CAT 2017: 3 steps preparation plan for IIM A,B,C admission in 2018; know the success strategy

IIM Lucknow, the convener of CAT 2017 exam has geared up with the activities to conduct a successful CAT 2017 probably, with more changes in modified CAT exam pattern. CAT 2017 is proposed to be conducted in the 1^st week of December 2017. High overall and sectional scores in Common Admission Test (CAT) 2017 exam will offer opportunity to the candidates to get admission in MBA/PGDM programmes in 20 IIMs, FMS Delhi, SPJIMR Mumbai, MDI Gurgaon, IMI New Delhi, IMT Ghaziabad, JBIMS Mumbai, NITIE Mumbai, TAPMI Manipal, BIMTECH Greater Noida among other prominent B-schools.

CAT 2017 exam notification is proposed to be out in the last week of July 2017, most probably on July 30. The CAT 2017 registration process is expected to begin on August 7, 2017.

CAT 2017: A different exam

Prior to 2015, CAT had only Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) and all of them imposed penalty of negative marking for wrong answer. For the first time in CAT 2015 convened by IIM Ahmedabad, entire process was changed and out of 100 total questions, the exam included 28 non-MCQs which remained free from any penalty of negative marking.

Number of sections in CAT exam was also increased from 2 to 3. In 2016, the share of Non-MCQs in CAT conducted by IIM Bangalore, was reduced to 25% from earlier 28%.

The CAT since last 2 years has offered level playing field and high scoring opportunities to the candidates from all streams. With the focus on increasing more women and non-engineering back ground students in IIM class rooms, IIMs have brought about more changes in CAT during last 3 years. IIM Lucknow is expected to carry on with such changes in CAT 2017 to increase academic and gender diversity in IIM class rooms. Accordingly you should expect a CAT 2017 with more changes and modifications along with relaxed and changed admission criteria in IIMs for the PGP 2018-20.

CAT 2017 exam preparation links

• CAT 2017: 5 changes make it best ever CAT exam for Non-Engineers to get IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta
• CAT 2017: How working executives can prepare without quitting job; time to plan and execute it
• CAT 2017 Syllabus: Synchronise your preparation with CAT sectional syllabus topics

Organize and begin journey to IIM A, B, C
CAT 2017 has a vast syllabus to plan your preparation for the exam, it is like a big banyan tree with multiple branches, and every branch has got its due importance. One thing is however, clear you have to go up the trunk to reach those branches else will remain unfamiliar with it.

Before embarking on your preparation for CAT 2017, the 3 key steps you should take are:

• What to prepare and where to begin
• Be aware of Strengths and weaknesses
• Have right study material as per CAT syllabus

Step-1: What to prepare and where to begin…
Less than 150 days are left for CAT 2017. According to Prof S K Agarwal, expert on Verbal Ability and mentor on CAT preparation, this time is neither too long nor too short to get high scores in CAT 2017. 5 months are considered good enough to prepare and practice well for CAT.

Accordingly this is the right time to begin your journey to success in CAT 2017. IIM Lucknow may also bring a different structure and content in CAT 2017 exam but the basics to be learned for the exam would not change.

Although the preparation for CAT in earlier years was also not an easy process but with the changed pattern and surprise elements appearing year after year, CAT 2017 aspirants anticipating yet more changes find it difficult where to begin from, what to study and how to study.

While the nature of exam drives the aspirants crazy as they have no fixed syllabus to study and hence all the topics appear very important to them, the difficulty level in CAT 2017 may be another big issue to crack the test with high score.

If a CAT 2017 aspirant is not aware what all the preparation stuff is about and how to begin with it, you may not begin well and even if preparation begins it may not be focused preparation and may move beside the point.

CAT no doubt has a vast syllabus and now with more questions the test paper has widened its spectrum further. The pressing thought and dilemma can be cleared if the aspirant has a lucid picture before him in regard to the factors that would guide the beginning of his journey.

It is not difficult to walk, the difficult job is to find out the way on which you will walk. To begin your preparation in right direction, you must understand:

• CAT 2017 exam pattern
• CAT 2017 Syllabus
• Quick Assessment with CAT Mocks to know where I stand

Step-2: Right study material
There are 5 months left for CAT 2017 exam day which is expected to be on the 1^st Sunday of December. So deep and smart study pattern will help you to crack CAT 2017. However, before embarking on the self-preparation journey for CAT 2017, you need to know - What stuff to read? Where to get the preparation material? How to check the preparation level along with other factors.

Books & study material as per CAT 2017 exam pattern
During last 3 years and from 2015 the CAT exam pattern has been totally revamped. You need the study material and books in which you can find the reading and practice material in accordance with changed CAT exam pattern.

The recommended books for each of the 3 sections for CAT 2017 are:

Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension
VARC is considered as one of the most difficult sections especially for the candidates coming from engineering background. CAT 2016 toppers confronted VARC as their weakest section but never got tired from moving with consistent improvement. The result was that they cracked the VARC section with very high percentile. Following books, study material to crack CAT 2017 is recommended by the toppers.

• ‘How to Prepare for Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension for CAT’- by Arun Sharma & Meenakshi Upadhyay 
• ‘Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension for the CAT’-by Nishit K Sinha
• Attempt online practice sectional Quiz, Mock Tests available on MBAUniverse.com site and other important study centres TIME, CL, VistaMind
• Editorial and short articles published in English news papers

Logical Reasoning
To overcome the hurdles and ace the LR section, there are very good books available in the market on Logical Reasoning apart from the study material available online for CAT 2017. A few of them are:

• ‘How to Prepare for Logical Reasoning for the CAT’ - by Arun Sharma (Published by McGraw Hill)
• ‘Logical Reasoning and data Interpretation for the CAT’- by Nishit K Sinha (Published by Pearson)
• Online study material for Logical Reasoning and study centre’s practice exercises

Data Interpretation
There are very good books & study material available in the market on Data Interpretation. A few of the good books and study material available are:

• ‘How to Prepare for Data Interpretation for CAT’ - by Arun Sharma (Published by McGraw Hill)

• ‘Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation for the CAT’ - by Nishit K Sinha (Published by Pearson)

• Attempt online practice sectional Quiz, Mock Tests available on MBAUniverse.com site and other important study centres TIME, CL, VistaMind

Quantitative Ability
Almost all the CAT toppers suggest to thoroughly study and prepare with class 10 books and study material on different parts of Mathematics. Not only the comprehensive and specific books meant specifically for CAT exam are helpful, the small NCERT prescribed books for class 10 CBSE board are quite helpful to make your fundamentals strong in Quantitative Ability.

CAT toppers suggest following books to crack Quant in CAT 2017:

• Quantitative Aptitude for the CAT  - by Nishit K Sinha (Published by Pearson)
• How to prepare for Quantitative Aptitude for the CAT – by Arun Sharma (Published by McGraw Hill)
• Attempt online practice sectional Quiz, Mock Tests available on MBAUniverse.com site and other important study centres TIME, CL, VistaMind

Step-3: Know & Analyse your strengths & weaknesses
The changed pattern of CAT 2017 will need your good exam attempting strategy for all the 3 sections. If you are an engineering graduate, graduate in Physics or Mathematics, you may have strong aptitude to solve questions based on Quantitative Ability. Students of Arts & Literature – as a general presumption- may have better skill in spoken and written standard English language. If you are a commerce graduate or graduate with statistics, you may have good command on Data interpretation, Logical reasoning.

Now looking at the syllabus and past pattern of CAT exams, there may be weak areas in your strong holds where you will have to study and practice more, and on the other hand there may be a few topics in your weak areas where you are stronger enough and you may need less revision and practice sessions for them.  Strategically, you must find out the weak areas and segregate them from the strong ones.

For example, an aspirant, who is an engineering graduate and is a working professional, is both strong and weak at Verbal Ability. With the help of his mentor in Verbal Ability and after analysing some past year model tests, he finds that he is very good in cracking questions based on jumbled paragraphs, but very weak when it comes to sentence error corrections, and the questions based on the Reading comprehension passages as he can’t follow the phrasal, idiomatic expressions in the passage and can’t understand the vocabulary of the same as well.

Now if you want to crack CAT 2017, you have the option of beginning with any section you like and work hard on it to get expertise in the same. Another option is to take some expert guidance –how to proceed. A good preparation centre/mentor will definitely like to find out the root cause of weakness in this case.

In case the aspirant has weak fundamentals, he may not be able to solve the jumbled paragraphs without certain short-cuts, instincts, elimination method. At the same time despite having the ability to connect the sentences logically, he will be required to begin with the strengthening of his fundamentals-and the path is supposed to be from- Grammar-Times zones understanding; Vocabulary contextual use-correct usage-to rigorous understanding and practice of Reading Comprehension passages.

Once it is decided what are the weaknesses and where to begin from, since all the topics are equally important and nothing can be left to chance, focus on the right preparation direction. An aspirant whether working or non-working, in the present scenario, is more tech savy and can study on-line instead of carrying the stuff with him all the time.

The on-line preparation hubs like MBAUniverse.com can be visited 24x7 and the updated questions & answers, word power, quant questions etc. can be visited for free on site. 

Going through the topics and determining their relevant importance is very important factor leading your preparation strategy forward. Even if you have the study material – on-line or in hard copy form, it will be helpful only when you are able to utilize it to the optimum extent. There are certain topics that appear of no importance but omission of the same may reduce your percentile to a great extent.  For example – usage in articles may not appear important and may not also interest the aspirant but CAT has been fond of framing questions in Verbal Ability section on them and a simple omission may cause a loss of four marks – 3 for the wrong answer and 1 as the negative marking penalty, reducing your percentile by 6 or 7.

How deeply you have followed the concept cannot be determined by you.  According to Prof S K Agarwal, expert and mentor on CAT 2017 preparation, this can be judged by the person who knows the intricacies of the topic. It is always a good idea to begin with the expert guidance and continue clarifying your doubts consistently and not compromising with the self study. 

Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more updates on CAT 2017

Also See:

• CAT 2017 Official website: What information to expect on iimcat.ac.in, when launched
• CAT 2017 Exam date: Know CAT registration dates, last date to apply; online application process
• CAT 2017: Exam pattern overhauled by 2nd time CAT convening IIMs; Will IIM Lucknow follow the trend?
• CAT 2017 in changed pattern: Know all about CAT 2017 exam notification date, registration, pattern, IIM cutoffs
• MBA Ranking 2017: Check MBA Ranking 2017 for top 100 B-schools in India to guide you in MBA admission decision