Last minute CAT preparation tips - harshadk

Hello !

Trying to wrap up today's queries with a sort of a FAQ list

Attempts in VA :

My personal opinion is that VA has been rather dodgy in the last few CATs. Even the coaching institutes have had a tough time getting correct answers. So as ajithprasad has rightly suggested, maximize your attempts. Some question, which are 100% sure of getting a correct answer in, are gonna invariably turn out to be wrong, and you have to make up for that. My strategy in VA was blitzkrieging through the section in 30 mins and attempting everything. Didnt manage everything, but attempted 21 and got 12 correct for a score of 39 which translated into 99.09.

Of course, this strategy comes with a bit of risk. You have evaluate what you are comfortable with.

Change in pattern :

How does it matter? What matters is your fundamentals. You solve 1 problem at a time. What matters is if you solve that ONE problem. And the next one. And so on. Ok, if there's a drastic change in pattern ( say they go in for a 180 Qs paper ) then you might have to do a rethink. But the essentials remain the same:

- Divide time equally between sections, adding a bit for your weak area and subtracting a bit from your strong one

- Keep Buffer time slots

- Know which section to start with, what to end with

What you could do if you are overtly worried about the pattern is make contingency plans ready. Like this is what I will do if there's a 60 Q paper. This for a 4 section paper. This for a marathon 200 Q paper.

I personally would have loved to have as drastic a change in pattern as possible. Because I knew that my fundas were decent. I knew I could get a decent percentile in mocks. I knew that most people would freak out of there was a pattern change. Frankly, it would work to my advantage. For me, the 15 minutes you get before the paper starts ( when you can only read the instructions ) are more than enough to tackle any unforeseen changes in pattern.

Go in with the confidence that you own the world and you will own it

Inconsistent scores in VA :

Frankly, my answers and TIME mocks' answers in VA never matched. I often got single digit scores in VA. But I knew ( with the experience of cracking CAT onece before ) that somehow, by some weird logic, my answers matched with the IIMs'. So dont let bad VA scores get to you if you know that your English is fundamentally decent. What happens beyond that is luck, destiny or fate, call it what you like.

Stop looking for patterns in VA. There aren't any. Do what you can, but dont leave any particular question types unattempted just because you have a bad track record in it. There are sitters in most sets. And CAT has a habit of coming up with unreadably dense RC passages sometimes - stuff which you wont be able to decipher unless you are a philo major

How do I know what questions are easy in QA :

Read the Q. Now see if you can immediately proceed towards the solution. Can you think of some approaches? Can you go down a few steps and see if you are getting closer. Or are you completely clueless? You have your answer. Of course you will spend half a minute on it. So what? In a paper like CAT 07, you had to get something around 35 to clear the cut-off easily, if I am not wrong.. which is 9 odd questions correct in 50 minutes. Fight kidhar hai?

How do I pick easy sets in DI?

Firstly, it's easy to lose your cool in DI, as it's a high wins high losses section. You get a case with 4-5 questions or you get nothing.

Before you start the DI section, stop. Take a deep breath. Drink some water. Now approach it as if you are starting the paper. Read through all of the cases, trying to figure out at the same time whether you can make a headway in them easily. DO NOT SOLVE THEM. Just see if progress is possible. Now mark them with a star or come crap like that. Say 3 stars for a must-do, something which you have seen something similar to before in some mock or think you can definitely crack. 2 stars for a maybe. 1 for something tough. Now solve in that order. There will be invariably 2 easy sets and 1-2 medium level ones, and 1 real toughie. If you start doing the toughie, unless you are a genius and can crack it, or leave it after 10 minutes and not let that get to you and crack the others, you have dug a deep hole for yourself.

I am completely demoralised and think that I cannot do it.

Great. What do you have to lose? You already know that you cant do it. So why take tension? Saunter into the place as if you own it. Laugh at all those mere mortals around you who are all tensed up. kii frak painda hain?

Come on guys. You CANNOT give up 2 weeks before CAT. It's criminal, it's sacrilegious, it's an insult to the hard work, the sacrifices you've made over the last few months. How can you give up before even attempting it? I don't wanna blow my own trumpet, but I got 5 rejects from 5 IIMs after CAT 2006. I had tried and I had failed. But I knew that I wouldn't give up. And I did not. Next year, I clicked. Sometimes stupid optimism works Just give yourself an honest chance, guys.

Clearing QA cut-offs :

Understand 1 thing. Half of the CAT taking pool is scared of QA. QA cut-offs drop really low for the level of the paper. Keep your cool and solve as much as you can. There are MANY easy questions. Just find them. My mock QA scores usually hovered in the lower 90s. I was never very good in QA. My first CAT attempt resulted in a stunning 66 percentile in quant My aim was to clear 95 in order to be close to the A cut-off. I just solved as much as I could get, and came out thinking that I'd get something in that range. I got 99.69 Sometimes, we underestimate ourselves for no reason

Cheers,
Harshad

Ref : http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/35312-cat-2008-helpline-ask-iim-5.html#post1262438

WORK ON YOUR ‘ABILITY TO PERFORM’

ARUN SHARMA SAYS IF CANDIDATES BELIEVE IN THEIR ABILITY TO PERFORM,THEY CAN MAKE THE FINAL STAGE OF CAT PREPARATION HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE


THE last couple of weeks before the CAT should be spent in finalizing your strategies and getting ready for whatever they can throw at you on the D-Day. In today's article we would like to concentrate on a few important issues that will help in putting finishing touches to your preparations.

Many students have a tendency to think that nothing can be done at this stage in terms of preparation. Ironically, the biggest danger, most of you face, is from within. Also most students, at this stage, think that they know about the percentile they will get. Our observation is that they have already defined the range of percentile they are going to land up with i.e. they already know the minimum and the maximum levels they are supposed to get. To put it very mildly this approach is ridiculous.

Consider a phone call we received from a CAT aspirant who was taking two different test series. She was very worried. In one of the two test series she was getting a percentile in the 80's, while in the other one, she was getting a percentile in the 50’s. Her main concern was which of the two should she consider as her actual percentile. Our question to her was —what if there was another test series based on what the actual CAT was? And what if she was getting a percentile of around 99 in that. Which percentile would she count as the correct one then?

Once again we would like to get back to a major issue, which we had addressed, in these columns. The issue is — candidates should not take their mock percentiles seriously. We are reiterating this time and again because it is seen that by having preconceived notions about their scores, students unnecessarily court anxiety.

We have observed that ever since national mock tests have started, there has been absolutely no correlation between the actual CAT scores and the scores students achieve in their mocks.

Just as the performance of a cricket team depends a lot on the nature of the wicket, similarly the performance of an individual depends a lot on the design of the tests. In other words the actual CAT scores depend on the nature of questions in the actual CAT test. A coaching centre and a group of three-four people, who might be developing the tests for the coaching centres, do not define it.

It is important to remember: “The greatest battles can be and have been won if you have yourself on your side.” In case your belief system has already told you that you are not going to make it, no amount of external forces can help you win a war.

Hence what we are trying to tell you is that there is still a lot you can hope to do in the last few weeks before CAT. Even if your percentiles are stuck in the range of 50's you never know what you can achieve through improving your performance on the D-day.

We would like to remind you that even on the last day before the CAT there is something that you can do in order to change your fortunes in the exam.

Last minute preparation strategies:
Competitive examination preparation (and in fact preparing for any challenge you ever face in your life) is about managing two dimensions of preparation:

Ability improvement: The focus in this is on improving your ability to do a certain thing in a better way

Performance improvement: This is more or less a state of mind issue. This essentially refers to the management of your belief systems and your state of mind, which emanate from your dominant belief system.

The fact that performance on the day is the only thing that counts is something that is instinctively understood by any sportsperson. That is why even top sportsmen and champion teams have people to help them perform better. Three lakh people, every year, try to work towards developing their abilities, nobody actually focuses on developing their ability to perform. I completely agree with the point of view that one cannot develop abilities in the last few days before CAT, but performance levels can be drastically enhanced in these last few weeks. Think about it! Focus on it! Find ways to change it.
(The writer is an alumnus of IIM-Bangalore, a nationally renowned CAT trainer and the author of a series of books published by Tata McGraw Hill on CAT and other aptitude exams)

syllogisms

.
1. If A then B : 2 conclusions possible: A implies B
~B implies ~A
Eg:- If it rains I will take an umbrella: Then:
It rained => I took an umbrella
I did not take an umbrella => It did not rain.

2. Only if A then B : 2 conclusions possible: B implies A
~A implies ~B
Eg:- Only if it rains I will take an umbrella: Then:
I took an umbrella => It rained
It did not rain => I did not take an umbrella.

3 Unless A, B : 2 conclusions possible: ~A implies B
~B implies A
Unless it rains I won't take an umbrella: Then:
It did not rain => I did not take an umbrella
I took an umbrella => It rained.

Syllogisms (All, No, Some, Some - Not)
It's not possible to explain this in detail here..I'll try my best

Basically there are four types of sentences (category of quantifier) here:
Universal Affirmative : All A's are B's
Universal Negative : No A is a B
Particular Affirmative : Some A's are B's
Particular Negative : Some A's are not B's

Here in each sentence A is the subject and B is predicate.

There is something called distribution ie in each sentence A or B is said to be distributed if it has information about all the entities of the category to which A or B belongs. For eg:- All cats are animals - This statement has information about all the entities belonging to the category 'cat'. But it doesn't have info regarding all the entities belonging to the category 'animals'. So subject(cats) is distributed here and predicate (animals) is not distributed.
If you find it difficult to fully understand the concept of distribution (which will mostly be the case) you can simply remember the general rule:

Category of quantifier: Subject Predicate

Universal Affirmative D ND
Universal Negative D D
Particular Affirmative ND ND
Particular Negative ND D

# D - Distributed ; ND - Not distributed

The 2 statements (which are usually given in the question) are called premises. And the statement which logically follows these 2 statements (which is usually asked for) is the conclusion.

There are 7 rules for deductions:
1. Every deduction should contain three and only three distinct terms.
2. The middle term must be distributed at least once in the two premises.
3. If one premise is negative, the conclusion, if any, must be negative.
4. If one premise is particular, the conclusion, if any, must be particular.
5. If both the premises are negative, no conclusion can be drawn.
6. If both the premises are particular, no conclusion can be drawn.
7. If a term is not distributed in the premises, then that term cannot be distributed in the conclusion.

For Eg:-
No cat is a dog.
All donkeys are animals.
No conclusion possible because there are 4 terms (cat, dog, donkeys, animals). There can be only 3 distinct terms.

No cat is a dog.
No dog is a donkey.
No conclusion possible because both the premises are negative. Both the premises cannot be negative.

Some people are vegetarians.
Some vegetarians are healthy.
No conclusion possible because both the premises are particular. Both the premises cannot be particular.


All humans have two legs.
Some humans are men.
So this implies Some men have two legs.
Here humans is the middle term (that which appears in both the premises). Middle term will not appear in the conclusion. So once you find out that the two premises do not violate any of the conditions and a conclusion is possible, you can say that the conclusion will have 'two legs' and 'men'. Now in, All humans have two legs - 'humans' is distributed and 'two legs' is not distributed (in universal affirmative subject is distributed and predicate is
not distributed). In, Some humans are men - both 'humans' and 'men' are not distributed. So in the conclusion the subject and predicate should retain their distribution from the premises (D or ND) ie we know that the conclusion should have 'two legs' and 'men' and we also know that 'two legs' should not be distributed in the conclusion (as is the case with 'two legs' in the premise) and 'men' should not be distributed in the conclusion (as is the case with 'men' in the premise)
So in the conclusion we have two legs - not distributed ; men - not distributed. So both subject and predicate are not distributed. So it is particular affirmative (Some). Hence the required conclusion is Some men have two legs.

Hope I have confused you enough. Just try out a few syllogism questions from the mocks so far.

Ref: http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/34711-pg-underdogs-team-udt-08-a-43.html#post1259928

Parallel Structure -Brought to you by the Purdue University Online Writing Lab.

Parallel structure means using the same pattern of words to show that two or more ideas have the same level of importance. This can happen at the word, phrase, or clause level. The usual way to join parallel structures is with the use of coordinating conjunctions such as "and" or "or." (For more information on coordinating conjunctions, see our handout at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_clause.html.

1. Words and Phrases

With the -ing form (gerund) of words:

Parallel: Mary likes hiking, swimming, and bicycling.

With infinitive phrases:

Parallel: Mary likes to hike, to swim, and to ride a bicycle.
OR
Mary likes to hike, swim, and ride a bicycle.

(Note: You can use "to" before all the verbs in a sentence or only before the first one.)

For more information on gerunds and infinitives, see our handout at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_verbals.html.

Do not mix forms.

Example 1

Not Parallel: Mary likes hiking, swimming, and to ride a bicycle.

Parallel: Mary likes hiking, swimming, and riding a bicycle.

Example 2

Not Parallel: The production manager was asked to write his report quickly, accurately, and in a detailed manner.

Parallel: The production manager was asked to write his report quickly, accurately, and thoroughly.

Example 3

Not Parallel: The teacher said that he was a poor student because he waited until the last minute to study for the exam, completed his lab problems in a careless manner, and his motivation was low.

Parallel: The teacher said that he was a poor student because he waited until the last minute to study for the exam, completed his lab problems in a careless manner, and lacked motivation.

2. Clauses

A parallel structure that begins with clauses must keep on with clauses. Changing to another pattern or changing the voice of the verb (from active to passive or vice versa) will break the parallelism.

Example 1

Not Parallel: The coach told the players that they should get a lot of sleep, that they should not eat too much, and to do some warm-up exercises before the game.

Parallel: The coach told the players that they should get a lot of sleep, that they should not eat too much, and that they should do some warm-up exercises before the game.

-- or --

Parallel: The coach told the players that they should get a lot of sleep, not eat too much, and do some warm-up exercises before the game.

Example 2

Not Parallel: The salesman expected that he would present his product at the meeting, that there would be time for him to show his slide presentation, and that questions would be asked by prospective buyers.
(passive)

Parallel: The salesman expected that he would present his product at the meeting, that there would be time for him to show his slide presentation, and that prospective buyers would ask him questions.

3. Lists after a colon

Be sure to keep all the elements in a list in the same form.

Example 1

Not Parallel: The dictionary can be used for these purposes: to find word meanings, pronunciations, correct spellings, and looking up irregular verbs.

Parallel: The dictionary can be used for these purposes: to find word meanings, pronunciations, correct spellings, and irregular verbs.

Proofreading Strategies to try:

• Skim your paper, pausing at the words "and" and "or." Check on each side of these words to see whether the items joined are parallel. If not, make them parallel.
• If you have several items in a list, put them in a column to see if they are parallel.
• Listen to the sound of the items in a list or the items being compared. Do you hear the same kinds of sounds? For example, is there a series of "-ing" words beginning each item? Or do your hear a rhythm being repeated? If something is breaking that rhythm or repetition of sound, check to see if it needs to be made parallel.

---

The following information must remain intact on every handout printed for distribution.

This page is located at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/print/grammar/g_parallel.html.

Copyright ©1995-2004 by OWL at Purdue University and Purdue University. All rights reserved.
Use of this site, including printing and distributing our handouts, constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use, available at
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/lab/fairuse.html.

To contact OWL, please visit our contact information page at
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/lab/contact.html to find the right person to call or email.

‘BANK YOUR CHEQUES’ 20th Oct- Article by Arun Sharma On Education Times

ARUN SHARMA RECOMMENDS THAT THE FOCUS OF WORK

FOR THE LAST FEW WEEKS OF CAT’S PREPARATION

PROCESS SHOULD BE SIMPLE SO THAT YOU ARE ABLE TO

BANK YOUR KNOWLEDGE CHEQUES ON THE D-DAY

IN the context of achieving success in any real life situation, a key concept is the ability to

“Bank your cheques.” It is said that successful people are able to bank their cheques. What

does this mean? Let us take an example. For instance, you work for a month and are paid a

cheque of Rs 25,000 (and in some of your cases this might be your first earning), so you are

very happy with the cheque but for some strange reason are unable to go to your bank and

present it for the next six months. On the day you actually reach your bank with the cheque,

your banker tells you that the cheque is outdated. You have not banked your cheque and

hence have not got the worth of what you should have received.

Similarly, a common problem that most of you must be facing right now, while preparing

for the D-day, must be the fact that most of the time in the tests that you take, there would

be the problem of not being able to get the maximum value for the knowledge that you

have. So in a way, when it comes to the examination time, for some strange reason you are

unable to actually bank your cheque in this case you knowledge. You are not getting what

you are worth.

Now this might not be crucial if the situation under which you are not “banking your

cheque” is not going to have a long lasting effect. But, in a crucial event like the CAT exam,

which has the potential to create an inflection point in your life — if your worth is a 98.9

percentile and you achieve only 90 percentile, you would be guilty if you don’t perform well.

Also, for a fact most of you would realise that on the big day, if you are able to actually

derive the maximum value for the knowledge that you have, you would probably be getting

a score, which would be much higher than what you are heading towards.

So the concentration of your work for the last month should be on ensuring that you reach

a situation where you are able to bank your “knowledge” cheques on the D Day. So where

does that leave you in terms of concrete action plans?

To understand what you need to do, it is important to understand why this is happening to

you. The answer is simple and we have repeatedly mentioned it through our columns here.

“You are not going to have full use of your mind on the day of the CAT,” so what will work

for you will be your reflexes, and nothing else.

In other words, if you feel that there is a question that you are able to solve with a lot of

effort by using over 80% of your mind’s resources, be pretty sure that you would not be

able to do the same thing in the exam. Remember, you would be using less than 50% of

your brain when you would be appearing for the exam. So obviously when you are taking

the CAT, any question that requires you to use more than 50% of your mind is simply not

going to be in your range. So your focus of work for the last few weeks of your preparation

process should be simple.

Objective:

Take your learning and knowledge to the level of unconscious competence or the level of

reflex. It is only if you do so will you be able to “bank your knowledge cheques” in your CAT.

So our advise in this column would be to:

• Stop doing anything new

• Start revising what you have done and the unit of revision should not be the section or the

chapter or the theory but it should be the question.

(The writer is an alumnus of IIM-Bangalore, a nationally renowned CAT trainer and

the author of a series of books published by Tata McGraw Hill on CAT and other

aptitude exams)

‘Reduce the importance of CAT in your life’ – 13 Oct - Article by Arun Sharma On Education Times

IN THE LAST MONTH OF PREPARATION TIME,MAKING THE

CAT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN YOUR LIFE MIGHT BE

COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. ARUN SHARMATELLS YOU HOW

KEEPING THE 'BIGGER' PICTURE IN SIGHT CAN HELP YOU

GIVE THE EXAM YOUR BEST SHOT

AS you enter the last month of preparation time, there are a few key issues we would like

you to address. Believe it or not, but you need to reduce the importance of the CAT in your

life.

While this may seem ironical but you will have to do it if you want to give yourself the

best chance of performing at the optimum on the day of the CAT. Making CAT the most

important thing in your life might be counter-productive for you at this stage. The reason is

not too difficult to understand — being the kind of exam it is, you would require to give

yourself the maximum freedom of thought while writing the test — and this would not

happen in case CAT is the most important thing in your life.

You do not want to take the exam with unnecessary pressure on you. So, the idea is that

you need to reduce the pressure on yourself. Our only contention is that if you are free from

unnecessarily negative thoughts, you might end up doing the best you can. Thus, reducing

the importance of cracking the CAT at this stage of your preparations will ironically give you

your best chance to bell the CAT.

So your obvious question would be: "How can I go about reducing the importance of the

CAT at this stage?" A few suggestions for the same:

1. Create a back up plan for the year if you do not get through. One of the ways to reduce

pressure on yourself is to give yourself a two to three year timeframe for entering a Bschool.

Once you do so, you would realise you have at least three attempts at the exam and

hence, the exam on November 16, 2008, need not be your only chance. However, if you

have this kind of plan for yourself, then you need to actually have thought about how you

are going to concretely use your time in the two to three year t i m e f r a m e. Create a

plan of a u g m e n t i n g your bio-data by working fulltime/part-time, doing additional p ro

f e s s i o n a l courses, learning a few languages and in general raising the level of

'education' in your life. Education beyond degrees — through the pursuit of knowledge is

what we mean to say.

2. Realise for a fact that the IIMs are not the only way to succeed in your life. Even if you

do an MBA from a second-level B-school you will still get enough opportunities to make it

big. So, you need to realise that the IIMs do not hold a kind of exclusive key to success. Tell

yourself that even if you do not do well in the exam, and are forced to join a relatively lower

branded institution, you still would be excited about who you are and what you could

achieve in your life. If you do not make it to the top through the hypotenuse of a rightangled

triangle, you still have the two legs through which you can reach the same

destination. Remember, the long-term goal is to reach the top of the corporate ladder and

as long as you can reach there, it does not matter what credentials you have picked up in

the form of you management education.

3. Create a long-term plan. Another way to think about this situation is that in case you

are forced to go to a second level B-school in the short-run, then you can still plan to go to a

top international B-school after five to seven years of working. There is also an executive

MBA from a top B-school. Once you have a professional profile on your bio data, you can

always think of this option. This thinking is especially crucial for first timers. A lot of you out

there have profiles that are not good enough to break in the doors of the IIMs in your first

attempt. So, in case you do not have that coveted IIT or university-topper tag of the finest

Indian universities, then you can always build your profile over the next five to seven years.

After that your profile would be equivalent to the best people around.

4. Reduce expectations of people around you. If you cannot, then stop taking these

expectations to your heart. Start living your life for yourself. Many of aspirants we know are

giving the exam in order to prove themselves in someone else's eyes. This person could be

your father, mother, brother, grandfather, uncle etc. Stop living for them and start living for

yourself. One of the truths of life is that if you can start meeting your own expectations from

yourself, all external expectations will also be met.

Other things that you need to do now:

I) Take your preparation to the stage of perfection — stop studying fresh portions, focus

on concretising your learning

II) Create a concrete work strategy for the last month and follow it religiously

More on these issues in our next article in the series.

(The writer is an alumnus of IIMBangalore, a nationally renowned CAT

trainer and the author of a series of books published by Tata McGraw Hill on CAT

and

other aptitude exams)

THERE’S STILL SCOPE FOR IMPROVEMENT 6th Oct - Article by Arun Sharma On Education Times

AS THE D-DAY APPROACHES,CAT ASPIRANTS SHOULD

FOCUS ON ADDRESSING AREAS THAT HAVE A PAY-OFF

WITHIN ONE MONTH.ARUN SHARMATELLS YOU HOW YOU

CAN UTILISE THE TIME LEFT TO EFFECTIVELY IMPROVE

YOUR CHANCES AT CAT 2008

THE last month of preparations is here and the focus has now shifted to applying finishing

touches to one's preparation. Most aspirants would have already settled into their

comfortable percentile ranges and would be quite resigned to whatever percentiles they are

receiving. However, even at this stage, our firm belief remains that you can utilise the time

left to effectively improve your chances at CAT 2008.

Remember, what you need to focus on now is to do the best you can — let the results

take care of themselves. So obviously, the moot questions coming out of most students

would be: What should I do at this stage of my preparations and how can I utilise my last

month to maximise possible benefit?

The main thing to understand at this stage is that whatever you are trying to do, focus on

things that have a pay-off within one month of work. In today's article we would try to focus

on some processes for Quantitative Aptitude (QA). Following are the objectives you should

focus on:

OBJECTIVES FOR QA

Get really good at what you know and know what they are going to mostly ask you. Hence,

get really good at what they are mostly going to ask you.

What do we mean by this? A close analysis of past trends of the CAT shows that there is

great emphasis on Block I and Block V chapters in QA (as defined earlier in this series). Just

to remind those of you who have not followed this series — Block I consists of the chapters

of Number Systems and Progressions. Block V consists of the chapters of Functions,

Inequalities, Logs and Quadratic Equations.

A close look at past papers of CAT would make you realise that every year without fail

between 60-85% of the test paper has been on Block I and Block V. This comes at a time

when the qualifying score in quants has hovered around 25% to 30%. These two blocks

alone account for almost double of what you need to get to qualify in the quants section of

the exam, year after year. While CAT 2005 had around 19 questions out of 30, CAT 2006

had 18 out of 25 and CAT 2007 had 19 out of 25 from these blocks of chapters.

And hence, CAT 2008 should be no different. This gives us objective I in QA preparation.

Objective I:

Thoroughly review all concepts and, more importantly, go through the maximum number of

questions that you can go through in these blocks. Try to reach a point where you know

practically every question and/or every logic that can be thrown up in a question from these

blocks. Also, make sure you revise each and every question from these blocks. We are

assuming here that most of you must have already done a lot of work on these chapters.

Solve 25 questions daily from these chapters combined, and review at least 40-50

questions that you have already solved from these chapters earlier. While reviewing, just try

to recollect or think about the thought process required to solve the question. One good idea

might be to collect the mock test papers of a few institutes and solve them for these

chapters. In 30 days you can cover over 750 new questions and review over 1,200

questions — numbers that should be sufficient to put you in a confident state of mind for the

D-Day.

Objective II:

Create a solid back up plan. Whenever, the CAT has deviated from the model of the over

70% of the test coming out of the chapters mentioned above, the deviation has been mostly

towards:

A) Geometry and Mensuration B) Time Speed and Distance, and/or C) Permutations and

Combinations and Probability These three areas are crucial also because of the fact that

questions from these chapters have always been a constant presence in the CAT — check

the CAT papers over the past 10 years and you would realise the truth of our statement. So,

as a contingency plan, especially if you are already well-prepared on the main portions

mentioned above. Focus on Geometry and Mensuration and Time Speed and Distance. If you

feel comfortable with Permutations and Combinations and Probability then you could

perhaps prepare that area too. But, try to do at least two of the three areas mentioned here

for a superior contingency plan.

Objective III:

Improve your calculations. This is another thing that can be significantly enhanced in the

last month. Your focus should be on two digit calculations — additions, percentage

calculations and ratio comparisons. In our next article, we will look at some short-term

processes for developing your scores in language and data interpretation and reasoning

skills.

(The writer is an alumnus of IIM-Bangalore, a nationally renowned CAT trainer and

the author of a series of books published by Tata McGraw Hill on CAT and other

aptitude exams)

KEEPING THE FAITH

ONE OF THE GREATEST CHALLENGES YOU WILL FACE IN

THE COUNTDOWN TOTHE CAT EXAM IS KEEPING YOURSELF

MOTIVATED AND BELIEVING IN YOUR ABILITY TO CRACK

THE EXAM. ARUN SHARMATELLS YOU WHY YOU NEED TO

PREPARE FOR THE CAT AND NOT THE MOCK CAT

WHENEVER there has been any significant achievement in human history, there has always

been at it's core an underlying panorama of belief. Somewhere, sometimes, humans across

history have told themselves that 'I can' and that has been the single most important reason

for all human achievement.

So why are we talking about this at this point of time in this article? Well to tell you the

least, we have our reasons for the same. Consider this letter we received from one of the

multitudes of CAT aspirants, just last week:

“I am a student preparing for CAT 2008. I wanted to take your help on how I should

prepare in the last two months. My percentile varies between 80s and 90s. I feel in the last

two mock CATs I have been under some kind of pressure to perform well and because of

that I performed badly. I'm afraid what will happen on November 16, as the pressure then

will be so high. Sir, please help and do tell me how to improve my percentile. I had been

scoring around 95-96 in previous mock CATs but the two most recent one's have been very

low.”

For us, this e-mail is representative of the normal experiences and pressures that people

preparing for the CAT come under. And at our end this is nothing new. Over the years we

have seen the same happening to multitudes of CAT aspirants across the country. Perhaps,

on the D-day while around three lakh people would enter the exam hall physically, only

about 10,000 would enter the hall that day believing in their ability to crack the exam.

What is the reason behind this and what can be done to avoid it?

THE CAUSES

We call it the percentile syndrome. Around July to September each year, aspirants get onto

the bandwagon of giving mock exams. The logic is pretty clear for most of them — if I am

taking the CAT in November I need to practise the maximum number of mock papers prior

to the D-day. So far so good.

But then, as is evident from the e-mail above, while mock CATs do serve the purpose of

helping you practise, in our opinion their percentile scores and the c o n s e q u e n t

interpretation of the same does more harm than good. So, apart from the fortunate few who

are able to score over 98-99 percentile consistently, percentiles in mock CATs only help

demoralise most aspirants, the typical experience is that of hitting an upper limit of

percentile score and there on getting frustrated due to not being able to breach this limit.

The result then is the creation of a selffulfilling prophecy about what percentile limit one is

going to hit. So, individually in their own preparation processes, most people would already

have attributed a certain percentile range to themselves — based on what percentiles they

are getting in their mock CATs.

On the D-day, even before you start your paper, if you have already defined an upper

limit for your percentile, it will play itself out as a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is, perhaps,

both ridiculous and dangerous.

THE SOLUTIONS

Here are a few pointers that you should consider paying heed to:

1) Stop taking your percentiles seriously. Start focussing on your percentage of marks. Let

the percentiles take care of themselves. Every year, for the past 5-6 years, approximately

30% of marks as a net score have been sufficient to get above 95 percentile in the CAT.

About 40% has been pretty safe right through. Our advise to you is to focus on what

percentage of marks you are able to score in the tests that you take. And what do you need

to do to improve this percentage? The logic is that if the percentage is good enough a good

percentile would follow.

2) Remember that the mock CATs are not the actual CATs. Prepare for the CAT and stop

preparing for the mock CATs. The CAT paper is designed keeping in mind a lot of factors

that institutes running coaching classes cannot even consider while designing their mock

test papers. Just to give you an instance of this, in the DI and LR section of the CAT paper,

pick up any question that has been asked in this section and you will find that no CAT

question is longer than 6-8 steps for solving. However, when it comes to some mock papers

you would realise that there are questions that are even 20 steps long.

3) Keep yourself on your side — perhaps the most important point at this time. The

greatest wars are won and the biggest challenges are overcome if only you back yourself.

The moment you start moving into negative belief system territory, you become your own

enemy.

Perhaps the greatest challenge you face in this last stretch of preparation is to keep

yourself on your side. Keep the faith, keep the belief going and fight till the last moment.

Your battle for CAT gets over when the answer sheet is pulled out of your hand.

— The writer is an alumnus of IIM

Bangalore, a nationally renowned CAT

trainer and the author of a series of bestselling books published by Tata McGraw

Hill on CAT and other aptitude exams

English Score Made Easy

YOU CAN IMPROVE YOUR TEST SCORES IN ENGLISH BY EMPLOYING A FEW SHORT TERM STRATEGIES.ARUN SHARMATELLS HOW

The question "How can I develop my test scores in English?" is an oft-repeated question that is asked by students across the country. The question and more importantly the answer to it becomes of paramount importance in the context of the CAT being less than two months away- and most aspirants facing down the barrel when it comes to English preparations. The answer to this question differs with respect to the abilities of different levels of students and also the time available to develop their scores.
The strategy and the recommended exercises change for students preparing in the short run as against those preparing in the long run. In today's article I would like to concentrate on short term strategies to develop one's scores especially because the CAT exam is less than two months away.
The most commonly asked question types in the VA & RC sections can be divided into:

• Questions testing sentence level skills: Appropriate word usage questions, facts inference judgement questions and grammatical error questions come under this category.

• Questions testing paragraph level skills: Paragraph jumbles and critical reasoning (consisting of question types like strengthening and weakening arguments, concluding sentences, summaries etc) are included in this category.

• Questions testing passage level skills: This comprises mainly of reading comprehension.
Each of these question types concentrates on testing the aspirant on his/her ability to understand sentences, paragraphs and passages. Needless to say, no matter how good or bad your English might be, your focus of preparation has to be on trying to improve your ability to grasp the meanings of sentences, paragraphs and passages on a variety of topics.
Before we start to look at the specific requirements for English, we first need to understand the most basic problem for CAT aspirants in the English section. If you were to ask test takers about how they fared in English in a given test, most test takers would be unable to give you an estimate of how many questions they would have solved correctly. In fact, this lack of awareness about an error made while solving an English question often becomes the biggest hurdle for most students in order to improve their scores. Besides, it also results in the creation of huge amounts of uncertainty in the minds of test takers--- they are not able to realise whether they have done enough in this section. The carry over of this uncertainty to the other sections, results in an overall drop in confidence and ultimately in the scores.
Any attempt at improving your scores in VA & RC has to necessarily address this issue.
The best short term method for improving your language test scores is to become aware of the error types that occur while you solve different question types. It is only then that you will be able to identify the specific thought error that you are committing - and only after identification of the same can you work to remove it.
The following process if adopted thoroughly has the potential to help you remove the repetitive errors that you are making and hence develop your test scores.

Step 1:

Solve an exercise with or without time limits. While doing this be sure to work on one type of question at a time.

Step 2:

Without looking at the solutions, go back to every answer that you have marked. Evaluate the logic of each answer and based on your confidence in the logic you have used in marking the answer, mark each answer as:
a) Definitely correct
b) Probably correct
c) Probably wrong
d) Definitely wrong.

Step 3:

Check your answers and find out your scores for each answer type as specified above.

Step 4:

Analyse your errors based on the following error types:
Error Type 1: Definitely correct gone wrong: What was the specific logic that you missed out on while solving this question and then marking your answer as definitely correct.
Error Type 2: Probably correct gone right: Why were you not able to eliminate the incorrect option completely?
Error Type 3: Probably correct gone wrong: Why were you not able to spot the strength of the specific logic that supported the correct option.
Error Type 4: Probably wrong gone right: Why were you not able to eliminate the incorrect option completely? In fact, what made you think that the incorrect option was right??
Error Type 5: Probably wrong gone wrong: Why were you not able to spot the strength of the specific logic that supported the correct option.
Error Type 6: Definitely wrong gone wrong: You would only mark a question as definitely wrong, if you had somehow realised that the original logic you had used was incorrect. In such a case, you need to ask yourself the question: Why were you not able to spot the correct answer while solving the question for the first time?
Error Type 7: Definitely wrong gone right: You should have been able to identify the question as definitely right. Only goes to show that you never got a hang of the specific question (or it's options). In such a case, you need to identify the logical oversight that occurred during your analysis of the question that made you mark the answer as definitely wrong instead of definitely correct.
In my view, in case you are unable to solve a specific question in English, it means that the level of doubt inserted inside the question is beating you. Hence, the main thrust for short term preparation for English has to involve teaching yourself how to overcome the doubts that are currently beating you.
— The writer is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore, a nationally renowned CAT trainer and the author of a series of best-selling books published by Tata McGraw Hill on CAT
and other aptitude exams

CATch it, if you can

YOU CAN IMPROVE YOUR TEST SCORE BY DOING A CLOSE

ANALYSIS OF YOUR BEHAVIOURAL PATTERN DURING THE

DURATION OF A TEST. ARUN SHARMATELLS HOW

With just two months left for the all-important CAT exam, most of you must be revising

the syllabus, desperately covering new topics and definitely taking mock-tests. This timeframe

is most crucial for your CAT preparation. However, we have observed over the time

that most CAT aspirants are unable to utilise this time-frame well. And the typical

experience for most students is that their percentile scores get stuck in a certain range in

whatever mock tests they are taking. In today's article we will concentrate on a crucial

question that must have been appearing in the minds of CAT aspirants at this stage — "How

do I increase my test scores?" We want to communicate to you, at this stage, that a lot is

possible in this direction — provided you are able to find the right things to do.

So what can be done? You can work in three directions to improve your test score:

• Ability improvement

• Belief improvement

• Test taking behaviour improvement

In this article we would be elaborating on the third issue — the test taking behaviour

improvement.

In a past article, we mentioned that the statistics of CAT 2007 revealed — while a score of

about 110 out of 300 was sufficient to score 99 percentile, a score of 70 plus gave a score of

about 80 percentile. It is a moot point that a student scoring in a range of 80 percentile

would think that s/he was away from cracking CAT. However, we believe that improving test

scores by around 40 to 50 marks does not necessarily require a year's preparations. It could

be a matter of just a few days to a few weeks — provided you hit upon the correct strategy

and work dimensions to execute your preparation.

For every student, who will be able to increase test scores on his/her own, there would be

over 25 aspirants whose scores would get stuck in a range, which can at best be considered

sub-optimal when considered against the backdrop of his/her abilities.

In context of the marking pattern used over the last couple of years — four marks per

question and negative one for a wrong answer — increasing your scores by approximately

50 marks could just mean overturning about 10 errors.

A close analysis of behavioural patterns during the test can help in improving the test

score.

Your test score is directly dependant on your ability, as well as behaviour pattern in each

of the three sections of the paper. However, even while the multitudes focus heavily on their

ability aspect, little or no attention is given to the all-important aspect of behaviour.

You will be surprised how much change you can create in your test score by closely

analysing your behavioural pattern during the test. The primary reason for this is that if you

go back into the way your mind worked during the exam, you will realise that for major time

chunks, during the exam, your mind was not working at all! You were thinking suboptimally.

Perhaps this is the reason why most students have had the experience of having

got stuck and not being able to solve a question during the test period or being able to solve

the same question without the examination pressure within a matter of seconds.

What are the components that you need to measure under behaviour patterns?

1) Your inherent and expressed insecurity with a particular section:

Your inherent insecurity is the amount of residual fear that you carry within your mind with

respect to a particular section. If you carry negative beliefs in your mind about a particular

section (and/or a particular question type) it is bound to impede on your ability to score well

in that area. Your expressed insecurity is the amount of your inherent insecurity that is

brought out while solving the paper.

A negative belief that tells you: "I cannot solve Quant or data interpretation questions or

English section" is the main reason for these insecurities. If you allow any of these

insecurities to remain in your mind, it will hurt you badly inside the CAT.

Hence, your target before CAT is to remove these insecurities. In other words, in your

mind you should shift to "I can" from "I cannot." While doing this, your focus should be to

deal with each section by breaking it into different question types/chapters. We will be

discussing this process of dealing with insecurity in each section independently in later

articles in this series.

2) Your behavioural pattern in the first 5-10 minutes of the test:

This time period can be defined as the warm up time during a test. Students make the

mistake of either being overcautious or over nervous during this time period.

3) Your behavioural pattern in the last 15-20 minutes of the test:

We have often observed good students falter in the last 15-20 minutes of the test paper.

Does it happen to you too? If yes, you need to train your mind to keep its bearings when the

pressure is on.

4) Your reaction to not being able to solve a question:

There is a tendency among students to carry psychological scars of not being able to solve

one question or a set of questions into the next set of questions. If you also have this

tendency — you better guard against it through doses of positive thinking.

5) Your tendency to hold on to a question/inability to move out of a question within the

appropriate time:

Every exam that students take up until CAT, the philosophy is to keep trying a question till

you crack it. In CAT, the paradigm changes. Here you might be more rewarded for leaving

questions unsolved rather than trying it from different angles and wasting your time. For all

you know the next question might be a matter of 15 seconds. Hence, if you are having the

tendency to stick to a question, you need to train yourself to leave it as soon as it conveys

the first danger signals to you.

The above negative behaviour patterns have a profound impact on your test scores.

Unfortunately, while students work very hard on practising questions, they miss out on the

opportunity to raise their scores by making minute adjustments to their behavioural pattern.