Strike the right balance For CAT Preparation
How to Prepare for CAT Examination?
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Majority of CAT aspirants are either college
students or recent graduates with one-two years of work experience. Since the exam isn’t as knowledge-intensive
as others like UPSC or JEE, most aspirants prepare for it alongside their
college or work, as the case may be. This makes sense, especially if you
have more than four-five months at hand. The trick then is to be able to
balance the requirements of CAT
preparation with the obligations at your college or workplace.
Draw out
a plan
A good way to plan your CAT preparation from now till November end, when the CAT is
typically scheduled, is to see it as 45-week time period, and have a weekly
schedule in place. It should allow you to balance your CAT preparation with
your other engagements. One must understand that CAT is more a test of skill
than knowledge. The skills that one needs to develop are how you think about
problems, simplify them, make use of options by either selecting the right one
or eliminating the wrong ones and get to the right answer in as less time as
possible. Even when it comes to other skills like painting, acting, sports or
music, you only get better with regular practice and not with sporadic bursts
of effort. Two hours a day would take you farther than 14 hours dedicated to
studies in one single day of the week. You can study regularly alongside your
college or job.
Know your
strengths
A thorough CAT
preparation would require around 800- 1,000 hours of time investment,
depending upon when you start, your strengths and weaknesses. Usually, one third
of this is spent inside the coaching classes. There you will learn various
topics, cover syllabus and use of shortcuts. You will also develop lateral
thinking and learn test-taking and strategic inputs to maximise scores. At the
same time, you must ensure that you make the best use of the remaining
two-thirds of the time on your own. For this time that is roughly around 600-650
hours, it is imperative that you have:
1. A weekly plan that
ensures the discipline that skill-building needs.
2. A knowledge of your
stronger and weaker areas that ensures optimum investment of time.
A BREAK IS IMPORTANT Day-seven
should ideally be the rest day – that allows you to take a break and re-energise.
A good performance in CAT requires you to be fresh in your mind rather than
being exhausted and jaded by the time the CAT
arrives.
CHANGE THE STRATEGY WHEN REQUIRED
Your plan will need to change once you start getting closer to
the CAT, with more focus needed on mock-CATs, analysis and temperament. But
remember, a beautiful building wouldn’t last long without a solid foundation.
That is exactly what you need to focus on right now — maintaining the right
pace and peaking at the right time. And while you are at it, don’t forget to
enjoy the process
Add self-study
to coaching
Assuming that you are engaged with a formal
coaching for two days a week, which for most regular college students and
working professionals might be the weekend, you essentially need to plan for
the remaining five days for two hours a day. For the first few months of your
preparation, this time should ideally be invested in getting basics right in
various topics. This will prove invaluable later when you practice mock CATs
and also when you actually appear for the CAT, because it allows you to select
questions or leave them as per your strengths and weaknesses.
The right
start
In the initial stages of your preparation, you
could look to devote 90 minutes to VARC (verbal ability and reading
comprehension, which is basically English), DILR (data interpretation &
logical reasoning, which tests your logical ability and ability to infer from
data) and QA (quantitative ability, which revolves around mathematical
concepts) in rotation on fixed days of the week. The remaining 30 minutes daily
should ideally be devoted to the areas such as reading, listening, watching,
writing and speaking. Language as a skill proves invaluable not only during the
written test i.e. the CAT, but also during interviews, written-ability test and
group discussions that form the final step in the selection to various top MBA
colleges.
Reading from as diverse sources as possible
regularly improves performance in reading comprehension portion at the CAT,
which has been the single biggest component of CAT, with 24 questions out of a
total of 100, over the past several years. A day of the week should be devoted
to the weakest areas of VARC, DILR and QA. Weakest areas allow for the maximum
scope of improvement.
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