Preparation strategies for CAT by rajesh balasubramanian

2IIM

Preparation Strategies for

CATBy Rajesh Balasubramanian

Director 2IIM. Alumnus of IIMB;100th percentile scorer in CAT 2011 and CAT 2012

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Ascent Education – Classes for CAT, GMAT, GRE and TANCET, +91 44 4505 8484, 99626 48484 www.2iim.com

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From here on, keep it simple

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• DO NOT wait to complete ALL topics before taking mock CAT– All topics will get completed thoroughly sometime in 2015 (or

beyond).– A critical driver for this exam is the ability to skip questions. What do

you think is the best way to learn that? • You should take AT LEAST 15 mock CATs prior to CAT.

– And these should be taken seriously– No test-taking over two days– No breaks between sessions– No taking tests in the middle of the night– No trying only ‘quant’ or only ‘verbal’

Test-taking rules

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• Take many tests

• Take from many providers

• Forget the percentiles

• Try different strategies– RC first– DI before quant– LR and RC alternately

• Analyze to death

There is no such thing as too many tests

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Knowledge gaps – Question-by-question analysis•What are the subject gaps that I need to fill?•Which topics work for me? Which ones do I need to dump?•Why did I not remember than formula?

Strategy changes – Overall view•At what time are my errors coming?•Do I start well or finish well?•How much time am I spending on the questions I am getting wrong?•Silly errors are partly due to fatigue. How do I build intensity?•Why did I walk into that nightmare LR?

What should one get from test analysis?

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CATSimplify the Targets

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What should you shoot for?

Target Level ITarget Level I

Target Level IITarget Level II

Target Level IIITarget Level III

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• Target setting HAS to be dynamic– Do not go in with fixed targets

• Target setting does not mean questions have to be done in that order.– If paper is going well, and you can attempt one more RC, get the RC

done and out of the way before hand

• In an ideal world, you should realize where you are headed early enough and re-jig the order of attempts to get there.

CAT Targets & Caveats

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10 Golden RulesOf

Test Taking

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1. Don’t trade accuracy for speed

Score = Baseline + Noise. If Noise is too high, no point

in assessing score. If you attempt 25 and get 12

wrong, don’t even bother analyzing the paper. This is

pure noise. Would you go to a Doctor who has this hit

rate?

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2. Do NOT Chase attempts

Better Score Better Score

If your preparation is good, attempts will

increase. Higher attempts is a RESULT of better

preparation. It is not the ‘CAUSE’ of better scores.

Whenever your score does not match with your

‘dream/ambition’ , the default response is to try to attempt more. That is

NOT a solution.

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3. When in doubt, leave Attempting a problem that you should not have tried hurts way more than missing an

easy one

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4. Take Chances, but carefully Once you start ‘chasing’ a magic

number, decision-making progressively

becomes worse.

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5. Prioritization is key If you have to put rocks, pebbles and sand into a

bottle, start with the rocks. At any rate, do not end with

the rocks. RC, DI, LR are ‘group’ questions. These are kind of questions where one takes 7 minutes for the first one, then one minute each

for the next two.

Do not be the genius who starts an RC or LR (or DI)

group with 8 minutes to go.

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6. “Plans are nothing; Planning is everything “

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Go in with a clear plan. But keep two things in mind.

1)Your original plan should not be fool hardy.

2)Be ready to change your plan if facts ask you to.

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7. Quit chasing that one question

The exam-setters are (very) smart. Odds are you will get

conned by 1-2 questions. This is natural. The key is to

not let this upset the subsequent 3 questions.

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8. Fly off the blocks

Very often, the best way to remove the

pre-exam jitters is to ‘jump’ into the paper

and solve away.

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9. Respect the devil

If you get an answer ‘just’ wrong, you get -

1 instead of +3. Far worse than not

knowing anything.

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10. Have a plan B

If you cannot stay on as BCCI President

Get re-elected as BCCI President

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• Sir, Quant was going very well. But the last 10 questions were all DI– Or, the equivalent “The buggers had given all 10 RC questions in the

end ”• I read an RC passage fully. Did not have the time to answer the

questions• Had taken the bike to the exam. By the time I reached there at 2:00

pm I was damn tired. • One LR puzzle was particularly tough. I spent nearly 25 minutes on

it, but had to still leave it. • I tanked the first section so badly that I started the second section

poorly. Ended with a better percentile in quant than in verbal.

Don’t be the person telling anyone this

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• Sir, Quant was going very well. But the last 10 questions were all DI– Or, the equivalent “The buggers had given all 10 RC questions in the

end ”• I read an RC passage fully. Did not have the time to answer the

questions• Had taken the bike to the exam. By the time I reached there at 2:00

pm I was damn tired. • One LR puzzle was particularly tough. I spent nearly 25 minutes on

it, but had to still leave it. • I tanked the first section so badly that I started the second section

poorly. Ended with a better percentile in quant than in verbal.

Don’t be the person telling anyone this

All of this can be answered with “What were you smoking?”

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• I took my 5th CAT last year. I got stuck with an LR. Did not want to let it go. Believed it was easy. Decided to chase it. Spent an extra 4 minutes because of an Ego problem. – Got it right, so escaped to tell this tale. But it is very silly

• Baskar, my colleague and alumnus from IIM Kolkatta took his 13th CAT in 2012. He wrestled with a question for 7-8 minutes before dumping it.

Everyone makes these mistakes

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And Remember

The glass is always half

full!

Preparation strategies for CAT by rajesh balasubramanian

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