"One of the common queries that most CAT takers have in mind right now is: whether it is possible to crack CAT with a good score in the remaining 100-110 days? The answer definitely is a big YES! Having said that, time is a big concern and has to be factored in for scoring well in the test," says Kaushik Laskar, Centre Director, T.I.M.E. Mumbai. IIM Kozhikode, the official organiser of the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2019, which is being held for admission to MBA programme in the premiere Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and some other major institutes in the country, will be held on November 24.
Mr Laskar has proposed following strategies to score good in CAT 2019:
Getting acquainted with the CAT paper pattern
Understand the format and glance through the types of questions appearing in the CAT, followed by taking the mocks and get the first hand feel of the pattern. This will reveal the strengths and weaknesses and help in strategizing.
Completion of the syllabus
Once understood what needs to be done, the primary focus should be on completing the syllabus at the earliest. Two months is a good time for this. Getting the basics right is the key. Thus eventually, online mocks could be dealt with efficiently.
VA
Start with developing a reading habit and reading from a wide variety of areas like Psychology, Metaphysics, Sociology, etc. on a daily basis. While reading, try comprehending the article from the author's perspective and summarize the passage. It will also develop the vocabulary. Get the basics in grammar right. These will enable you to score good marks in the Verbal section.
After doing the aforementioned exercise for about ten days, move on to critically examine various commonly asked inferential questions. Also keep going through para formation questions in the process.
DI/LR
This is one of the critical sections and requires a lot of practice to master it. For the starters, go through the basic speed math techniques and the concepts of reciprocals and percentages before starting this section. In 15-20 days Know about the various types of sets asked. Learn the know-hows to crack the sets related to Games and Tournaments, Venn Diagrams, Cubes and Maximization and Minimization. Over the 20 days, practise about 4-5 sets each from various chapters to clear the basics.
Eventually, start taking the LRDI online sectional tests to improve your time management skills and reasoning skills. Scan through the past CAT papers from 2001-2008 to acquaint yourself with the types of sets being asked. Ensure that you solve about 25-30 sets on average, consistently every week. Select sets based on different patterns to increase the familiarity with the sets in CAT. Work on improving the way you represent the data of a particular set as this is sometimes very critical in solving a set faster.
Quant
Set the following deadline for quant preparation with a focused approach:
1. | Arithmetic | 20 days |
2. | Numbers | 5 days |
3. | Geometry and Mensuration | 7 days |
4. | Algebra | 20-25 days |
5. | Permutation and Combination and Probability | 3 days |
In this span of about 60 days, your target should be to complete the Quant syllabus and regular revision of the completed topics by solving various questions from the topic-wise sectional tests. Post this you should be focusing on solving as many online tests to help improve your speed and be in regular touch with the topics. Make sure that you make a separate note book containing all the important formulae and a collection of important questions. This will help you during the time of revision.
Frequency of Mocks
Month | No. of mocks |
August | 3 |
September | 5 |
October | 6-8 |
November | 5 |
Along with taking the mocks analysis at a micro level is a must. Identify the topics/concepts/areas that you are weak at and have been consistently getting them wrong. Work and improve these. Take more sectional tests of those particular areas to strengthen them. After taking about 6-7 mocks, focus on the time taken to solve a particular question, the accuracy percentage, the reading speed, the effectiveness in scanning the questions, and target the doable ones. These are some important variables that will give you an edge to take yourself to the best level possible.
(Wtih Inputs from Kaushik Laskar, Centre Director, T.I.M.E. Mumbai)
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