In
this special column CAT expert and author Mr Rajesh Balasubramanian draws analogies between CAT, the most
prestigious MBA entrance in India, and Cricket, the most popular sports of the
country.
We in India
get cricket analogies better than anything else. So here is a list of ideas for
CAT with cricketing parallels.
Plan
like the Kiwis
In cricket,
the New Zealand team probably maximises its limited potential the best. In the
1992 world cup, they unleashed Greatbatch at the right time, opened with an
off-spinner against India, and possibly tanked their last league match in order
to play the semi-final at home. More recently, a promoted Chris Harris
scored a century in a world cup quarter-final at Chepauk. It is
astonishing how a team with such limited resources has competed so well for so
long. It is because they read the opponents well, understand their limitations
and play astute cricket.
Before going
into CAT, you should know which topics you hate, which ones you are likely to
get carried away with, which questions get you switched on, etc. Knowing your
strengths and weaknesses well can improve your performance by 20-30%.
Strut
in like Ponting:
“Purposeful stride to the centre”, “raring to go”, these are the phrases used
to describe Ponting coming in. The only other player to convey so much with the
walk was probably Viv Richards. But because it is not good to ‘swagger’ into an
exam hall, let us go with Ponting. Whether it is actual CAT
or a mock CAT, it is key to start with an eagerness that gives an
adrenaline rush when you start the exam. In the 10-minutes before the exam, if
you can work yourself up to start at your best, it can also feed into your
belief. To use a Shastri-ism, you should walk in like you “mean business”
Start
like Sehwag:
Once the exam begins, the whole idea shifts to going one question at a time.
All of the pre-exam agonizing and fretting should be left at the door. Here,
Sehwag’s philosophy of see-ball hit-ball works best. It really does not matter
whether it is Dale Steyn at 148km/hr or Paul Strang’s pie throwing. If it is in
the zone, it goes to the boundary. As a student, the first few questions are
when the mind does some wandering, when all the pre-exam strategizing comes
into play. But in the 2 minutes that you spend to crack a question, all of this
should fade into the background. It is amazing what a few correct answers can
do to your thinking.
To give a
parallel, in the world cup match quarterfinal Pakistan in 2012, Sehwag hit
Pakistan’s best pace bowler Umar Gul for five boundaries in an over. The pitch
was not that easy to bat on, Saeed Ajmal bowled magnificently later on. But
because Sehwag had given a good start even before one could digest all these
factors, India had an enormous buffer in the middle overs. Imagine a paper
where the quant is very tough, where questions from 11 to 16 are impossibly
tough. But say you jumped headlong into this paper, and attempted 7 out of the
first 10 within 12 minutes because you had this vague adrenaline rush with you.
You can crash and burn yourself in the rest of the sections, but you have
already guaranteed yourself a 99th percentile.
Leave
like Dravid:
When batting is tough, the key to survival is leaving the maximum number of
deliveries. Something Rahul Dravid was very good at. In CAT also, attempting a
question that you should not have tried extracts a far higher price than
leaving a question that you should have tried. So, when in doubt, leave.
Finish
like Dhoni:
Whenever Dhoni is managing a chase, it is obvious that he knows which bowlers
to target, how many overs are remaining from the 5th bowler and how high a
required run rate he can handle. As a test taker, at any point of time during
an exam a student should know the following
- how many questions one has done thus far,
- how many more can be reasonably done in the remaining time
- What kind of questions are yet to come – as in Data Interpretation, or Sentence Rearrangement, or Logical Reasoning?
- This knowledge gives you a sense of what to expect, which in turn helps you retain composure.
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