CAT 2017: Toppers Mantra - how to prepare with CAT syllabus in 75 days in new exam pattern?

CAT 2017 aspirants are now left with less than 3 months to prepare for the CAT exam day that falls on November 26, 2017. Next month, you will also get your CAT 2017 admit card with the details of exam venue and session.

CAT 2017 exam pattern, as announced by IIM Lucknow, the CAT 2017 convening IIM, will also follow the CAT exam syllabus of last two years of CAT exam pattern with 3 sections of VARC, DILR and Quant. It may be noted that CAT exam pattern was totally revamped and accordingly many topics in CAT syllabus were added in CAT exam in 2015 which was conducted by IIM Ahmedabad.

Important links:

• CAT 2017: 5 tips from toppers how to prepare & crack CAT; begin your journey to IIM A,B,C in 2018
• CAT 2017: 5 changes in Exam Syllabus; ensure your preparation on right CAT exam pattern & topics
• How to choose amongst CAT 2017, XAT 2018, NMAT 2017, SNAP 2017, IIFT 2017

CAT 2017 Revised exam pattern: Need attention
The CAT toppers of 2015 and 2016 who appeared in the revamped Common Admission Test (CAT) conducted by IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore respectively, had to face 100 questions divided in 3 sections of VARC, DILR and Quant instead of earlier 2 sections. Besides, since 2015 CAT exam has become single day event. The facility to move between the sections was also withdrawn by IIM Ahmedabad in CAT 2015 which continues for CAT 2017 exam also.

As announced by IIM Lucknow, the CAT 2017 is also to be held on the similar lines of last 2 years of CAT exam. Now, at this juncture the fruitful suggestions from students of IIMs and past CAT toppers may prove to be the best guidance in your CAT 2017 preparation journey. It will help you to brush up your entire CAT syllabus as per the new CAT exam pattern and the toppers’ tips will also help to score high in CAT 2017 exam.

Cover the CAT syllabus in 2 months
To help you quickly cover the CAT syllabus topics on which questions are asked in CAT exam after the revised CAT exam pattern and to prepare in each of the 3 sections in CAT 2017 as per revamped CAT exam contents, the CAT toppers of previous years and students of IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, suggest the preparation strategy  which can help you score better.

The successful past CAT toppers who have gone through the ordeal of rigorous preparation and have hit high sectional and overall percentile which enabled them to choose one of the top IIMs, FMS or other top B-schools, share the well planned preparation strategy keeping a balance among all the 3 sections.

How to prepare? Tips from CAT 2016 toppers

1. Time to take more Mocks: Suggest CAT toppers

Avidipto Chakraborty who scored 100 percentile in CAT 2016 in first attempt hails from Mumbai.  A believer in self-preparation he advises the CAT 2017 aspirants to take as many CAT Mock tests now as possible. This will not only cover the CAT exam syllabus but will also get you a feel of real CAT exam pattern. According to Avidipto “I completely relied on self-studies and did not take get enrolled in any coaching centres.” Sharing the number of CAT Mocks he had taken before the CAT exam, he says and suggests “I took 86 mock tests for preparation and trusted almost 90 per cent on the analysis.”  Since he was in the final year of his studies at BITS Pilani, he preferred to attempt 3 Mocks in week end which boosted his confidence level

Yash Choudhary final year student of electrical engineering at the College of Engineering, Pune who crack CAT 2016 with 100 percentile had taken 45 Mock tests before the CAT day.

The strategy for CAT was to first identify the doable questions and focus on them till the end of the paper even if it meant leaving some questions unanswered. 

Sharing the strategy to score high in newly created DILR section and the Quant section, Yash suggests “Data interpretation and quantitative ability were all about practice and quant was very scoring. I scored 99.9 in verbal ability, 99.86 in data interpretation and 99.96 in quantitative ability.”

Ketki Gupta, a non engineer who cracked CAT 2016 with 99.58 percentile was a 3^rd year Economics (Hons) student of Lady Shri Ram College for Women – Delhi University when the CAT result was out.

The most important factor that determines test success according to Ketki, is discipline. Ketki followed no particular routine. Ketki’s daily schedule included reading new concepts and completing the worksheets. Then, as months went by, it became more about taking mock tests, analysing them, and marking important questions that she wanted to look at again.

Closer to CAT, Ketki started revising these questions. Mock sessions helped her to understand the weak points, improve performance, and predict scores. Ketki says “I remember telling my parents after the actual test that it was like a mock test.” However, Ketki is of the view that a good coaching also helps you improve your performance in CAT exam. According to her, ‘With professional coaching, I found an opportunity to learn from IIM alumni and study in a collaborative yet competitive environment.’

2. How to cover each section? CAT toppers suggest

Pranjal Agarwal who faced the first revamped CAT exam pattern and scored 100 percentile in CAT 2015 made his way into PGP 2016-18 batch at IIM Ahmedabad. To cover the entire CAT syllabus, he advises to focus on each section of CAT:

VARC: The best way to study for the Verbal Ability section, is by reading articles in newspapers and magazines, preferably on the internet. These would help in the Reading Comprehension types of questions.

For opinionated type articles, it’s better to follow some online forums where people write their own articles. Reading articles also help in getting an idea of sentence fluency as well. For grammar, it is preferred to purchase any book with practice questions along with material of any coaching institute.

Data Interpretation: For Data Interpretation, it is important to practice very much and the same applies to logical reasoning. Data interpretation generally has several types of questions available, and many forms of data that could be given to you, including line charts, pie charts, histograms, tables, etc. 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.

For example, if a question is asking about the growth of sales from 10 years ago to now and the options are something like 56%, 112%, 180%, 204%, then it’s not necessary to get the exact percentage answer. You can estimate to find out whether the sales were 1.5 times, a little more than double, little less than triple or a little more than triple of their previous value. If you can do this effectively, you can save a lot of time that otherwise would be spent in calculations, even if you have a calculator.

Logical Reasoning: For Logical Reasoning, it is best advised to practice and adopt an elimination strategy in the questions. Do not try to rush to the answer. The purpose is to eliminate all the unfeasible options or combinations/sequences in a given question by using the clues given. Then, it may be possible that you can get a single correct combination/sequence or there might still be ambiguity left, depending on the information given.

The questions that follow would also only expect you to eliminate the other options. There are no shortcuts for this section; you just have to logically eliminate wrong options. The best way to improve here is by practicing to improve your speed.

Quant: For QA, you must practice. First, try to give one of the tests, even without studying at all. Some types of questions will be natural for you and you would be able to solve them easily. Don’t waste time studying for them.

Study those concepts that evade you and then practice questions relating to those only. Then in next mock test, try to improve your score. Again, rinse and repeat. Overall, practice in each section will always help you, but also keep in mind that the actual CAT will have a time constraint, so practice with similar constraints

 The CAT topper shares “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.”

Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more updates on CAT 2017 and preparation tips from toppers

Read also:

• CAT 2017: 3 months preparation before CAT date may hit high score; CAT last date closes Sep 20
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• CAT 2017 Preparation: How to move from 75 to 95 and get IIM-A, B, C - toppers show the way