Planning your MBA exam calendar: Take CAT early but avoid first few days, say Experts

With CAT registrations open and testing window approaching nearer, it’s time for you to slot your CAT testing day in the pre-scheduled 20-day window between October 16 and November 11, 2013. An advance planning for taking other major MBA exams like XAT, NMAT, IIFT Entrance after your CAT exam can give you an edge over others and may bring you many more admission opportunities to top B-schools in India.

So, how do you select your testing days? What is the ideal testing week? What should be the criteria for choosing your testing date?

CAT Experts suggest that it is better to take the test in the first half of the window, even as they say that the testing dates should also depend on your preparation level.

Arks Srinivas, CEO, VistaMind Education, and former director, T.I.M.E says that the dates should be selected depending on your preparation level and also your personal convenience. “You should evaluate your preparation and if you feel that 15-20 days of extra preparation can make you more confident, you should definitely go for the last week for the test. But if your preparation is good, make it in the first week of the testing window and save more time for the next big exam which is XAT,” he says.

Warding off myth that the CAT paper goes tougher in the second half of the testing window, Mr Srinivas says, “The difficulty level of the CAT paper remains almost the same through out the window. Also, if there is any difference in difficulty, the normalization process of CAT scores during the evaluation of your CAT performance takes care of that.”

The dates for all major MBA entrance exams have already been announced. CAT 2013 Exam is scheduled in a 20-day testing window from 16 Oct -11 Nov, 2013.

NMAT 2014 Exam is scheduled in a two and half month window beginning October 5 and ending 18 December. While XAT 2014 exam will be held on 5 January, 2014, IIFT 2014 Exam is scheduled on 24 November, 2013.

CMAT 2014-15 First Test window is between 26 Sept and 30 Sept, 2013. SNAP 2013 Exam will be conducted on 15 Dec, 2013.  

To Read More 

 

 

 

Expert Insight: Focus on 'controlling the controllable' through your CAT journey

As far as CAT and the selection to the IIMs is concerned, there are a bunch of issues on which students expect more certainty than is available -

 

1. If I score 99.6th percentile, will I get a call from the top IIMs, given my academic record? (or some version of this).

The accurate short answer for this – “I do not know”. Based on past cut-off trends, the scores they give for 10th standard, 12th standard and under-graduation scores, we might be able to hypothesize which IIMs one is more likely to get a call from for a given CAT score. But we can do little better than that. More importantly, the answer to this question does not (should not) make the slightest difference to your preparation. Think about this, suppose some expert says “with your record, a 99.5 should get a call from all the IIMs”. Are you likely to leave a couple of questions in each section to ensure that you do not end up scoring more than 99.8th percentile?

Very often, fixating on this question before CAT leads to under-performance in CAT. Specifically, two types of errors creep in – i) I can any way not get into the best IIMs because of skeleton X in my cupboard. May be I need 2 more years of experience in order to crack this process. Or ii) I need to get 0.5 percentile more than anyone else, so I need to attempt more questions. The former leads to a defeatist attitude, the latter to one that makes you attempt the ‘wrong’ questions.

2. CAT follows a normalization process for getting to the final score. Does this mean I am better of attempting the tougher questions?:  Do not bother with the normalization process. Questions you consider tough may be benchmarked easy and vice versa. The team conducting CAT has conveyed that questions carry marks based on levels of difficulty, but we do not know what the exact process is. As it is, students need to worry about ‘n’ different things in an exam hall; this is one you can live without.

3. This is my favorite irritating question - If I start now and prepare well, will I definitely make it to one of the top colleges?: This is similar to hypothetical questions we generally come across on Indian news channels. Students can start in August and crack CAT with a disciplined preparation plan. This is not a genius-testing exam. This is a simple aptitude tester. The best colleges prepare you to deal with uncertainty well. Take the testing process as a starting point for that. The IIMs are far more transparent now with their process than ever before in their history. But that does not mean you can predict everything before-hand.

Control the controllable elements: Although this may sound like a cliché pouted by some self-help guru, it is a powerful mantra for simplifying your preparation plan. What kind of paper would suit me best? Should I take the test in the early part of the window, or is the later part better? Should I take it over the weekend or weekday? Should I attempt at least 17 questions in each section?  All these questions are about as relevant as “Should I wear red T-shirt to the exam” (At least this could have some psychological impact if red were your favorite color). Forget these distractions.

As the saying goes, don’t die wondering. The more irrelevant questions your mind ponders, the less bandwidth it has to for the relevant ones. 

Author of this article, Mr. Rajesh Balasubramanian, an IIT, IIM alumnus, & 2011, 2012 CAT Topper and the author of CAT books published by ‘Access Publishing India’, guides CAT Aspirants through a series of expert articles on MBAUniverse.com.

In his previous articles, he guides on

a 3-step process that you must go through for each topic in Quant section,

Striking balance between speed and accuracy in mock CAT papers&       

What do the 99th percentilers do differently?

Make your way to success in CAT 2013 “Verbal Ability” with Rapid prep course of MBAUniverse.com!

Verbal Ability session would be the most favorite part of CAT examination. To crack this session, student must need a careful approach. Utilization of time would be the biggest worry of an aspirant. Fundamentals of English language remain very important in this session, knowing the basics and the grammar could make your verbal session more interesting and easy. It is quite important to build your basics to get good percentile in CAT. Following are the important areas in Verbal Ability which need specific attention and without which it is not possible to build the castle of your preparation.

1. Error correction in paragraphs and sentences 2. Correct Vocabulary Usage 3. Solving questions based on Reading Comprehension passages 4. Cracking jumbled Paragraphs.

Make your Verbal Ability session easier by beginning your CAT 2013 Prep with Rapid course of MBAUniverse.com and Crack CAT.

MBAUniverse.com is imparting on-line quality preparation at the most affordable price with the facility of test series and GD/PI and Mock CATs. Get the Rapid CAT 2013 Preparation with MBAUniverse.com without wasting any further time. The classes can be attended from anywhere in the world. For details about the classes, you can go through the following link:

http://www.mbauniverse.com/mba-exam-preparation/CAT_Preparation/mba_preparation_package.php