Analysis after taking right kind of mock tests for CAT 2015 is as necessary as taking the mock itself, else Mocks are of little use. Unless and until you know the type of errors that you have committed while attempting the mock test and analyse it afterwards so that it may not recur, taking a mock wouldn’t serve its purpose.
Even if you score high in Mock, you need to analyse where you lacked. You may not need to check and analyse the correct answers as you won’t learn much out of it, but you must analyse well the committed errors in the replica test. The analysis of Mock will make you understand whether these mistakes have been committed inadvertently or due to lack of understanding of the concept, topic, question type or you wrongly understood the direction given before the question to solve it. It must be understood and modification in preparation pattern, reading and getting the conceptual clarity should be brought about.
Even hard prep leaves gaps
You are burning mid night oil to give wings to your preparation for CAT 2015. With the clear focus on improving the speed of reading, calculation, conceptual clarity and practicing topic wise exercises, you never know what else remains to be done.
The study and preparation moves on with the same pattern. But in fact what happens is that your preparation still remains with many gaps which you may call the ‘finishing touch’.
It is not your mistake or fault as you never knew it and no-body could let you know. Even experts and mentors on CAT 2015 preparation might skip the minor gaps which can be filled only after due analysis of right kind of Mocks for the exam.
Mistakes to look-for
The proper analysis of the 100 question Mock test meant to prepare you for CAT 2015, should be done by your mentor as well as by you. Key mistakes that might have led you to pick wrong answer options could have been –
Understand what is asked
You didn’t read the direction for the question correctly or misunderstood it. For example in Verbal Ability section Direction for the question based on error correction in grammar usage was to pick out the incorrect sentences but you picked the correct sentences although you have the skill to solve the question.
This shows your anxiety. Maintain your cool, read the direction properly, understand what is required to be done to solve the question. Usually you do not forgive yourself when you mark or write a wrong answer on computer screen although it belongs to your strong domain and you can crack it without any problem.
This can be achieved only by taking and analyzing more mocks in real test conditions so that its recurrence can be checked.
Conceptual mistakes
You have attempted the Mock test well and are of the view that ‘all is well’. When the scores are out, you find you have marked many wrong answer options or have written wrong answers on computer screen for Non-MCQs.
The analysis of the Mock shows that you applied some other concept than what was required. For example you couldn’t get to the incorrect usage in misplaced modifier in Verbal Ability and thinking that the paragraph had some problem on usage of ‘conditional clause’ marked a correct sentence as incorrect. The analysis of the mistake made you understand the difference between usage of modifiers and conditions; between adjectives and adverbs among others.
The gap is minor but can dip your percentile score substantially. Make sure that you do indepth analysis of each and every question attempted wrong in the Mock test.
Content based mistakes
If you have not understood the content of the question well, you will end up marking a wrong answer. Analysis of Mock test will be a great help to overcome the recurrence of this problem.
For example if you are attempting an RC passage and it is full of anecdotes, phrases, rich English Grammar, you take more than usual time to go through it. The questions that follow ask you the tone of the passage. Answer options are close ones and you pick the answer option which explains the purpose of writing the passage and not the tone of the passage. It happened because of the content of the RC passage which you could not follow well.
After analysis of the Mock, your mentor and you got to the conclusion to go for 2 readings of the passage, write down the difficult words, answer only when you have understood at least 80 to 90% of the passage, else skip the question instead of marking an incorrect answer and attracting the penalty of negative marking along with losing the score for the question. On the top of it substantial time has also been wasted to a not doable question.
Navigational mistakes
You can study hard, prepare well, practice on paper well but you need to know how to use the navigation tools in CAT 2015. When you attempt your first Mock for CAT 2015, it might be a problem to understand the mark, unmark, review, and other navigation buttons to be used in CAT 2015 testing room. If you mark a wrong answer and plan to correct it, or mark a question for review and forget it due to one or other reason, the loss may be uncalled for.
The analysis of right kind of mock for CAT 2015 will give you real feel where you lacked in using navigation tools in the replica test. You may not make the same kind of mistake again.
Preparation experts, mentors for CAT 2015 and toppers from earlier CAT exams unanimously agree that taking good quality & relevant Mocks and their due analysis with the aim not to recur the mistakes can prove to be an excellent measurement of your preparation level providing great help to improve your CAT 2015 scores.
CAT 2015 new pattern practice test is proposed to be made available by the IIMs by the end of October 2015. You should practice well the same as it will share close example of entire test pattern and type of questions proposed to appear in CAT 2015.
CAT 2015 preparation Expert Prof S K Agarwal is of the view that analysis of only right quality of mocks can provide the right opportunity of self evaluation and suitability of getting shortlisted in CAT 2015 based on high percentile.
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