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
trainer and the author of a series of bestselling books published by Tata McGraw
Hill on CAT and other aptitude exams
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