can or should attempt. In his view “To be on the safer side and with an accuracy of 80-90%, you should attempt around 27-28 in VA, 22-25 in LRDI and 25-26 in QA. This will easily fetch you a 99+ %tile. But the catch is accuracy, so be careful.”
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