CAT
COMMON ADMISSION TEST
The CAT exam is considered to be one of the most prestigious examinations that are been conducted for the management admissions in India. It is been hosted by the IIMs, as an entrance examination for their management admissions. However, the exam is been accepted as an entrance exam by many standard management institutions/schools in India, besides the IIMs. The list includes institutions such as, Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, and National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai, and many more.
The CAT exam is conducted for about 2 hours and 30 minutes and it comprises of questions, focusing the candidates’ quantitative, verbal, data interpretation and logical abilities. Every year, it is held on the third Sunday of the November month. The CAT question pattern comprises of three sections, namely, the English, mathematics and data interpretation and logical reasoning. Pre-planning the strategies to crack the CAT exam might really help one to get through the CAT exam.
Strategies
- First, finding and focusing, the most scoring section in the question paper would lead to the direction of fetching more marks. One such section is the ‘Data Interpretation’ section in the CAT exam. This section comprises of simple interrelations of data and on an average, almost all the candidates might find it easier, especially the candidates with engineering backgrounds. All you have to do is to find out the ways to interpret the data relations correctly.
- Next, allotting time would be the most crucial step in cracking the exam. You can also call it to be the ‘key to the success.’ The best strategy would be to focus the questions that you are confident enough of solving within a short time. This would save time and energy for the other complicated questions of the examination.
- While preparing for the exam, concentrate on the areas, which you are strong at, for example, if you are strong at quantitative category, then try spending more time on the same, thereby increasing the scope to score more.
- The quantitative section usually consists of problems solving questions that are based on the concepts interpretation. Thus, understanding the concepts becomes very important, rather focusing on the complicated problem solving methods.
- If you are not getting the answer to a question, leave the question and move on to the next one. The idea behind this is not to spend more than 3 minutes (average) in one question. You may face situations, where you will be supposed to make guesses, but the significant thing to remember here is to make a wise guess.
- There are many practical tests available for CAT exam, the more practical tests, one attends, the more are the choices to get trained in many facets of the exam, such as time, attending more number of questions, more chances of making wise guesses, fair chances of scoring high percentile marks, etc…
The English section is becoming trickier, nowadays. There is more focus on the comprehension and verbal section. It might seem to be easier, but the answers that look simple, may have a twist. Hence, the wrong answers might look correct to you. Hence, reading standard magazines, articles, journals… might bestow you with confidence and it would put into the practice of reading and using so many words, which in turn would improve your vocabulary.
One best thing to score high marks in the English sections would be to attend, as many questions as possible, thereby enhancing the chances of high scores, but be aware of the negative marks at the same time.
