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)