Copy CAT Fundas

Cutoff for different Institutes ( Past Data )

2008-11-17T08:29:00.000-08:00

Institute	Cut off Percentile
IIMs (A, B, C, L, I, K, S)	98+
MDI, NITIE, TAPMI, IMT, SPJain	95-97
MICA, IMI, UBS	92-95
FORE, KJ Somaiya, NIRMA, IIFM, Praxis	88-92
Welingkar, IISWBM, LBS, IFMR	80-88
Kirloaskar, SDM, IIMM, ITM, AMITY	70-80

Ref: http://www.catindiaonline.com

-------------------------------------------
Following were the cutoffs(percentiles) last year for various CAT based colleges...

IIMA 99.3 overall (sectionals marginally higher than IIMC)

IIMB profile based( Least being somewhere around 95)

IIMC 98.96 overall (sectionals around 95 each)

IIML profile based(least being somewhere around 97)

IIMK 98 overall with 92 sectionals

IIMI 98 overall with sectionals 80 called top 1500 odd students satisfying
this criteria

IIMS 80% marks in graduation(not sure about the CAT percentile though
people with around 96.5 have made it)

NITIE 98.2 overall with sectionals 80

MDI PGPM 97 overall with 80 sectionals

SPJAIN Profile based...although everyone needs to score at least 85 percentile in CAT

IMT-G 96 overall

IMI 96 overall sectionals 50

TAPMI 90+ with sectionals of around 68+

NIRMA Total percentile is greater than or equal to 91,
Sectional cut-off - 50 percentile each, and
No sectional cut-off for total percentile 95 and above.

PS:all the info(except for NIRMA ) mentioned above is strictly based on my memory...but it should be pretty accurate

Hope this helps....
Ref: http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/12097-what-cut-off-cat-based-83.html#post1220033

Last Minute Gyan

2008-11-15T00:37:00.001-08:00

"A few pointers for stuff just before/during the exam and beyond:

0. Reach exam hall early and enjoy the sight of the students who are doing last minute revisions. Don't get nervous when you see other people study but give them a healthy smile

Don't be nervous when you se hoardes of students. Half of them have filled the form because their parents filled it and another 25% filled the form because their peers filled it, so just to be a part of peer group, he/she filled the form!
Remember for a given AIR, more the no of students appearing for the exam, better will be your %ile

1. You have done really well throughout the season. Afterall that's why you are in the dream team. So there is no reason why you should not do well in this paper. So keep this thought in mind to overcome anxiety before exam. Don't overhype the paper, just enjoy the 150 minutes process , n you will be thru!

2. With approx 1.9 lakh students, the best way to remove milk from water is to change pattern.So just keep that in mind.
Be prepared to get surprised if the pattern does not change
Don't get psyched out by change in pattern. There are enough other aspirants who are going to do that! You need not join that group.
So at time t=0 , itself you may assume that approx 5-10% people will get psyched out! Good for you!

3. When you get the paper, certianly there will be butterflies in the stomach, there have to be! Else consult a good psychologist
The target is to drive away these butterflies as fast as you can!
So spend initial 10-20 seconds on scanning the paper, go thorough the pages, see how many questions are to be solved, check whether the paper has a few DI sets, a few RCs , check whether the paper is in ENglish langugage
This will help you to drive away the anxiety and it will assure you of the fact that similar DI sets , RCs have been done by you over the mocks. And this is something which is not in greek n latin and hence no need to be nervous!

3. The next anxiety barrier will be broken ,when you get the answer of the 1st problem that you are solving. So don't spend too much time on solving 1st problem. Scan the questions to find the sitter and just DO it
When you get the answer and you find that it is one of the options, butterflies are driven out!

4. With the anxiety bubble being burst, you will fully forget the hype of 1.9 Lakh students n blah blah You will be back in your tempo.

Keep doing micro-time management using alarm in your watch i.e. after every 15 minutes, do review approx how many questions you have done. This will make sure that you don't lose track of time in the heat of exam!
Just give the exam for 150 minutes in your ususal form and you will be thru!

5. Exam de do, PG pe scores post karo and so jao

One point though: It is very difficult to predict cutoffs on D-day ,so don't worry if some insti comes up with EU cutoff =22 and you ve got 18 marks as it happened in CAT05!
So don't base your performance on these cutoffs. FYI EU cutoff was 13 marks last year!

6. There will be a void in your life after CAT.In case you have no more exams , there will be nothing to do!
So do all those things that you missed because of busy mock Sundays.

Make friends on PG, infact a lot of friends I made on PG were in Dec05, as this was the month of uncertainity, we kept on boosting morale of each other!

7. Be patient about results. They will come , don't worry.
Plz don't spend unncessary time, looking at IIM websites and hitting Refresh Refresh and hoping that a link for result will be out up.

IIMs are not stcokmarkets, plz spare them IIMs will convey you when the results will be out. Don't waste your time about speculating !

Will be back with more tips when my exams get over "

Ref: http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/34706-the-pg-dream-team-08-a-31.html#post1272602

CAT 2008- scared? who, me? A nice post by Total Gadha

2008-11-13T23:18:00.000-08:00

On 15^th November, 2008, you will have a sleepless night. You will twist and turn in your bed, shut your eyes tight, and try to fall into slumber, trying not to think about what the next day is going to bring. You will tell yourself to relax and that whatever is going to happen will make no difference to your life. You may have some fits of fear or bad dreams. You may try some alcohol or marijuana to calm yourself. And, for the first time in your slovenly life, you would try to go to bed early because you are taking CAT the next day. Needless to say, 15^th November, 2008 would be one hell of a restless night.

And Surprise! For the first time in your slothful existence, you find yourself awake at 6:00 am on 16^th November! Yes you, who swore that 10:00 am was early morning. And suddenly the panic hits you, oh damn! Today is the CAT. The real thing. You look at your watch again. 6: 30 am. You have to report at your test center by 9:45 am so you have lots of time. You go freshen up, take your breakfast, try to read newspapers full of articles giving you CAT-cracking tips, check your pencils, sharpeners, lucky underwear, CAT-admit card, and- in the end- get out of the house because you are tired of waiting. You don’t want to be caught up in a traffic jam, hit by a dog, or caught in a Mexican shootout and get delayed for your CAT so you leave early. Maybe you will have your parents coming along with you and find that your mom’s cheerful smiles are panicking you more and more. Your test center is far away from your house and you ask a lot for the directions before you finally get to the school. Why do they always keep the CAT center to the other end of the city?

And suddenly you are there. You look at your watch- 8:50. You have reached an hour early, and, looking at the crowd milling around the gate, so has everyone else. You push through the crowd holding your admit card and check your classroom with the help of your roll number. To ensure that you have not made any mistake you check your roll number and classroom again. Some of your acquaintances who have been taking the mocks in the same school with you are standing at a distance and you join them for a casual talk. While you walk up to them, you notice a few students mugging up wordlist or formula from their notebook. A marketing guy from some coaching institute is pushing leaflets into students’ hands trying to make use of this opportunity with cheap marketing. You join the group of your ‘so called friends’ who are discussing about the paper. The discussion invariable turns to percentiles and the more they discuss percentiles, the more you realize ki tumhari ‘watt lagi hui hai.’ But you still keep on discussing. More and more people keep coming and suddenly the whole street in front of the gate is jam packed. People start jostling each other to reach the school gate. School authorities scream at the top of their voice to make themselves heard. And now it hits you. Shit. So many people take CAT! Mera admission kaise hoga?

And mercifully, after a seemingly long time, the gates are opened and the students start streaming in. Although you have not done it in a long time, you touch your parents’ feet to get their blessings, turn around, and then enter deep into the jungle. Once inside the school, your first task is to locate the washroom because you cannot hold yourself. The school seems to be out of electricity and feels dark and gloomy everywhere. Once inside the bathroom, you try to steady yourself, relax, and say all the usual gibberish about “it doesn’t matter” to yourself. You make your way to your classroom. The classroom is dark and gloomy and it sinks your spirits further. The desks are small and you wonder how you will accommodate your bulky frame inside into it. You switch off your cell and keep in on the Teacher’s desk. The roll numbers are stuck onto the desk so you find your desk easily. You collapse in your chair with relief as your legs are paining from standing outside for so long. You discover that both your chair and your desk are rickety and that it would be hard to keep your desk steady while trying to write on it. You spend minutes trying to insert a thick roll of paper under one of the legs. Sigh… why does it happen to you only?

If you think this is happening to you only, you are wrong. It is happening to everyone. On that D-day every student is going through this panic attack. You are not alone. Sab ki haalat patli hai

There are a few things you should remember over here:

Check your center a day before CAT. On the D-day, you would not be worried about finding your center and wouldn’t have to leave early. Don’t reach too early; reach 15 minutes before the scheduled time.
Don’t spend time discussing with other CAT takers outside your center.
Locate the washroom and drinking water facility in the school before the start of your exam.
Keep a bar of chocolate with you in the exam. It helps you relax.
Above all, remember this article. DON’T PANIC.

How do you keep away panic besides eating away that tasty chocolate of yours?

While Googling on the net for keywords such as “choking under pressure,” “handling pressure,” etc. I came across many medical and psychology articles which describe the cause and symptoms of choking- performance decrements under pressure circumstances. In short, while taking CAT if you feel that your mind has become foggy or numb, you cannot remember formula, or that you have a sudden slump in your enthusiasm, you are experiencing phenomenon of choking. To explain choking under pressure, the following theory in psychology have been put across.

The theory says that when you pay excessive attention to skills that have become automatic your performance will go down. This theory best explains the difference between performance of an expert golfer and a novice golfer during a very high stake tournament. Although both may possess the same skills, an expert golfer does not pay attention to his shots or movement of his limbs. He has done it so many times that he plays instinctively and by habit. A novice golfer, on the other hand, evaluates his every shot, pays excessive attention to his stance, and so on… Invariably, the performance of a novice golfer goes down. It can be seen that

High self-conscious participants are more likely to choke than their low self-conscious counterparts.
This tendency is particularly evident for the private self-consciousness sub-scale (where attention is directed inwards, to private thoughts and feelings, as opposed to public selfconsciousness, where attention is directed to the self as the object of others’ awareness).
In terms of trait anxiety, only somatic trait anxiety (measuring physical feelings, eg jitteriness) was a significant predictor of choking.

So what can you do to avoid choking during your CAT paper? Simply this:

Flow. Don’t stop for anything. Flow.
Avoid paying attention to your performance or your skills or your accuracy. Most of you have taken many mock CATs and you already know the process. Don’t pay attention to what you are doing.
Flow. Flow, flow, flow.
Don’t check and recheck your answers. Stop thinking whether you are doing it right or wrong.
Flow. Don’t think. Flow.
Do not evaluate how you are doing so far. Do not calculate how many attempts you have made or how many marks you have captured.
Be an expert. Just flow.
Do not think about past, or future, or what will happen or what will not happen.
Flowwww.

Also, most of you would need to acknowledge that you are feeling the pressure of the exam. If any time during the exam you feel that you are choking, stop for a minute, do some deep breathing, and relax. Tell yourself that you have done this before and that you can do it. Slowly, the panic waves will pass and you will become normal. The best way to handle pressure is to acknowledge it first and then deal with it.

And here is some gyaan from a last year’s article:

Equal time to all the sections: Trust me, I have tried all the variations such as deducting some time from my strongest section and giving it to my weakest section. It does not work. Before CAT 2005, I had taken 48 full length tests (not even counting the sectional tests) and experimented with every tactic that came into my mind. I realized that most strategies come because of the fear inside you. Keeping it simple helps. Give equal time to all the sections.

Strongest, Stronger, Strong: Attempt the section in that order. When I started test-taking, I used to keep Quant (strongest) first, DI (strong) next and Verbal in the end. Because my DI was weak, I figured that I would take more time in the section. As my reading speed was good I figured that I could make up for the extra time taken in DI with less time spent in Verbal. Although I used to clear cutoffs in all the three section, I was always fearful before every paper and was unable to pile up a huge score as my Verbal section was the highest scoring section. Then I let myself loose. Starting with Quant always put me in a good mood. This is the biggest reason for starting with your strongest section- getting few questions correct under your belt in the first 5- 10 minutes puts you in a good mood and overcomes your fear. From quant, I started solving the verbal section. As a result, by the time I reached the DI section I used to be in such a high that I could crack a lot of question. Every paper became a piece of cake.

Always reach the end of every section: This is THE most important test-taking strategy that I followed. If I had covered 1/3^rd of the section in half the time, I made sure that I cover the rest 2/3^rd in the other half. None of you can predict where the sitters are lying in the paper. To cover the whole section, you will have to rush through the problems and thereby you will only pick up problems which you can tell at first glance that you can solve. This is the crux of test-taking. You will be identifying most of he sitters. So make it a strict rule with every section- cover he whole section, end to end.

Two-markers first, one marker next: For more than two years, I have been developing content for MBA aspirants. I can tell you that there is not a single content developer on this earth who can gauge difficulty index of a question exactly. A question might be difficult for you but simple for him. Similarly, a question might rate higher on his difficulty table but you might solve it in ten seconds. Truth is, there is no exact division that question belongs to a two-marker or a one-marker category. So go for two-markers first. You might find some easy questions there and get bigger payoffs for the same input of time.

That’s all folks. Good luck and God bless you all with success.

Tips for D-Day- Courtesy T.I.M.E

2008-11-11T05:43:00.000-08:00

Often repeated stuff , still no harm in refreshing it again

In a nutshell

Two days before D-Day
Work toward reducing the pressure on yourself
No serious preparation
just browse through what you have already worked on
Certainly no taking Mock CATs in the last 2 days
Don't get into any discussion on Mock CAT papers in the last 2 days
If you are not familiar with the centre, make a visit to the test centre the previous day to acquaint yourself with the route

On the day of the CAT

Plan to reach the exam centre at least 30 minutes before the reporting time of 9:45 AM
Carry your Hall Ticket, pencils, sharpener, eraser, pen, and a wrist watch
Do not expect any pattern or cut-offs for the paper
Be prepared for all eventualities

During the exam

Scan the paper and distribute the time over various sections
Don't worry if the paper is difficult
all test-takers are taking the same paper
Do not worry about the difficulty level of the paper
Focus on locating easy questions and answering them
Mark your answers on the OMR sheet for each question as soon as you solve it
Check that you are marking the oval against the correct question
If you are able to eliminate three choices (and are not able to arrive at the final answer), mark as your answer, one of the remaining two choices it is not worth leaving out such a question
Don't spend too much time on any one question
No blind guessing of answers
Keep track of time
Do not lose heart if one section goes bad - it may be the same with everyone else

THE D-DAY IS ALL THAT MATTERS -10th Nov Article by Arun Sharma On Education Times

2008-11-09T20:19:00.000-08:00

AS YOU ENTER THE EXAMINATION HALL FOR PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT TEST IN YOUR LIFE,ALL THAT IS GOING TO MATTER IS THE NEXT 150 MINUTES.BUT,THAT ALSO MEANS YOU HAVE AS GOOD A CHANCE TO PERFORM AS ANY ONE ELSE.ARUN SHARMA GIVES YOU THE LOW-DOWN

SO, we have reached a point of time where all your preparations and hard work dissolves into the final two-and-a-half hours. In a way anything that you have done till now — your preparations, your test scores — lose their significance. When the bell rings on the D-day, for a brief period of time an estimated two-and-a-half lakh aspirants would be equated for a brief period of time.
As you enter the examination hall for perhaps the most important test in your life, all that is going to matter is the next 150 minutes. So, what you need to remember is that on the D-day you are going to have as much of a chance as anybody else to perform. So, what are the few key things you need to remember as you approach the D-day? More importantly, what are the few things that you should focus to control in those 150 minutes?
Well looking at it from our perspective, the last week represents the most important phase of your preparations. We would like to make the following points:

1. Recognise that this is not the time for conventional preparations:

Free yourself from your routine of solving questions, test papers etc. Perhaps, you should do no mental work on the last twothree days before the examination. So, get rid of your books, your revision plans et al. Give yourself the freedom to enjoy the last few days. Get away from the pressure, the intensity. Get in touch with your inner-self and make your plans of where you would want to take your life, with or without cracking the CAT.
A point we have made before, but which gains immense importance in the last week prior to the CAT — Reduce the importance of the CAT in your life. Create an alternate plan of success, prove to yourself how you are going to ‘make it big’ irrespective of whether you go to an IIM or not. Ironically, achieving this state of mind could be the biggest favour you could do to your chances on November 16.

2. Recognise that the battle you are facing is against yourself:

It’s a battle for the management of your mind. One of the greatest disservice you could do to yourself during the 150 minutes of the CAT is to stop focussing on your performance and start thinking about where your competition is heading to. Do not fall into this thinking trap. Instead, your main goal of managing your mind should be to ensure that your undiluted focus for 150 minutes is on what you can control.
At every point of the examination the only thing that you can control is the next question and its solution. Nothing else matters. The previous question and its experience does not, the previous section does not, the next question or the next section does not.

• What will matter in the CAT is what you are able to execute.

• What will matter in the CAT is whether you will be able to spend the appropriate time for the appropriate question.

• What will matter in the CAT is whether you are able to block out your negative emotions.

• What will ultimately matter in the CAT is going to be the percentage of time when you had control of your mind.
For this purpose it is important to 'free your mind.' For 150 minutes on November 16 you will need to be insulated against the three things that imprison your mind — fear, doubt and disbelief.

3. Get into the no fear state and no doubt state:

Fear and anxiety take over our minds when we are faced with a situation where we have something to lose. The moment external circumstances create a situation where an individual recognises that he is in danger of losing out on something he/she has cherished, that is the point where anxiety and fear grip you. The moment that happens, one starts losing control on one's performance.
On a day like the CAT where there is so much at stake, such a thing is bound to happen to you. In fact, it is almost sure to happen to each and every aspirant on that day. What is going to be your critical test is how fast you can regain control of yourself when fear, doubt and anxiety grip you.
Throughout this series of articles we have maintained that the questions in the CAT are pretty easy. That has been the case for every CAT paper of the past decade and more. That is going to be true for CAT 2008 as well. Why the CAT becomes difficult is because these negative emotions we are talking about create lapses of reason. The most common reaction for every 50-60-70-80-90-99 percentiler after he/she comes out of the paper is ‘Oh my gosh. How could I miss this logic?’
The answer is that you miss out on logic, thought processes and reactions when your state of mind is dominated by fear, doubt and anxiety. So, the battle on the D-day is going to be one of holding yourself straight. It's going to be a battle of managing your state of mind — one of controlling your senses and your intelligence.
Trust yourself and break barriers of disbelief. The aspirants who do these things the best are the ones who will get the coveted interview calls. All the Best!

How to get the best out of AIMCATs

2008-11-09T02:36:00.000-08:00

Note : Following as a Article from TIME website . Hope I had read it earlier . Nonetheless better late then never

How to get the best out of AIMCATs

Section I: Introduction

Approach: Treat each & every AIMCAT like a real CAT - with as much seriousness as you would treat CAT. This means that you will divide your time in doing the sections in a manner that you demonstrate your competence in all the sections so as to achieve the sectional cut-offs.

You are advised to distribute the total time available to you over various sections as per the "Test taking Strategies" session/note.

Easy Questions: A sure-shot way to conquer CAT or any other exam is to identify easy questions and doing these as fast as you can with good accuracy. The other important part is to leave most of the difficult questions so that in the given two and half hours, the number of questions that can be attempted, is maximized.

Scanning Skills: Scanning the paper to identify easy/difficult questions is an important skill that you will need to build, develop and hone with each AIMCAT. A series of AIMCAT tests, therefore, greatly helps in developing this ability.

Accuracy: You should target at achieving an accuracy level of 70-80%, which means that out of every 20 questions attempted by you, at least 14 questions should be right.

Importance of Analysis: A large number of successful T.I.M.E. students have confirmed that a "thorough analysis" of AIMCATs was the most important ingredient in their preparation & their eventual success. Given below is the process recommended by T.I.M.E. and used by these students in analyzing their performance in AIMCATs to achieve success. This note covers what you should do as soon as you write your AIMCAT (Stage II) and how you should use the results and AIMCAT performance feedback given to you on T.I.M.E. website for every AIMCAT (Stage III).

Section II: How do I get more out of AIMCATs

This section deals with what you should do after you take the AIMCAT (and before you get to know your percentile scores and rank).

Basics

1. To get the best out of AIMCATs, please budget at least 6-8 hours for a thorough analysis which is essential to get the full learning out of the same. A number of students mistakenly focus more on taking a large number of tests without rigorous analysis of the tests they take. Remember, test-taking without proper analysis is like eating without digestion.

2. While taking the AIMCAT, please ensure that you mark in your test booklet, each question/option attempted by you.

3. After the AIMCAT is over, please DO NOT look at key/solutions to check your marks. Instead, freshen up, relax a bit and get ready for a few marathon sessions.

4. Please take each stage as seriously as you would take the actual CAT.

5. Results in each stage should be tabulated as given in annexure under 'Record - Keeping'.

Stage 1

In the first stage, please attempt those questions in the AIMCAT which you did not attempt earlier. You will need to fix a time period for Stage 1.

This time period can be arrived at as below:

a) Suppose total Questions in AIMCAT: 75 ( 100% )
b) Questions attempted : 30 ( 40% ) in two and half hours
c) Balance Questions : 45
d) Time period to be fixed for stage 1 to attempt 45 Questions: 3 hours ( this is calculated using student's speed as given in this example)
On the other hand, if the number of questions attempted was 30 then:
a) Balance Questions : 45
b) Time period fixed for stage 1 to attempt 45 questions : 90 minutes

The actual time you should fix will be more than what you calculate as above since the questions that you left out will be more difficult/time-consuming than the questions that you attempted in the exam. Hence, budget for about 20-30 minutes more than what you calculate as above.

After fixing the time period, you should now attempt the un-attempted questions in that time period by using an alarm clock.

Please note that after stage 1, you may have still left some questions un-attempted.

Stage 2

Now you will attempt all the "leftover" questions that were not attempted so far (at the first time or in Stage 1) without any "time limit". It is possible that even after giving "infinite" time, you may still not be able to answer all the questions.

Stage 3

Now is the time to check how many of your attempts are right by using the key only. Please Do Not look at the solutions at this stage.

Stage 4

Re-attempt all those questions which you answered incorrectly, still without looking at the solutions, to see if you can correctly answer the same now. You will find that you are now able to get a few more questions correct even without looking at the solutions. Please understand that this is the way to improve your learning. You do not need to set any time limit for this stage. At the end of this stage, there could be some other questions that you still are not able to answer correctly.

Stage 5

Now look at the solutions and check following:
a) Have you solved each question by the "approach" suggested in the solutions or have you used another/longer method?
b) Solutions to those questions which you could not answer correctly earlier.
c) How to solve those questions that you were not able to solve at all at the end of stage 2.

It is possible that some students may not be able to understand fully the solutions/explanatory notes for some questions. In such a case, please take guidance from your faculty members. In case, the question is from the chapter that has not yet been taught in the class for your batch and you do not know the basics of that chapter, please wait till the chapter is taken up in your batch.

Stage 6

You will now review each question and try to classify the questions into "EASY", "MODERATE" and "DIFFICULT" questions based on your perception of the difficulty level of the questions. Use the following guidelines while assigning difficulty levels to various questions:

Easy: Can be done in about a minute.
Moderate: Requires more number of steps, more calculations: Time taken could be between 90 and 120 seconds.
Difficult : Questions where you may not know the basics for answering the question, questions that involve very long calculations or that need to have very accurate answers due to close options or questions that involve large number of steps - all these leading to time taken of more than 150 seconds.

You will then tabulate how many of these questions were attempted in your first attempt, stage 1 and stage 2.

Summary of Stages & Analysis

At the end of the analysis, you should be able to identify your strengths & weaknesses and make an action plan as below:

a) Attempts Percentage (AP): Percentage of total questions attempted. While this is undoubtedly important, a lot of students place undue emphasis on this factor alone. More attempts without accuracy will only lead to less marks and lower rank.

Attempts Percentage is closely linked to the second parameter – IEQ (Identify Easy Questions). Without high IEQ, Attempts Percentage would normally be lower. The key to improving Attempts Percentage is to build your skills in the area of:

i) Numerical Ability: This is all about your ability to calculate fast. You should be thorough with multiplication tables, conversion of fractions into percentages & vice-versa, square & cubes, etc. to improve this ability. Needless to add, the more you practice, the better you would become.

ii) Reading Speed (RS): Good RS does not only help in RC section but also helps in all the sections, for, the length of questions in each test area has significantly increased in the recent years and now almost resemble small size RC passages!

iii) Ego Management: A large number of students lose precious time in continuing with a question just because they think that they can do it and spend a disproportionate amount of time battling with it. Avoid getting into this bruising ego - battle!!

b) Ability to Identify Easy Questions (IEQ): As mentioned earlier, this is the most important skill that can make a huge difference to your score and rank. When you do this analysis for every AIMCAT, you should be able to significantly improve your ability to identify "easy" questions. You should do this analysis for each section / test area as well as for the whole paper.

Measure: IEQ = IEQ = 100 x (No. of easy questions attempted / Total no. of easy questions in the test )

Target & Action Plan: Improve your IEQ score by at least 10 percentage points in the next AIMCAT.IEQ score of 80+ is considered to be very good.

c) Accuracy (Ac): Check your accuracy in each stage and try to identify the reasons for making mistakes. The reasons could be many - carelessness in calculation, application of wrong formulae, missing out on some critical data, hastiness arising out of a desire to attempt more questions, etc. The objective is to understand the reasons why you made mistakes and learn from them. This analysis is extremely important for you if your accuracy is less than 70%. When your accuracy is low, you are wasting a lot of precious time in attempting and marking wrong answers.

Measure: Ac = 100 X (No. of questions attempted & right / No. of questions attempted )

Target & Action Plan:
i) Try to get an accuracy score of at least 70. If your score is above 70, aim to increase it and maintain it around 80-85 while trying to attempt more number of questions.
ii) Make a list of reasons and identify the number of mistakes that can be attributed to each reason. Track your progress to check if you are learning from your own mistakes.

d) Ability to Avoid Difficult Questions (ADS): This is a measure of your ability to identify the 'tricky' ones so that you leave these alone. Some of you may be able to solve and get correct answers to these questions. However, the time required in answering these could be much better utilized in answering easy questions - simply because you can attempt more of these! For most students, if their ADS is high, their IEQ will be low.

Measure: D = 100 x (No. of difficult questions attempted/Total no. of difficult questions in the test)

Target & Action Plan: Aim for a score of less than 10%.

e) Areas where you need to build knowledge & techniques (KT): In case of questions that you could not solve in any of the stages or found that the method used by you was longer/more cumbersome, stage 5 is helpful in identifying your weak areas.

You will need to build a storehouse of short-cut techniques and also work on improving knowledge in your weak areas.

Record-keeping

AIMCAT	AP (Attempts Percentage)	IEQ	Ac	ADS
916 - Stage1
916 - Stage2
916 - Stage3
916 - Total

Section III : Additional Analysis & Action Plan after AIMCAT results are declared

Discrepancy between your estimated score and the one reported on the website

If you notice any large discrepancy (difference of more than 2 in your attempts, right or wrong answers) estimated by you against that reported on the website , it is possible that the darkening of ovals done by you on the OMR sheet is improper. Please pay special attention to this. Otherwise you may lose marks unnecessarily.

How to use AIMCAT Feedback

A thorough analysis of the AIMCAT results provided on T.I.M.E. website will help you get an insight into what's happening with your performance in the AIMCATs. It also helps you to understand your relative performance vis-à-vis the entire student community writing T.I.M.E. AIMCATs.

The feedback given to you on AIMCATs consists of the following:

Section-wise Results
Area-wise Results
All-India Comparative Performance
Question-wise Analysis
Toppers' List
Snapshot of your Performance
Performance across AIMCATs

Let us look at the parameters on which you are given feedback under each of the above areas.

Section-wise Analysis: This gives the performance of the student in each section. In addition to your City Rank and All India Rank, you get your percentile score, percentage score. These two parameters are also the scores given in the Score Card of CAT. In addition, you can also know the cut-offs in each section as well as the cut-off for the entire paper as a whole. These cut-offs are the levels that you should aim to get a call from the IIMs. With the help of the percentile mark, one can understand how close the student was to the cutoff. A safe percentile mark in each section would be around 85. You should strive towards achieving this target in each section. A thorough analysis of the ranks in each section along with the percentile scores in the section will give you an indication of where you stand in the entire lot of students writing the AIMCATs.

Area-wise Analysis: In addition to the Section-wise analysis, the Area-wise analysis can be used to check your performance across various test areas within a section also. Whereas section wise analysis gives you the relative performance in the section, area wise analysis will give the relative performance in each area viz., RC, VA, QA, DI, DS and LA. So you can check your percentile rank in various areas and work on those areas where your performance is less compared to the other areas. In fact this will also help students understand the relative proficiency of the entire test takers.

Question-wise Analysis: The Question-wise Analysis gives the following feedback for each of the questions in the test: the correct answer to the AIMCAT, the answers marked by you, the difficulty level of the question, number of people who attempted that question and the number of students who got the answer correct. This analysis will help you to tally the marking you are supposed to have done on the OMR with what you actually had marked. In addition, you can know what type of questions you should have attempted and what should have been left out with the help of the difficulty level as well as the data on the number of people getting a particular answer correct.

Toppers List: This is the list of all those students who have cleared the cut off in all the sections. Please note that by studying the toppers marks, you can understand the pattern of the toppers scores i.e. which areas they are scoring marks in and which sections are not easy to score and accordingly modify your preparation. You should try to get into the toppers list as many times as possible so as to get the confidence of making it to the IIMs.

All India Comparative Performance: This will give the marks at various rank levels in each of the sections. Please note that the sum of the marks of the sections may not be equal to the total (all sections taken together). The importance of every mark is clearly brought out by this All India Comparative Performance analysis. A simple analysis of how better your rank could be can be gauged by looking at the marks you have got and comparing it to the person who is ranked 100 places ahead of you. This will hopefully propel you to go a little faster in your exam and attempt more or be a little more careful so as not to make mistakes in the exam and thereby get the extra marks to improve your rank.

Snapshot of your Performance: In each section of the test and for each level of difficulty of questions, Snapshot identifies the questions that you got right, those that you attempted but got wrong and those that you did not attempt. The color coding helps you identify the mistakes in your strategy and helps you fine tune your approach before you go for the next AIMCAT.

Performance across AIMCATs (Areawise and Sectionwise): This will give a picture of what has been your performance across AIMCATs at one shot. This will also help you to understand which of the areas you need to concentrate on and change your strategy for attempting the paper. For example, if you have not been crossing your cutoff in say verbal and RC by a mark or two in every AIMCAT, then it may be worthwhile in changing the time limits that you set for yourself in that section and give say 5 minutes more than the time you usually give to ensure that you cross the cutoff comfortably.

3. Target-setting

Your target in AIMCATs cannot be just an improvement in your NET score. You should be clear that the ABSOLUTE SCORE in the AIMCATs is not the most reliable indicator of whether you are improving. For example, a lower score in a relatively difficult test could be better than a higher score in an easier one!

Percentile score or rank are the only reliable indicators of your performance.

It is suggested that you should fix a target for the next AIMCAT after you finish analyzing the current one. This target can be a two-stage one depending on your performance level:

Stage I: Target to clear the cut-off in any given section where your score is lower than the cut-off score.

If you narrowly missed the cut-off in a section, did you miss it because:
a) you gave it less time? Or
b) attempted fewer questions? Or
c) have low Accuracy score?

On the other hand, if you missed the cut-off by a wide margin in a section, is it because:
a) your "fundas" in this area are poor? Or
b) you gave this section very little time?

In either case, you have to prepare an action plan to reduce/eliminate this lacuna.

Stage II: Target a higher score / percentile

This is a bit more difficult. As explained earlier, higher absolute score may not necessarily lead to higher percentile score or higher rank, hence your target has to be in terms of percentile rank. To do this well, you will need to develop the ability of assessing how difficult/easy each of the sections/whole paper was. This can be done by benchmarking the test paper against one or more of the earlier tests. This is a skill that can be acquired over a period of this and this is where we expect the long series of 20 AIMCATs to really make a difference to the student.

In a Nutshell

Be up to date with your Basics: Remember that, over the past few years, CAT has been placing increasingly more emphasis on the sheer ability to tackle a question and solve it, when compared to resorting to shortcuts, speed, selection of questions etc. Therefore, you better be up to date with your basics on the topics that you would have already covered in class.

Be regular: Do not miss out on any AIMCAT unless it is absolutely unavoidable, and take each AIMCAT seriously, as if it were the real CAT itself – minus the consequences, of course! In short, always give your best go at it but never let it get to you!

Analyze, analyze, and analyze: After each AIMCAT, spend at least 2 to 3 hours analyzing each section of the paper. This is undoubtedly the most enriching experience that you can extract out of the AIMCATs. Try and first work out each and every question in as many different ways as you can think of and only then look up the solutions for the same. It is in this phase of your prep that you can expect to significantly improve your understanding of the basics and more importantly, you ability to apply them in an exam scenario.

Clarify your Doubts: Do not hesitate to approach your respective faculty to clarify your doubts and gain useful and important inputs. Also, forming small groups with three to four of your friends to dissect and discuss each AIMCAT, after you have done your share of individual analysis, is also a very good approach to maximize your learning.

Track your performance regularly: Most of the above mentioned effort needs to be put in within the first two days after each AIMCAT. As soon as the results of the AIMCAT are made available on the website, ensure that you take enough time to look them up diligently. The AIMCAT results that are made available on the institute website are meticulously planned, comprehensive and personalized analyses that are intended to give you invaluable feedback regarding your performance. This feedback will guide you towards a better, more focused and effective preparation.

Plan for improvement: Two to three days before each AIMCAT, make a short plan of improvement – to be implemented over the remaining AIMCATs and also the rest of your preparation and overall approach – on the basis of all the analysis that you would have put in for the previous AIMCAT. This plan should be a dynamic one, subject to modifications and improvements with each AIMCAT.

On a final note, know and remember that the competition is bound to intimidate you on more than one occasion over the coming few months and you better be prepared for spells of self-doubt, despair and discouragement – they are all a part and parcel of the game – which you will eventually become accustomed to and, hopefully, use as stepping stones to reach greater heights in your preparation and career in the long run.

I am reminded of the famous lines of the song ‘Sunscreen’ by Baz Luhrmann - “ Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself ( the full extract is on www.lyricscrawler.com/song/3953.html )

WISH YOU ALL THE BEST!

Down in Mocks??

2008-11-07T07:09:00.000-08:00

Lets Crack the FIJs !!

2008-11-07T06:39:00.000-08:00

FIJs, or Fact Inference Judgements are what we would call "Definition" based questions. The structure of these questions is such that a set of words are given a random definition, then we are supposed to categorize a set of sentances based on those definitions.

Now, for quite some time the Fact, Inference and Jugdgements have been give a definition that is close to real life definition, but that may not always be the case. So make sure to read the definitions properly on D day.

Now getting back to the FIJs that we know,.

1) You do not have to find if a sentance is a fact or an Inference, you only need to know if it is a Fact or not.
2) You do not have to find if a sentance is a Judgement or an Inference, you only need to know if it is a Judgement or not.

So now we have reduced FIJs to FJs. All you need to do is figure out the Fs and the Js, and be sure about them, and what is left is surely an Inference.

Now as per the definitions used lately in cat papers, a fact is not necessarily true, it is true subject to verification. which means it can be false too upon verification, but we do not care and will call it a Fact period.

Judgement is someone expresses his/her opinion on a ponit which maybe good or bad or great or anything else. These are of 2 main types.

Judgement based on stated facts and
Judgement based on unstated facts.
In both the cases we call them Judgements and Judgements only.

Now for some pointers with the help of examples.

(a) The heavy rains last year have been attributed to the goodwill of the gods
(b) The heavy rains last year were due to the goodwill of the gods

(a) would be a Fact, because both the occourance of heavy rains and their being attributed to the goodwill of gods is somethings that can be verified - For eg i can check up to see if there were heavy rains last year and if indeed someone did attribute the heavy rains last year to the goodwill of gods.

(b) would be a judgement, because although the occourance of heavy rains last year maybe a fact subject to verification, the opinion of the statement maker that these heavy rains are due to the goodwill of the gods is nothing but a Judgement based upon stated facts. For that matter even "The heavy rains last year can be attributed to the goodwill of the gods" will also be a Judgement.

Now look at some of the examples from cat 2006, here is a random selection of sentances

1) The truth is that we have more red tape - we take eighty nine days to start a new buisness, Australians take two.
2)Given the poor quality of service in the public sector, the HIV/AIDS affected must be switching to private initiatives that supply anit retroviral drugs (ARVs) at a low cost.
3)Red tape leads to corruption and distort's a people's character.
4)According to all statistical indications, the sarva siksha abhyan has managed to keep pace with its ambitious goals.
5)Every red tape procedure is a point of contact with an official, and such contacts have the potential to become opportunities for money to change hands.

Now lets dissect the above sentances.

1) Although the first part of the sentence may lead you to believe that it is a personal opinion, what follows this part makes is obvious that a statement of cerifiable fact is what is being made. So Fact. Things like "there is more rain here" "this is less suseptable" followed by a clear fact support it makes the whole stmt a fact. But something like "we are a less responsible people, we do not even care for our immediate environment" is very clearly a judgement based on a stated fact. The key to see the distinction clearly.

2) Reading second statement clearly shows that the second part of the statement is a personal opinion based on the first part that seems like a Fact. So Judgement

3) This is the easiest. It is a Judgement based on unstated facts.

4) This one is ambiguous, here is where we are prone to making a mistake. According to all statistical indications tells us that there is a set of facts somewhere is the background. has managed to keep pace is a conclusion ( not an opinion or Judgement) based on those background facts. So neither are the facts present here, and neither is there an opinion or Judgement. So this is clearly an Inference.

5) This is even more ambiguous. Here we are out of the scope of our reasoning. Every red tape procedure is a point of contact with an official, this seems to us like a verificable fact. and and such contacts have the potential to become opportunities for money to change hands. seems like an opinion - and we are tempted to call this a judgement. But on close reading we can see that the second part of the statement is a conclusion based on the first part. The clue is the word "potential" this one word disassociates the author from the statement and hence it is his conclusion based on a set of facts and not his opinion based on a set of facts. [Even I am a bit lost here, the explanation of 5 is from a source other than me]

Conclusion

Its easier to find Facts, a little closer look will give us the Judgements. If you are very doubtful, its most likely an Inference. So just think of these sets as FJs and get cracking!

Hope this has been of help.

Aditya
__________________________________________________ ______-
Edited to add:
it maybe useful if we can work these into our reasoning:

1)Judgments are arguable and contestable. Inferences are rock solid. Although both judgments and inferences are based on facts, in the latter the conclusion is so unquestionable that it becomes fact itself.
2)Judgments are opinions, suggestions and recommendations whereas inferences are proven conditions.
3) Judgment statements include a lot of quantities that cannot be measured, such as happiness, beauty, joy etc.
4) Many a times, judgments are not accompanied by facts at all but are only opinion statements. When there is no fact involved, the statement can only be a judgment statement.
5) A judgment is an honest attempt to make reasonable observations about the given facts but they do not conclusively prove anything.

Some useful links (Although Im yet to read any of them fully)

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

Ref :http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/34706-the-pg-dream-team-08-a-28.html#post1267401

The Principle of Inclusion-Exclusion

2008-11-07T06:35:00.000-08:00

The Principle of Inclusion-Exclusion.

Consider two sets, A and B. If n(A) denotes number of objects in A,
The total number of objects is given by

N = n(A) + n(B) - n(A,B)

[ Eg. if 10 people play cricket and 7 people play hockey. and 3 people play both, total number of people = 10+7-3 = 14]

Consider three sets A,B and C.
The total number of objects is given by

N=n(A) + n(B) + n(C) - n(A,B) - n (A,C) - n(B,C) + n(A,B,C)

[Eg. if 10 people play cricket, 7 play Hockey, 8 play football. 2 play hockey and cricket, 4 play cricket and football, 3 play hockey and football, 1 person plays all three. Total number of people = (10+7+ 8 ) -(2+4+3)+(1) =17]

As a Genaralization, If N(i) denotes number of objects belonging to set a(i),
N(i,j) denotes number of objects belonging to sets a(i) and a(j) etc,

Total Objects = sum [N(i)] - sum[N(i,j)] + sum[N(i,j,k)] - sum[N(i,j,k,l)] + ...

Where Sum(x) = Sigma(x) for i = 1 to n, etc.

Using this Principle for Derangements

Let N denote the total number of permutations of n Letters. To calculate the number of derangements, Dn, we want to exclude all permutations possessing any of the attributes a1, a2, ….., an where ai is the attribute that person i gets his correct letter for i = 1 to n. Let N(i) denote the number of permutations possessing attribute ai (and possibly others), N(i,j) the number of permutations possessing attributes aij (and possibly others), etc. Then, from the inclusion-exclusion principle

Dn = N - { sum [N(i)] - sum[N(i,j)] +sum[N(i,j,k)] -sum[N(i,j,k,l)]+ ...)}

By symmetry, N(1) = N(2) = …= N(i), N(1,2) = N(1,3) = …. =N(i,j), and so on

So, sum[N(i)] = nC1*N(1); sum[N(i,j)]= nC2*N(1,2) and so on

Now, N(1), the number of permutations where man 1 gets his correct letter, is simply (n-1)!, since the remaining letters can be distributed in any order. Similarly, N(1,2)=(n-2)!, N(1,2,3)=(n-3)!, and so forth

So Dn = N - nC1*N(1) + nC2*N(1,2)- nC3*N(1,2,3)+ ....
= n!- nC1*(n-1)! + nC2*(n-2)!- nC3*(n-3)! + ....
= n! [ 1 - 1/1! + 1/2! - 1/3! + 1/4! - .... ((-1)^n)/n!) ], Our Derangement Formula

Ref :http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/34706-the-pg-dream-team-08-a-28.html#post1267388

PREPARE FOR SURPRISES IN THE CAT -3rd Nov Article by Arun Sharma On Education Times

2008-11-02T21:49:00.000-08:00

PREPARE FOR SURPRISES IN THE CATASSUMING THAT SOMETHING THAT HAS HAPPENED EARLIER IN THE CAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN HAS BEEN THE DOWNFALL OF MANY.ARUN SHARMATELLS YOU HOW AVOIDING SUCH ASSUMPTIONS CAN EQUIP YOU TO HANDLE ANY AND EVERY SURPRISE CAT 2008 MAY THROW AT YOU

THE CAT exam is full of surprises and year-on-year lakhs of aspirants are shocked by the so-called unpredictability of the CAT. While there is no denying the fact that surprises do exist in the CAT, it is also a fact that most surprises happen due to the fact that aspirants prepare only on a two to three year framework while preparing for the CAT.

The most common refrain while preparing for CAT is — 'this used to happen earlier, does not happen any longer.' Any suggestions to the contrary are met with a roll of the eyes suggesting nothing but incredulity at the mere suggestion. The common thought goes that the CAT in 2008 is so different from the CAT in 1995 that how can you even think of comparing the two.

Well, we would agree and disagree with that opinion. Agree in the sense that we would accept the point that the CAT in 2008 is very different from the one around 1995. Disagree in the sense that there could be a lot of things that one could learn from the past CAT papers as one prepares for the CAT in 2008 and beyond.

Just to rest our case, we would like to point out to you the rather extraordinary fact that

faced CAT 2006 aspirants — facts inference and judgements stumped over two lakh CAT aspirants and the last time this question type was used was in CAT 1991.

OUR ADVICE

In life (as in CAT) it is very important to understand that one should not become 'too wise.' The 'I know it all' attitude has been the death knell for the greatest of people. Be conscious in life to not make it yours. Stay foolish.

So what is the advice we want to pass on to you at this point in time? When there is a war, the better-prepared person is less likely to get shocked. So our message to you is to prepare yourself on a 10-15 year framework — do not take the myopic view of looking at what the CAT is in the two-three year framework. In other words, prepare on a wide angled framework.

So, what does it mean to prepare thus? Well, in the context of the last few days leading up to the CAT it means the following:

1) Question type wise: When you are looking at the kinds of questions the CAT has been throwing up, look right through from 1990 onwards to date. There have been numerous instances where not just question types but also question logics have been repeated in the CAT after 5-7-10 years. The FIJ example given above is just the most illustrative of this phenomenon.

2) Pattern wise: Do not get too straitjacketed with respect to what you expect in terms of the number of questions. In fact, do not pre-decide on the number of sections too. Be prepared for anything.

Take for instance CAT 1999 where the three sections pattern was introduced for the first time, if memory serves us right. The previous two years had consisted of two sections only to be done over two hours. So, everyone had a clearly defined strategy- one hour with five minutes more or less per-section. When aspirants picked up the paper, it had three sections containing 55 questions each for the first time in its history. To top it all, the first section was VA/RC and it was a particularly lengthy section. People could not make the simple decision of dividing the two hours into three time periods of 40 minutes each (which was the logical thing to do).

THE RESULT

The majority spent the planned one hour in the first section leaving only 60

minutes for the second and third section. Needless to say, by the time people finished the second section there was only 20-odd minutes left for the third (DI) section and there were 55 questions to be handled.

As a further punch, the exam setters had put 25 simple cake-walk questions of syllogisms between questions 141-165 (the last 25 questions) in all the question sets. Majority of the aspirants unfortunately did not reach these questions as they had already exhausted the time.

In this context a lot of students ask us about how many questions and sections to expect in CAT 2008.

OUR REPLY

Be prepared for a 50-question paper to a 150-question paper. Be prepared for a single section paper, to a multiple section paper. Preformulate your strategies for all paper patterns and there will be no shocks or surprises for you on the D-day.

(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)

CAT Tips: What to do the day before and on the D-Day

2008-11-02T05:40:00.000-08:00

Copied from blog of Kumar Vivek- IIM Kozhikode, India

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.”

- Elbert Hubbard; The Note Book, 1927

The penultimate

Relax! Your part of the job is already done! If you happen to be an engineer too (which I presume with a 90% level of confidence), recall the days when you used to laugh looking at people messing their heads with “Irodov” and “Krishna’s IIT Physics” on the day of the JEE! If you weigh intelligence and perseverance in terms of importance towards cracking CAT, trust me, this cat is way too sexy to be tamed just by slogging hard for it – I would rank intelligence higher when it comes to getting her! If you count in attitude and thinking-on-the-toes as components of intelligence, you are made for an IIM. Tomorrow is your day to prove that you are great not because you are amongst the crowd of those two hundred thousand guys writing the exam each one of which has the brains to solve those easy Quants and DI problems, but you are great because you are more intelligent in terms of choosing the right ones out of the twenty five questions and calm enough to crack them within fifty minutes. Adding to it, you should be intelligent enough to understand that you don’t need to slog tonight to prove yourself tomorrow!

If you want a personal experience, I had enjoyed a mug of beer in Bangalore’s “Just Another Pub” at Koramangala the day before CAT, chilling out with a bunch of college friends (and I got a “blacki”!!) The point out here is not about alcohol (remain strictly within 50ml!); just relax in the best way which suits you. Stay calm, have a dinner with you girlfriend (if you aren’t as lucky as me who doesn’t have any such filthy burdens), and remain confident that you are made for the big day. It’s meant to be a laid back Saturday, let the essence remain – you’re doomed to be back again to the rhetoric of office or classes from Monday!

The ultimate

Ever actually seen how “mornings” are like on Sundays? The exam is at ten, make sure you wake up in time keeping in mind your transit time to the examination centre. You haven’t taken a bath for past 4 days, do it today (yes, do it even though it’s a “sun” day; it’s the second best thing in the world to refresh with a cold water shower on a November morning!) Feel like revising formulae or something? Personal opinion – it’s of no use. It’s only the easy formulae – which you already have used a lakh times – combined with your sheer presence of mind that is required to sail through CAT problems. Get to the examination centre by 09:45, check out all girls allotted the same centre if you are writing CAT in a real town and, finally, take your seat at 10:00.

The 10:00 to 10:30 period when you’ve to wait in the examination hall for the question paper is the worst torture you might have ever faced in life. Here’s how to make best use of the time. Get your brain working before the exam starts. After you are done with the form filling stuff, this is the time to revise your formulae. Your brain is already at peace with the relaxation you offered it yesterday, let it start afresh. Mentally start recalling simple geometry and mensuration’s areas, volumes, equations and stuff. If you remember some problem you had ingeniously solved (ever), think about the solution again, you’ll bolster your confidence. Start building your focus fifteen minutes before you’ve got the papers. Once you get them, it’s the regular easy trick. Pick up the most comfortable areas (personal favorite – geometry in Quants); steer through rough uncomfortable terrains the last. Constantly look for easy problems, spot them right and you are through the cut-off. Get ready to enjoy the Sunday evening once again!

All the best!

http://krvivek.blogspot.com/2007/11/cat-tips-what-to-do-day-before-and-on-d.html

Last minute CAT preparation tips - harshadk

2008-10-31T21:24:00.000-07:00

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’

2008-10-29T10:18:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-28T09:43:00.000-07:00

.
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.

2008-10-26T10:53:00.001-07:00

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

2008-10-26T09:01:00.001-07:00

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

2008-10-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-26T08:57:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-26T08:56:00.001-07:00

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

2008-10-26T08:54:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

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.

SKILL-SETS DEVELOPMENT APPROACH

2008-10-26T08:45:00.000-07:00

DATA INTERPRETATION (DI) IS ALL ABOUT A SET OF

SKILLS,WHICH IF YOU CAN IDENTIFY AND DEVELOP

CORRECTLY,IS PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT TASK IN

YOUR DI PREPARATION.ARUN SHARMA GIVES YOU THE

LOW-DOWN

IN our last article in this series, we had written about the process of preparation for data

interpretation (DI) and had advocated a two dimensional approach (skill development +

exposure creation) in conjunction with four umbrella approach for the section — the four

lines of preparation when you prepare for DI and LR sections of all management exams —

these umbrellas being: traditional data interpretation; advanced reasoning based data

interpretation; CAT type reasoning; non CAT reasoning.

Today, we would like to focus on the skills development approach for DI preparation.

The key point here is that DI is all about a set of skills, which if you can identify and

develop correctly, is perhaps the most important task in your DI preparation. Even when

you are continuing your question exposure work, the key issue is: ‘Are you able to identify

the skill set and go through a learning curve on the same?’

What we want to tell you here can be best explained by an example. Consider the

following set of questions that had appeared in the DI section of the CAT 2007 paper.

Remember that when you are solving this set you are playing for 20 marks in CAT-2007.

The value of 20 marks in the paper can be understood if you look at it from the viewpoint

that it would convert a 70 percentile to 90+ percentile and an early 90s score to perhaps a

99+ score.

We would first ask you to try to solve this question set. Given the nature of this set of

questions, it can be safely expected that most aspirants should be able to solve this with

ease, especially those who are scoring over 70-80 percentile. The only thing that would

differ would be the time dimension. While a 70 percentiler might take somewhere between

10-12 minutes to solve this, a 100 percentiler in DI would be able to attempt these in 5-6

minutes.

Try this: A healthdrink company's research and development department is trying to make

various diet formulations, which can be used for certain specific purposes. It is considering a

choice of five alternative ingredients (O, P, Q, R, and S), which can be used in different

proportions in the formulations. The table gives the composition of these ingredients.

The cost per-unit of these ingredients is O: 150; P: 50; Q: 200; R: 500; S: 100.

1. For a recuperating patient, the doctor recommended a diet containing 10% minerals

and at least 30% protein. In how many different ways can we prepare this diet by mixing at

least two ingredients?

(1) One (2) Two (3) Three (4) Four (5) None

Estimated time for a 100 percentiler to solve this: 5-10 seconds

2. Which among the following is the formulation having the lowest cost per unit for a diet

having 10% fat and at least 30% protein? The diet has to be formed by mixing two

ingredients.

(1) P & Q (2) P & S (3) P & R (4) Q & S (5) R and S

Estimated time for a 100 percentiler to solve this: 30-40 seconds

3. In what proportion P, Q and S should be mixed to make a diet having at least 60%

carbohydrate at the lowest per-unit cost?

(1) 2:1:3 (2) 4:1:2 (3) 2:1:4 (4) 3:1:2 (5) 4:1:1

Estimated time for a 100 percentiler to solve this: 30 seconds

4. The company is planning to launch a balanced diet required for growth needs of

adolescent children. This diet must contain at least 30% each of carbohydrate and protein,

no more than 25% fat and at least 5% minerals. Which one of the following combinations of

equally mixed ingredients is feasible?

(1) O & P (2) R & S (3) P & S (4) Q & R (5) O and S

Estimated time for a 100 percentiler to solve this: 30 seconds

SOLUTION 1: OPTION 1

10% minerals is only feasible if we mix O & Q. Any other mix of two ingredients would not

give us 10% minerals since one of the ingredients would contain less than 10% and the

other would contain at max 10%. The average mineral in the mixture would always be less

than 10 in such a case.

SOLUTION 2: OPTION 4

P & S are the cheapest ingredients. However both of them contain no fat. Hence, the second

option can be ruled out. Since P is the least cost ingredient, we will try to use P maximum

and any other ingredient only to the extent required to meet the constraints. Since P & S is

not feasible, using P & O can generate the next lowest cost but that is not an option. Hence,

we try the next cheapest combination possible, P & Q. This too will not be feasible since P&Q

can never give us 30% protein.

Hence option 1 is ruled out. Option 3 would give us a feasible mix if we use three units of

P and one unit of R. The cost for four units of the mixture would be 50x3+500=650 and the

average cost would be 650/4 = 137.5. We now need to check the remaining two options to

see whether this cost can be beaten — and it is apparent that for the fourth option if we

take a mix of Q & S in the ratio 4:1 the total cost for five units would be 600 and the

average cost would be 120. It can be seen that the fifth option will give a higher value.

Hence, Q and S is the ideal combination.

SOLUTION 3: OPTION 5

Objective obviously is to maximise P in the mix. Also, it can be seen that option 2 and 5 are

the only possibilities (as no other option will give you 60% carbohydrates). Between options

2 and 5, the latter will always be cheaper. You do not need to check this.

SOLUTION 4: OPTION 5

O & P fails because of proteins, R&S fails because of carbohydrates, P & S fails because of

Minerals and Q & R fails because of carbohydrates. Only O & S satisfies all conditions.

By any standard, this set of questions would qualify as pretty simple in the context of the

CAT exam. So, the key issue we need to consider is that of the time differential between a

100 percentiler in DI and a 60 percentiler in DI. Obviously a 100 percentiler is much faster

in reacting and processing the information while solving the question, because his skill-sets

in doing the same things is much faster. Perhaps an analogy to this can be taken from the

domain of sports, in cricket, anyone can play a bowler throwing the ball at 50kmph, but it

takes a person with special skills to face a bowler bowling 100 miles an hour.

We would like to end by giving you a brief outline of the skill-set required for preparing for

DI. The skill-set can be divided into two

dimensions:

Calculative skills: A function of your ability to add two digit numbers, your ability to

multiply two digit numbers, your ability to calculate percentage values and your ability to

compare ratios (big and small).

Mathematical knowledge based skills: Number systems-based skills (important for

advanced reasoning based DI), venn diagrams, averages and alligations, progressions,

percentages and ratios.

Focus on sharpening your skills in these areas and you should definitely be able to create a

percentile jump in your scores.

(The author 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)

CAT SMART- Article by Arun Sharma On Education Times

2008-10-26T08:39:00.001-07:00

CAT SMART

THE DATA INTERPRETATION AND LOGICAL REASONING

SECTION OF THE CAT IS THE MOST CRUCIAL ONE, AS IT

REQUIRES MINIMUM EFFORT AND HENCE PROVIDES

MAXIMUM SCOPE FOR SCORING IN THE CAT EXAM. ARUN

SHARMA TELLS YOU HOW TO CRACK THIS SECTION

Most students get stuck at the DI section due to inadequate preparation

The DI section can be solved the fastest and involves the least effort

Turnaround times in DI can be as short as 30 days

The DI and LR section can be your shortcut to the IIMs. You would agree with this if you

look at the preparation processes for the three parallel sections that the CAT tests you for

viz, quantitative aptitude, verbal ability and reading comprehension and data interpretation

and logical reasoning. Compare these processes and you will realise that this section

requires the minimum effort as also provides the possibility of minimum turnaround time,

that is, if you are aiming at moving from a range of say 50 percentile to 90 plus percentile in

any of the three sections of CAT, the DI section would be the fastest as well as the one

involving the least effort. Hence, it is advisable not to ignore this section. However,

unfortunately the vast majority of CAT takers are least prepared for this section.

As mentioned in our last article, this occurs mainly due to the lack of a clear idea of how

to prepare for the DI, mainly since there is no portion for DI. The next obvious question then

would be what should you do in order to improve your DI percentiles and solving abilities?

And more importantly what can you do in a 90 day time frame to improve your chances of

scoring well at the DI?

1) Adopt a two pronged approach- skills development and exposure creation:

The first thing you need to realise as you try to create a strategy is that since you cannot

adopt a portion coverage approach, you should create a skills development approach plus an

exposure to problems approach while trying to improve your data interpretation scores.

You need to clearly distinguish between these two:

a) By skills development we mean that there are specific skills that are essentially tested

in DI. As a CAT and management aspirant you first need to identify these skills, and then

create a regimen for the development of the same. For instance, suppose one has a simple

set of DI containing four questions which are based on percentage changes and ratio

calculations and if such a set of questions is given to three lac CAT aspirants to solve under

test conditions, the scores gained by students across the nation would show great variance.

Not only that, even amongst the people who get everything correct, hence the same scores,

there will be huge variance in the time required. You should thus make attempts not to lag

behind your other competitors.

b) By exposure to problems we mean that the objective of your preparation should be to

get to a point where you have prepared yourself so thoroughly that you are confident of

solving any question. So, how many question sets in DI do you need to solve to get to this

point? The answer is around 750-1000 question sets (not questions). One word of caution

though, while doing this you will need to ensure that you solve the correct sets of questions

that will expose you to all kinds of logics. Thus, you should solve questions based on

tournaments, progressions, maximising and minimising constraints as well as those based

on venn diagrams to name a few. With the 90 day time limit you should solve around 11

sets per day.

For those of you who have already begun to think that there is no preparation time left,

take heart. Turnaround times in DI can be as short as 30 days.

In conclusion, just work in a task oriented fashion- set tasks for yourself and complete

them, to hone your abilities.

(The author is a CAT trainer and the author of a series of best-selling books on

CAT and other aptitude exams published

by Tata McGraw Hill)

CAT SMART- Article by Arun Sharma On Education Times

2008-10-26T08:39:00.000-07:00