Even after preparing hard for CAT 2016, you don’t get assured of cracking the exam with good number of attempts leading to high and balanced sectional percentile. Avoiding a few repetitive mistakes, as suggested by toppers from IIMs and the experts & mentors on CAT preparation can take you out of this dilemma and can help you score a higher percentile score than you expected.
When you target top 3 IIMs, you must remain motivated and gear up for the CAT 2016 exam day with a renewed energy and commitment not to get tempted or repeat the mistakes that you make while attempting Mocks will ensure to manage time and accuracy. If you can do it, you will be able to score high and can finalize your chances of getting into one of the top 3 IIMs in 2017.
High percentile: No guarantee to get call from IIMs
You must have prepared hard for CAT 2016, scored high percentile of 99 in all the Mocks before the CAT day, practiced the sample test on CAT website number of times but are still not sure whether you will not make silly mistakes in the testing room.
This may result in scoring a high overall percentile but still not getting shortlisted by any of the IIMs.
The true but shocking stories of high percentilers could be an alert and warning for CAT 2016 aspirants to avoid the mistakes they made in the examination room. Despite being very intelligent and hard working CAT aspirant, getting tempted and making the avoidable mistakes may deprive you of getting into the list of shortlisted candidates of IIMs. On the top of it, even after having all that any IIM would need including excellent academic profile and professional experience, still you may miss the opportunity. So avoid the 5 key mistakes that most CAT aspirants make on the test day
Don’t arrive late at test venue
Ananth Radhakrishnan who scored 99.85 percentile in CAT and a student of PGP 2016-18 at IIM Bangalore advises CAT 2016 aspirants “Make sure to arrive early to the venue, and get enough sleep and rest the night before.”
In view of the CAT toppers and mentors, it is very much necessary that you arrive at the CAT 2016 test venue well in time to avoid any sort of last minute panic and dilemma as arriving late is fraught with the risk of not being allowed to the test centre, getting confused and eventually losing your cool of mind which is very much required to attempt the exam without any tension.
Don’t get stuck: Follow the sequence
Skimming through, getting stuck on one part then leaving it after wasting time can pull down your percentile score in CAT 2016. In view of the toppers you must not spend more than 2 minutes on one question.
You may consider your-self strong in one section and a bit weak in another. But you need to score high in each of the 3 sections in the given sectional time limit of 60 minutes. In your zeal to solve more questions and without realizing that each question has same weightage, you should know that you must reach the last question. So it will be better to skip the question which you find difficult and attempt the one that you can solve. This way you will avoid losing against time.
CAT topper with 100 percentile Pranjal Agarwal and student of PGP 2016-18 at IIM Ahmedabad shares key tips to attempt the CAT 2016 exam to maximise your score-
- Don’t spend too much time on any set of questions. If you spend 15 minutes on the first set of the DI section and then go to next set, you have already lost 25% of your time without gaining anything. Leave a set if you are unable to solve it;
- I would still stress on going in order. If you want to score really well, you shouldn’t start by skimming over the questions and then deciding which ones are easy;
- Your preparation should be such that you know you have to attempt all the questions.
- Just make sure that you have a point where you realize that a set is just taking too long to solve or that you are unable to solve it.
- Overall, it’s important that you solve at least 80% of the questions in each section. I had only left the 4 questions in DI and attempted all the others in the other sections.
Don’t ignore the time limit & accuracy
Since 2015 CAT has reintroduced the sectional time limit. In your frenzy to take each and every question as a challenge for you and getting tempted to solve it, come what may, will lead to time mismanagement and losing accuracy leading to loss of score in CAT 2016.
Ananth Radhakrishnan CAT topper and a student of PGP 2016-18 at IIM Bangalore advises against this strategy and shares his experience of taking CAT “What I always felt was that CAT is not a difficult paper inherently in terms of the topics covered, rather because of the time limit in which you have to complete it coupled with the dire need of accuracy while doing so.”
CAT topper with 99.99 percentile and FMS Delhi student Abhay Agarwal endorses the experience and shares “As my exam started, I was devoid of all the other thoughts and the only thing that mattered to me at that time was the question flashing before me on the screen.”
Direction to solve question: Be clear
You need to follow correctly what you are required to do with the question. Any misunderstanding can lead to loss of score for the question you are attempting as well as imposition of penalty of negative marking. So avoid it.
According to Pranjal Agarwal, CAT topper with 100 percentile and IIM Ahmedabad student “Be sure that you first are able to understand exactly what the question is asking you and then try to eliminate as many calculations as you can.”
Keep your cool
Even if you are left with little time in any section, do not lose your cool or get nervous. After going through the first section or the calculation based questions in the DILR section, you may feel a bit tired also, but losing your cool will take you nowhere but in loss of your score. The questions like para summary, picking the out of context sentence, indirect questions from RC passages may overpower you and despite trying you may be losing your cool resulting in loss of speed and accuracy level. If you can avoid it, you may add more percentile to your score else may lose the race.
While attempting the question, when you find that the same is not doable, you should move further without spending more than 20-30 seconds. Sharing the advice to CAT 2016 aspirants Ananth radhakrishn says “The most important thing is to remain calm, and just attempt it like any other exam”. Nishant Gupta also from IIM Bangalore and CAT 99.97 percentiler shares “On CAT day, my strategy was to ensure maximum attempts in VA, and aim for accuracy in DILR and VA.”
You need a balanced as well as high sectional percentile in CAT 2016. Even the 99 percentile in CAT 2016 without balanced high percentile in each of the 3 sections will not fetch a call from any IIM, please note. High sectional scores in CAT 2016 can also compensate for some low scores in PI round if you are shortlisted but the mistakes if you make in the exam will keep you away from tasting the life at IIMs.
Prof S K Agarwal, expert on Verbal Ability and mentor on CAT 2016 preparation suggests while taking the exam you must make a balanced approach to all the 3 sections. The weightage of DILR and Quant sections is same as that of Verbal and RC section. All the questions carry equal marks. The test taker will have to maintain his cool and remain motivated throughout the 3 hours of CAT 2016 exam. Attempt only doable questions and skip the difficult ones. Even if you make a good and accurate attempt of 18 to 24 questions per section, you can expect a very high percentile in CAT 2016.
By the time you reach the quant section, the same energy level has to be maintained. Quant is more calculation and formula intensive section. A slightest wrong application can cost you loss of 3+1=4 marks for any wrong attmpt of MCQ type of questions.
Since a good number of Non-MCQs are also there in the range of 8 to 10 in each section, it is advisable to attempt such questions first without fear of losing any marks as there will not be any negative marking for these questions.
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