Strategies for acing the CAT

With CAT about one month away, it would be wise not to waste time working on anything new. In the next few weeks, just revise your fundamentals, see if there is a better way of doing a question. There should be no fiddling with your strategy at this stage if it is giving you due rewards. Another important aspect is test-taking. Take two or at the most three tests a week followed by a complete and thorough analysis of the paper. Don’t take the test as an end in itself, rather it should be a means to an end. Remember, CAT is not about last minute cramming and revising. It’s about being alive and mentally alert.Objective analysis entails comparing your performance to that of other students. Look at the benchmarks for every test. Ideally, if you retain your old scores even if the test is getting tougher, it means that you are improving. It is more important to revise and analyse than cover the entire syllabus. Besides spending time on why some answers went wrong, also concentrate on why some answers were correct or whether there is any better way of doing the question. Furthermore, in any wellplanned CAT paper, you will not be able to complete the whole section or paper. So go through the questions that you did not attempt and see if you made a mistake by leaving out those.One of the biggest pitfalls is that as students we always search for short cuts, asking ‘which is the easiest way out and which are the easiest questions?’ A critical issue here is the tremendous urge to skip questions.
While the pressures of time could lead us to lose concentration or skip questions because things get better if you follow a couple of golden rules:
Prioritise: Start with the shorter questions. The advantage with short questions is not that they are easier, but that it will take you less time to identify whether you can do them or not.
Be decisive: Decide in two readings whether you are going to attempt the question or not. This is perfectly normal and don’t let it bother you. It will take not more than 15 seconds, at a very leisurely pace, to read a question. Concentrating for those two and a half hours is not easy, but imperative.
Brush up: The one section where you need to work on is general awareness and business aptitude. Good reading habits help. But right now, focus on only CAT till November 16. Reading the newspapers will not only give you that daily dose of news, but also help you build upon your RC section!DI Angle: Learn how to skip questions in data interpretation. It is a misconception that you have to solve the whole set before you move on.
Risk taking: A wrong answer could mean losing 1/4th of a mark, so avoid really wild guesses. At the same time, remember that intelligent guessing is also part of the game. This is where regular test analysis comes in, especially checking questions that you got right and analyzing why you got it right. If you are a poor logical guesser, invest time in seeing why you consistently go wrong. This could pay huge dividends in the long run.
Expect surprises: The surprise is more in terms of format than spirit. CAT is traditionally known to check how students deal with ambiguity