Sai Kumar Swamy tells you that despite the exam being one of the toughest and most unpredictable, if the aspirant manages to time manage, not do selective study and remain calm, he will definitely succeed
Common Admission Test (CAT) is one of the most anticipated exams in the country with over 200,000 aspirants seeking a management career opting to go through this test of fire. The CAT is described as a small domesticated mammal but it is a vicious bloodletting predator, one that has claimed many a victim. This reputation of CAT stems from the fact that though thousands take this test the success ratio is abysmally low only one in 60 clear it.
This makes it more a test of elimination than a test of selection. The successful ones often attribute their success to a cool and calm mind and the avoiding of errors and traps which the exam springs. One of the biggest mistakes aspirants make is to narrow down the syllabus and prepare only for select topics on what has come in the past few years. It is an extremely unpredictable exam and is known to spring a surprise each year and catch the candidates on the back foot.
There is a high probability that topics that have not had much of a weightage might make a comeback. Therefore, it is in the best interest of aspirants to prepare for all topics. Most aspirants believe that the best way to prepare is to take as many mocks as possible. This obviously isn’t the right way to go about it as repeated mocks highlight the same weaknesses and if one does not analyse ones mistakes and rectify them then there will not be any major improvement. Thus a thorough analysis of every mock will yield far better dividends.
The exam is known to ask questions from a wide assortment of test areas and therefore there is no point speculating as to what might happen this year. The IIMs have disclosed that CAT 2015 will have three sections.
The first section is verbal ability and reading comprehension, the second section is data interpretation and logical reasoning and the third section is quantitative ability. The verbal ability and reading comprehension section will have 34 questions, the data interpretation and logical reasoning section will have 32 questions and the quantitative ability section will have 34 questions.
A novelty this year is the introduction of sectional time limits. This year, each section will have a time limit of 60 minutes. This reduces the emphasis on time management across sections, it introduces a new dimension to the challenge of this exam.
Aspirants should now work on identifying the easier questions and solve them to ensure that they maximise their attempts and also avoid the potential traps set by the test setters. The exam always has had negative marking in the past and this is set to continue this year as well. The negative marking is to deter aspirants from attempting an extravagant number of questions even without solving them. It has been seen that blind guessing almost always leads to a negative/low score and should be avoided.
If you are able to eliminate two choices on a proper basis, then, it is not advisable to leave out such a question even if you do not know how to solve the question. This strategy is of no use in the non-multiple choice questions. In the non-multiple choice questions type, aspirants should determine whether they are reasonably sure of getting the correct answer and only then invest time in attempting them.
Targeting a pre-set number of questions to clear the cut-offs also is not a great strategy as the cut-offs are a function of the difficulty level of the section and the paper. Hence, this call of attempting a certain number of questions is to be made during the exam but not before the start of the exam. Thinking excessively about the exam makes one nervous and all anxiety should be avoided.
In order to succeed one needs to be calm and make the right choices on the d-day. Sop all preparation two days before the test date and get enough rest. The d-day victory belongs to the one who has negotiated the hurdles in the calmest way possible.
(The writer is director of T.I.M.E Delhi)