With the changed face of CAT 2014, aspirants may not get such high percentile as was possible till CAT 2013 with the same pace of preparation. There was availability of more time and fewer questions till CAT 2013 but now in CAT 2014 you are left with less time with more number of questions.
Now you have to manage the time with faster speed and higher accuracy level to crack CAT 2014 with a high percentile of 99+, overall as well as sectional. If you are seriously pursuing the preparation for CAT 2014 and wish to emerge as one of the winners in this greatest show of MBA/PGDM entrance test for the admission year 2015-16, the following key suggestions from Prof S K Agarwal, expert on Verbal Ability for CAT 2014 preparation would be highly instrumental to help you achieve your goal.
Two big changes in CAT 2014
Two big changes in CAT 2014 now call for the modification in preparation strategy
-The first big change
The first one is the increase in number of questions from 30 to 50 in each of two sections. Now Quant & DI section and Verbal & LR section will have 20 more questions each. Total number of questions therefore stands increased from 60 to 100, a 66% increase. But the proportionate time to solve these questions has not so much increased. Earlier it was 140 minutes for 60 questions in CAT 2013 and now it is 170 minutes for 100 questions.
If we calculate, there is no proportionate increase in time to solve the questions. On the contrary the time allotted per question to solve has been reduced by 1 minute. CAT aspirants earlier had 2.32 minutes at their disposal to solve one question and now it stands reduced to 1.70 minutes per question. 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 2014 during next 3 months.
-The second big change
CAT 2014 has announced to remove the restriction of moving between the two sections. Now the candidates may switch from one section to another within the allotted time of 170 minutes. They can solve questions according to their preference in either section. But the caution, not to focus on only one section shall have to be exercised.
Three things to improve now
CAT 2014 aspirants now need to improve the pace of preparation keeping in mind the following 3 things that can help them ace CAT.
1. Faster speed
2. High Accuracy level
3. Management of time
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 2014
Improve Speed; 3 steps of a question
Three implications could be attributed to improving the speed. The first- improving the speed of reading the questions with understanding in Quant, DI, Verbal Ability, LR.
Second, solving the questions quickly and getting to the most appropriate answer option.
Third, Marking the correct answer option or keeping the same under review on the computer screen.
All the 3 steps cited above when completed more quickly than you used to do earlier will mark the improvement in your speed. You are supposed to cope with the reduced proportionate time and this is only possible with 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.
How to improve the reading speed
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 2014. 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. You are neither able to read it at a faster pace nor are 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 wouldn’t offer you passages below or above this size, rest assured.
High Accuracy Level; only speed won’t help
You can attain high accuracy level only when your reading speed is improved with clear understanding. When you opt for an answer option you should be clear on it. Else the negative marking may get you nowhere.
Include all types of questions
CAT 2014 is expected to place more different type of questions on the same topics. The need is to practice more on variety of questions. In your preparation include also such type of topics and questions that had appeared long back in CAT and the questions which never appeared in CAT but have made their presence in other tests like XAT, MAH-CET, IIFT, CMAT.
With 100 questions in CAT 2014, you will have more options but don’t expect an easy test in CAT 2014. Since more questions are to be added, variety of questions will also be there. If you have practiced enough to crack the right answer option by improving the level of accuracy, you may expect a high percentile.
Time Management; crucial factor
The freedom of moving from one section to another without any time constraint sounds good. Now you need not to wait for 70 minutes’ time allotted to first section to be over to move to next section. CAT 2014 is like other management entrance tests that go on the same pattern. But what actually has to be understood is a fact that sometimes we forget to restrain our selves while attempting more questions out of one section only. We tend to spend most of the valuable time on the section which is of interest to us and this is dangerous.
CAT 2014 has removed the restriction of movement between the sections but has not moved from its earlier stand that sectional percentile will be the consideration for short-listing despite scoring a high overall percentile.
How to balance
Aspirants now have to score high sectional percentile along with high overall percentile. If you spend a lion’s share of your time on one section, you wouldn’t be left with much time for another section. The strategy should be to equally divide the time for both the sections in your initial attempts and solve as many questions from both the sections as possible.
The best preparation strategy to keep it balanced in the 2 sections is to periodically go for a set of mocks with 100 questions. Please avoid repetition of questions. Now keep a clock with you and start solving. The topics that are not prepared by you may be avoided. First five attempts should be devoted to solve the entire test paper. After that you may opt for selective questions section wise. 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.
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