CAT 2016 aspirants are left with 60 days including the big festival time of Dussehra and Diwali to face the mother of MBA entrance exams on December 4, 2016. During these 2 months, the CAT 2016 preparation plan can be devoted to improve the level of accuracy alongwith reducing the time taken to solve the questions.
One of the CAT 2015 toppers with 99.32 percentile, Sambangi Abhishek, IIM Ranchi student is of the view “Accuracy is the one thing which should be given the highest priority.” Now the accuracy without due speed cannot put you in merit as you will be trailing behind your peers who have both. So out of 100 questions if can solve only 20-25 even with a high level of accuracy but not matched by speed, you may not be shortlisted by IIMs as you wouldn’t be able to score even the qualifying sectional and overall percentile.
CAT 2016 with sectional time limited to 1 hour for each of the 3 sections, will require you to manage not only the high accuracy level but also the time with faster speed and this needs due concerted preparation strategy with devoted practice and analysis sessions.
If you are seriously pursuing the preparation for CAT 2016 and wish to emerge as one of the winners in this greatest show of MBA/PGDM entrance test for the admission year 2017-19, the following key suggestions from Prof S K Agarwal, expert on Verbal Ability for CAT 2016 preparation would be highly instrumental to help you achieve your goal.
With the changed face of CAT 2016, aspirants may not get such high percentile as was possible in earlier CAT exams with the same pace of preparation. There was availability of more time and fewer questions till CAT 2013 and in CAT 2014 there was no sectional time constraint that enabled you to attempt any question from any part.
The pattern has changed since CAT 2015 and those who are appearing in CAT for the second time are well aware of this fact. CAT 2016 has not only de-clubbed Data Interpretation and Logical reasoning parts from their respective Quant and Verbal sections and has created new 3rd section of DILR, but has also reintroduced sectional time constraints. Now despite having 10 more minutes in CAT 2016, you have no liberty to move to next section before the lapse of 60 minutes allotted to that section.
Balance the 3 sections in CAT 2016
CAT 2016 will have 3 sections to be solved in 1 hour each. These 3 sections in CAT 2016 will comprise ‘Quantitative Aptitude (QA)’; ‘Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DILR)’ and ‘Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC)’.
Prior to 2015, Common Admission Test (CAT) used to have 2 sections comprising questions on Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation (Quant & DI) and on Verbal Ability, Reading Comprehension & Logical reasoning The Questions on Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning have been de-clubbed from their earlier sections and now forms a new section comprising DILR questions.
Total number of questions and their sectional division is yet to be announced by IIM Bangalore, the CAT 2016 convening IIM. It is expected that total number of questions may not exceed 100 questions although their sectional division can deviate from last year.
In 2015 Quant (QA) and Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC) had 34 questions each and the DILR section contained 32 questions.
Maximise your score within allotted Time
Each of the 3 sections has to be solved in 60 minutes. The liberty allowed in CAT 2014 to move to other section without any time constraint was withdrawn in 2015 and now CAT 2016 takers are not allowed to move to other section before completion of 1 hour allotted to the current section.
So even if you have solved the maximum number of questions in the Quant section and have ample time left, you are supposed to remain within the QA section and are not allowed to move to next DILR section, nor you can come back from 1 section to the in completed section if the time limit is over.
According to Prof S K Agarwal expert on Verbal Ability and mentor on CAT 2016 preparation, you are supposed to maximize your attempts with speed and accuracy within the given sectional time frame of CAT 2016. This preparation strategy can improve your scores in the exam.
Balancing Act between speed & accuracy
CAT 2016 aspirants now need to improve the pace of preparation keeping in mind the following 3 things that can help them ace the exam.
Measure improvement in Accuracy level
-- How fast has become the speed
-- Sectional time Management with a view to maximize score
Accordingly the preparation strategy at this hour, has to be slightly changed from simply practicing to prepare and then practice within the allotted time and try to achieve the best possible level of accuracy. Following tips will help to modify your preparation strategy leading to success in CAT 2016.
Aspirants now have to score high in all the 3 sections. Since you have equal time to solve each of the 3 sections, you have to focus only that section which you are going through and maximize your score in it. Keep a clock with you when you attempt exercises. The topics that are not your strong hold and if you feel that they will create more confusion while preparing may be avoided. Five attempts should be devoted to solve each section. After that you may opt for selective questions in the section. Later on get the incorrect answers analyzed.
This will further help you to reduce the time taken to solve and will improve the accuracy. The purpose is to stick to the speed and improve it further that takes you around 100% accuracy level. No aspirant might be able to solve all the 100 questions but whatever you solve, do it with confidence and with the highest level of accuracy.
Reading speed: How to improve
Improving the pace of reading needs a regular and dedicated practice. Suppose you are reading the Editorial part of the newspaper and someone has framed a few direct/indirect questions on this passage in accordance with CAT 2016, now in order to improve your reading speed you are trying to read it fast but the Editorial is of no interest to you and has difficult words in it as well.
In such a situation, you will neither be able to read it at a faster pace nor will be able to understand it. After reading of the same you choose the answer options which are very close and get them all wrong. Entire exercise that you did goes waste and you feel depressed. There is no use of such reading.
Better would be to keep a piece of paper with you, note down the difficult words while reading, mark the important sentences in the passage, read them twice and by the time you finish reading most of the passage will be clear to you. Then try to attempt the questions. You may get most of them right. Besides, contextual usage and meaning of difficult words should be checked in the dictionary.
Now find out how much time you had spent on this exercise. Next day do the same exercise on next article and with this strategy in a period of 6 days you will find that your reading time of the same size of passage on different tones is getting reduced and you are consistently improving.
Begin with passage size of 500 words and go upto passage size of 1500 words to get expertise in faster reading practice. CAT 2016 wouldn’t offer you passages below or above this size, rest assured.
Accuracy on all 3 steps of answering the question
Reading, understanding and then solving the question accurately are the 3 steps to improve, synchronize and balance the speed with accuracy to attempt CAT 2016 whether it is MCQ or non-MCQ. Every question you attempt needs to be solved first to arrive at the right answer option or to write the answer on computer screen.
You are supposed to cope with the reduced proportionate time per question and this is only possible by improving the speed to read, understand and attempt the question. If you are able to read the sentences, paragraphs, parajumbles, Reading comprehension passages faster and understand them, you will be able to solve them more quickly.
You need to solve more questions in less time. Improvement in speed and accuracy within the allotted time is the strategic focus of preparation now for CAT 2016 during next 2 months.
Practice more on Non-MCQs
In each of the 3 sections there will be a few Non-MCQ type questions with no penalty for wrong answers as against the MCQs the wrong answers of which attract penalty of 1/3rd negative marking. These non-MCQs are proposed to be in a range of 8 to 10 questions in each section of CAT 2016.
Besides, all the questions in CAT 2016, whether MCQs or Non-MCQs will carry equal weightage of 3 marks each. Incorrect response to each MCQs will result in no-marks for the wrong answer and deduction of 1 mark out of your earned score. It means if you mark 3 correct and 3 incorrect, you will score only 6 marks.
On the other hand, while answering Non-MCQs and typing a wrong answer on computer screen, although you are not entitled for 3 marks assigned for the correct answer, you will not be imposed any penalty of negative marking also. If you mark 3 MCQs correct and 3 non-MCQs incorrect you will score 9 marks without losing any credit for incorrect answers to non-MCQs.
The scoring scheme for non-MCQs is a great relief to the candidates who prefer solving the questions first and then arrive at the answer instead of jumping straight to the answer options and then going backwards to go through the question.
Prof S K Agarwal expert on CAT 2016 preparation suggests that candidates should focus on conventional way of approaching the answer after solving the question. This will ensure a good scaled score and high percentile score in CAT 2016.
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