The countdown for CAT 2012 has started with a bang. With
less than 80 days left for the exam, the bells must have rung in your
minds that it is time for you to take your preparation pace in the next
gear. But fret not, as MBAUniverse.com is always ready with its expert
guidance for you with the series of Live Expert Chats on How to prepare
for CAT 2012.
The last Live Expert Chat was held on Friday, July
20, 2012 with Abhishek Gupta, Academic Head (CAT products), Career
Launcher. Excerpts from the Live Expert Chat:
Q: Pramod: Please provide me tricks to CAT 2012.Also please share the guidelines to prepare QA/LR/VR.
A: You must follow these guidelines while preparing for CAT 2012:
(1) When you’re in the practicing stage, mark the questions that you can’t solve in the first attempt with an asterisk (*). This will make things easier for you when you go back to revise that particular topic. When you’re short on time, there is no point in revising each and every question; especially those which you have been able to crack easily.
(2) Finding a question, similar to something you have practiced before has a very calming effect on you and will help boost your confidence. The best way to achieve this is to practice all kinds of questions. If you’ve covered everything, there is very little chance of getting caught unawares.
(3) Take online mock tests in order to make yourself comfortable in the computer based medium.
Q: Geetika: How much importance shall we give to sentence correction? This area is unpredictable so is it a good strategy to focus on other areas that fetch me more correct answers?
A: Grammar questions like sentence correction and questions on word usage do not come in CAT in great bulk, but are still important. It would be a good idea to cover a few topics in grammar that account for many common errors. These are Subject Verb Agreement, Pronouns, Tenses, Modifiers and Parallelism. It would also help if you read regularly because most of the word usage and grammar questions can be solved with the familiarity with idioms/phrasal verbs etc. It would be good to divide your preparation time such that you are spending more time doing questions like RC, Para jumbles, Para completion etc. as they make for the majority questions in CAT
Q: Geetika: What should be my strategy to tackle difficult passages and tricky questions?
A: The right RC strategy is to read the passage once quickly in order to understand the central idea. In case certain areas of the passage elude your understanding at first, do not worry. Now read the questions and come back to the relevant portion of the passage in order to eliminate options. Look for Key words in the question stem in order to identify the part of the passage where you are.
Q: Rahul: I have completed B.Com in 2008 & due to economic conditions, couldn't pursue further studies. If I get a good percentile in CAT 2012, would it be a hindrance for my admission in IIMs or top B-schools?
A: If you have neither worked nor studied in the last four years then IIMs may pose a problem for you as they take into account profile. A lot will also depend on your past academic record and what you have been doing in last few years. As for the majority of B-Schools, Interview calls are based on little more that CAT or XAT score. So work hard for the first stage of selection and you can get a few good calls.
Q: Rahul: How can I justify this gap? Moreover I do not have any work experience also. Kindly suggest. Also, how shall I prepare for these 80 days to CAT 2012?
A: In the next 80 days, focus on important topics in Quant. Number System and Algebra are two topics where students can easily score more marks. These topics carry a very high weight of more than 50 per cent and therefore mastering these two topics can significantly contribute to a high score in the Quant questions. In verbal focus on RC and Verbal logic – questions like Fact-Inference-Judgment, Para Jumble etc can be very scoring. A good test series and mock tests should help you hone your test taking strategy.
Q: Anubhav Tyagi: As I go through the mocks I found the verbal section to be unpredictable specially the English usage questions from para completion, incorrect/correct sentences, parajumbles etc. What should be my strategy?
A: Reading a variety of topics from good sources will help improve Para completion. For sentence correction do the important topics that I have mentioned earlier. Para jumbles can be very scoring if attempted correctly. In this section, you must try and look for keywords that help you make pairs in the given sentences. Find words that show comparison or contrast. Words like ‘hence’ and ‘therefore’ show consequence whereas ‘but’, ‘rather’, ‘nevertheless’ show contrast. Some other words like ‘furthermore’ and ‘along with’ are a dead give-away when it comes to furthering an argument. You can use these key words to determine which sentence will come next.
Q: Mohd. Ateeb khan: I always feel shortage of time in the first section as I am slow in calculation as it is not the case in the second section. Should I time myself in the QA & DI section?
A: Divide your Quant section into sets. Read all the questions in each block and assign them an equal amount of time. These time limits should be sacrosanct. There can be nothing worse than missing out on an easy question, just because it appears towards the end of the section. Thus, selecting the right questions is extremely important.
Q: Taksh: I started my preparation from last month my problem is I am not getting the Data Sufficiency questions right and there are a few areas of mine which are not very strong. What should be the logic?
A: The Data Interpretation questions deals with a lot of numerical data which can be quite tasking. Do not get bogged down by the data.
• Get comfortable with numerical data; make it a point to read the business and finance sections of the newspaper and analyze them. The best way to go about DI questions would be to read the questions carefully instead of worrying yourself with all the information presented.
• Often the DI questions have been known to test your skills in mental mathematics and quick calculations. You should be able to process numbers at a good speed and employ simple but reliable tricks to arrive at faster solutions. Both of these are “trainable” skills. Estimate values and check how close you are to the actual. Learn percentage equivalence to reciprocals. Avoid dependency on your calculators.
• Do not shy away from Mathematical Puzzles, Sudoku et al. In fact, search out and actively seek them out. You will see a difference in a few weeks of effort.
• Practice as many analytical questions as possible. Choose only the ones that do not have very large amount of data. Adequate practice on these types helps in creating a method for the organization of data.
Q: Vishal: How should I prepare to be 100 per cent accurate in grammar? Which books shall I refer?
A: It is difficult to attain 100 per cent accuracy in grammar without being an avid reader as a lot depends on your familiarity with language. So read a lot. Forbes magazine, Oscar Wilde, Philip Larkin, Virginia Woolf, John Updike, F. Scott Fitzgerald and the like should make for a good reading repository. Another good investment for reading would be the ‘Very Short Introduction’ series by the Oxford University Press (OUP). You can refer to any good grammar book like Advanced English Grammar - Martin Hewings, A university grammar of English - Sydney Greenbaum, The oxford English Grammar - Sydney Greenbaum, A practical English grammar - Thomson and Martinet. Please remember that only grammar will not help you in CAT as grammar questions make a very small percentage of questions. Focus on RC and Verbal Logic.
Q: Karan: It takes around 20 to 30 minutes to solve a Quant question. How can I speed up?
A: Speed matters. Not only when you’re solving questions but when you’re reading them. The faster you can read all the questions and select those you think you should attempt; the better will be your chances of a good score. Practice is important. With practice speed will improve. Also, solving a question should not become an ego issue. This is the worst thing you can do to your paper. If you’ve spent a considerable time on a problem to no avail, leave it and go ahead. There may be an easier question ahead, waiting to be capitalized upon.
Q: Amrit Jaiswal: I am a working professional and due to my responsibilities, I won't be able to take leave before a month of CAT. Please suggest a time table for me.
A: You can start spending one to two hours every day now to master fundamentals in Quant and English. As I have said earlier, focus on areas that are more important. Take one mock every weekend and analyze your test carefully to identify weak and strong areas. One month prior to the test – Practice as many questions as possible.
Q: Taksh: Since not much importance given in the vocabulary part in CAT, is it wise to spend time on mugging words from the flash cards? Or shall I concentrate on the English usage part?
A: Vocabulary will help you not only in vocab based questions but also will help you comprehend other questions better. But it is advisable to spend more time doing RC and Verbal logic. Keep reading and learning the words that you encounter while reading and taking various tests. This will add to your vocabulary and help you prepare better.
Q: Anubhav tyagi: Sir I am yet to finish my first round of revision for CAT. Shall I wait for it to finish first and then take mock tests or start taking mocks now itself?
A: Taking tests will only help you revise better. It will also give you an idea about areas to concentrate on while revision. Take all kinds of tests – sectional and full length mocks. This will help you see what sections you need to work on more. Analyzing your performance in these tests is just as important. Get yourself a solved copy of the question paper and do a self analysis.
Q: Mohd. Ateeb khan: What is the approx no. of questions I must attempt in each section so as to clear the cut offs and get above 90 percentile?
A: With just 60 questions you will not have much to choose from. Do as many questions as possible but focus on accuracy. Even if I give you an estimated number of 25 questions per section (example only), you will not be able to attempt 25 questions if you do not know them. So, cover all topics and prepare across the length and breadth of subjects. Also go back to the past year papers. There is merit in going through them and practicing on these papers as the questions you will face are likely to be similar.
Q: Pramod: Considering the time left what plan should I follow to ensure good percentile. Can I still turn it around if I start from now?
A: Yes, you still have time left. Work hard for the next few months and you may just turn it. I have already discussed the important topics and strategy for next few weeks. Refer to that.
Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more Live Expert Chats on CAT 2012.
The last Live Expert Chat was held on Friday, July
20, 2012 with Abhishek Gupta, Academic Head (CAT products), Career
Launcher. Excerpts from the Live Expert Chat: Q: Pramod: Please provide me tricks to CAT 2012.Also please share the guidelines to prepare QA/LR/VR.
A: You must follow these guidelines while preparing for CAT 2012:
(1) When you’re in the practicing stage, mark the questions that you can’t solve in the first attempt with an asterisk (*). This will make things easier for you when you go back to revise that particular topic. When you’re short on time, there is no point in revising each and every question; especially those which you have been able to crack easily.
(2) Finding a question, similar to something you have practiced before has a very calming effect on you and will help boost your confidence. The best way to achieve this is to practice all kinds of questions. If you’ve covered everything, there is very little chance of getting caught unawares.
(3) Take online mock tests in order to make yourself comfortable in the computer based medium.
Q: Geetika: How much importance shall we give to sentence correction? This area is unpredictable so is it a good strategy to focus on other areas that fetch me more correct answers?
A: Grammar questions like sentence correction and questions on word usage do not come in CAT in great bulk, but are still important. It would be a good idea to cover a few topics in grammar that account for many common errors. These are Subject Verb Agreement, Pronouns, Tenses, Modifiers and Parallelism. It would also help if you read regularly because most of the word usage and grammar questions can be solved with the familiarity with idioms/phrasal verbs etc. It would be good to divide your preparation time such that you are spending more time doing questions like RC, Para jumbles, Para completion etc. as they make for the majority questions in CAT
Q: Geetika: What should be my strategy to tackle difficult passages and tricky questions?
A: The right RC strategy is to read the passage once quickly in order to understand the central idea. In case certain areas of the passage elude your understanding at first, do not worry. Now read the questions and come back to the relevant portion of the passage in order to eliminate options. Look for Key words in the question stem in order to identify the part of the passage where you are.
Q: Rahul: I have completed B.Com in 2008 & due to economic conditions, couldn't pursue further studies. If I get a good percentile in CAT 2012, would it be a hindrance for my admission in IIMs or top B-schools?
A: If you have neither worked nor studied in the last four years then IIMs may pose a problem for you as they take into account profile. A lot will also depend on your past academic record and what you have been doing in last few years. As for the majority of B-Schools, Interview calls are based on little more that CAT or XAT score. So work hard for the first stage of selection and you can get a few good calls.
Q: Rahul: How can I justify this gap? Moreover I do not have any work experience also. Kindly suggest. Also, how shall I prepare for these 80 days to CAT 2012?
A: In the next 80 days, focus on important topics in Quant. Number System and Algebra are two topics where students can easily score more marks. These topics carry a very high weight of more than 50 per cent and therefore mastering these two topics can significantly contribute to a high score in the Quant questions. In verbal focus on RC and Verbal logic – questions like Fact-Inference-Judgment, Para Jumble etc can be very scoring. A good test series and mock tests should help you hone your test taking strategy.
Q: Anubhav Tyagi: As I go through the mocks I found the verbal section to be unpredictable specially the English usage questions from para completion, incorrect/correct sentences, parajumbles etc. What should be my strategy?
A: Reading a variety of topics from good sources will help improve Para completion. For sentence correction do the important topics that I have mentioned earlier. Para jumbles can be very scoring if attempted correctly. In this section, you must try and look for keywords that help you make pairs in the given sentences. Find words that show comparison or contrast. Words like ‘hence’ and ‘therefore’ show consequence whereas ‘but’, ‘rather’, ‘nevertheless’ show contrast. Some other words like ‘furthermore’ and ‘along with’ are a dead give-away when it comes to furthering an argument. You can use these key words to determine which sentence will come next.
Q: Mohd. Ateeb khan: I always feel shortage of time in the first section as I am slow in calculation as it is not the case in the second section. Should I time myself in the QA & DI section?
A: Divide your Quant section into sets. Read all the questions in each block and assign them an equal amount of time. These time limits should be sacrosanct. There can be nothing worse than missing out on an easy question, just because it appears towards the end of the section. Thus, selecting the right questions is extremely important.
Q: Taksh: I started my preparation from last month my problem is I am not getting the Data Sufficiency questions right and there are a few areas of mine which are not very strong. What should be the logic?
A: The Data Interpretation questions deals with a lot of numerical data which can be quite tasking. Do not get bogged down by the data.
• Get comfortable with numerical data; make it a point to read the business and finance sections of the newspaper and analyze them. The best way to go about DI questions would be to read the questions carefully instead of worrying yourself with all the information presented.
• Often the DI questions have been known to test your skills in mental mathematics and quick calculations. You should be able to process numbers at a good speed and employ simple but reliable tricks to arrive at faster solutions. Both of these are “trainable” skills. Estimate values and check how close you are to the actual. Learn percentage equivalence to reciprocals. Avoid dependency on your calculators.
• Do not shy away from Mathematical Puzzles, Sudoku et al. In fact, search out and actively seek them out. You will see a difference in a few weeks of effort.
• Practice as many analytical questions as possible. Choose only the ones that do not have very large amount of data. Adequate practice on these types helps in creating a method for the organization of data.
Q: Vishal: How should I prepare to be 100 per cent accurate in grammar? Which books shall I refer?
A: It is difficult to attain 100 per cent accuracy in grammar without being an avid reader as a lot depends on your familiarity with language. So read a lot. Forbes magazine, Oscar Wilde, Philip Larkin, Virginia Woolf, John Updike, F. Scott Fitzgerald and the like should make for a good reading repository. Another good investment for reading would be the ‘Very Short Introduction’ series by the Oxford University Press (OUP). You can refer to any good grammar book like Advanced English Grammar - Martin Hewings, A university grammar of English - Sydney Greenbaum, The oxford English Grammar - Sydney Greenbaum, A practical English grammar - Thomson and Martinet. Please remember that only grammar will not help you in CAT as grammar questions make a very small percentage of questions. Focus on RC and Verbal Logic.
Q: Karan: It takes around 20 to 30 minutes to solve a Quant question. How can I speed up?
A: Speed matters. Not only when you’re solving questions but when you’re reading them. The faster you can read all the questions and select those you think you should attempt; the better will be your chances of a good score. Practice is important. With practice speed will improve. Also, solving a question should not become an ego issue. This is the worst thing you can do to your paper. If you’ve spent a considerable time on a problem to no avail, leave it and go ahead. There may be an easier question ahead, waiting to be capitalized upon.
Q: Amrit Jaiswal: I am a working professional and due to my responsibilities, I won't be able to take leave before a month of CAT. Please suggest a time table for me.
A: You can start spending one to two hours every day now to master fundamentals in Quant and English. As I have said earlier, focus on areas that are more important. Take one mock every weekend and analyze your test carefully to identify weak and strong areas. One month prior to the test – Practice as many questions as possible.
Q: Taksh: Since not much importance given in the vocabulary part in CAT, is it wise to spend time on mugging words from the flash cards? Or shall I concentrate on the English usage part?
A: Vocabulary will help you not only in vocab based questions but also will help you comprehend other questions better. But it is advisable to spend more time doing RC and Verbal logic. Keep reading and learning the words that you encounter while reading and taking various tests. This will add to your vocabulary and help you prepare better.
Q: Anubhav tyagi: Sir I am yet to finish my first round of revision for CAT. Shall I wait for it to finish first and then take mock tests or start taking mocks now itself?
A: Taking tests will only help you revise better. It will also give you an idea about areas to concentrate on while revision. Take all kinds of tests – sectional and full length mocks. This will help you see what sections you need to work on more. Analyzing your performance in these tests is just as important. Get yourself a solved copy of the question paper and do a self analysis.
Q: Mohd. Ateeb khan: What is the approx no. of questions I must attempt in each section so as to clear the cut offs and get above 90 percentile?
A: With just 60 questions you will not have much to choose from. Do as many questions as possible but focus on accuracy. Even if I give you an estimated number of 25 questions per section (example only), you will not be able to attempt 25 questions if you do not know them. So, cover all topics and prepare across the length and breadth of subjects. Also go back to the past year papers. There is merit in going through them and practicing on these papers as the questions you will face are likely to be similar.
Q: Pramod: Considering the time left what plan should I follow to ensure good percentile. Can I still turn it around if I start from now?
A: Yes, you still have time left. Work hard for the next few months and you may just turn it. I have already discussed the important topics and strategy for next few weeks. Refer to that.
Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more Live Expert Chats on CAT 2012.
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