My Strategy for the CAT

My Strategy for the CAT
CAT is officially my favorite entrance exam now. Not that I'm an entrance exam veteran or anything but, I have had my share of exams. It all started with the IIT-JEE, CEE and AIEEE. I got an IIT rank of 1983 which might have been good for many but personally, I just couldn't spend four years of my life doing something I didn't want to, just to be in an IIT. That was what I thought then. I had a slighty more respectable rank of 197 in CEE and ended up with Electronics at NSIT. A decision that I still regret a bit since I always wanted to do Computers but after much discussion and dilly-dallying I decided on Electronics. And thus, I ended up doing something I didn't like too much for four years, anyway.

Where was I now? Yes, CAT. The first thing that's so amazing about the CAT has got to be the name. It lends itself so easily to so many puns. Some might complain that it's really irritating and resort to catcalls, but not me. I say, bring on the - media favorite Bell the CAT, and the IMS (or Career Launcher) sponsored quizzes with rounds such as CATechism, CATharsis and CATastrophe (I'm not kidding here). On the other hand, JEE sounds too sarkari and AIEEE sounds more like Tarzan fell off a cliff.

On a more serious note, I like the CAT because no matter what the coaching institutes would have you believe, it is not necessary to spend months and years preparing for it. You can just walk in without too much preparation and still manage to give a decent attempt. Perhaps you won't crack the exam, but that's not what I'm trying to get across here. I mean unlike the JEE or any of the other Engineering entrances the CAT doesn't really test you on complex concepts of Rotational Mechanics or require you to mug up boring reactions of Inorganic Chemistry. Instead it tests you on English, Logic and Quantitative Ability. Of these, with the probable exception of Quantitative Ability I don't think the rest are areas that can be improved upon by learning up concepts or formulae.


Why am I giving all this gyaan? Frankly, lots of people have been asking for it. Therefore, here I am setting the record straight.

How did I prepare for the CAT?
I didn't. I did not join any of the money-guzzling coaching Institutes. I gave a grand total of two sample tests. At home. The first one took me three days to complete. [Those serious about the CAT should be looking at a time frame of about 150 minutes.] The second sample test I got bored with [because I couldn't solve about 4-5 questions in a row] and slept. I woke up next morning and went to the examination center.

What was my strategy during the exam?
I had none. I started with the Verbal section. Now, I had given the GRE and TOEFL about a month back and in those exams the next question doesn't come up until one answers the current one, so even though I knew it wasn't a compulsion but if I spent time reading a question I ended up marking an answer. I attempted quite a few.
60 minutes gone. 90 minutes left for DI and Quant. I moved onto DI which took about 55-60 minutes. I attempted quite a few here too.
30 minutes to go. 25 Quant questions to do. Quant was a little tough I felt. Tougher than the one sample test I had attempted (properly). I started picking and choosing questions. Used my bag of tricks and shortcuts. Used the elimination of options technique atleast in 3-4 questions.
5 minutes to go and 12 questions unread. I started panicking. Scanned the paper to look for the easy ones. Picked up a couple of good ones. I asked the invigilator how much time was left. One minute. I took one final look at at my OMR sheet and the squiggly circles. The Verbal Ability and Data Interpretation sections were all filled in but the Quant section looked really empty. Too many blank spaces. Asymmetry irritates me, so as the invigilator picked up the answer sheet of the girl in front of me, (in case you are reading this, I thought you were kinda cute) I sweared, and quickly marked three randomly chosen questions without even reading them, with the same option.

How did I perform?
I got an overall percentile of 99.58 and calls from four of the IIMs – Ahmedabad, Calcutta, Indore and Kozhikode. Not bad I think, for someone who walked in without (much) preparation. Of course, it's not something I would recommend to people who are serious about an MBA but one must applaud an exam that’s structured in such a way that tests you and not your ability to cheat from memory.

Final words of advice
Don't join any coaching institute. They'll just take your money, and keep it. They won't really do much value addition. Read up on books, actually you should be doing this anyway. Those of you who start reading as part of their MBA preparation clearly have the wrong idea. Though, from what people tell me joining a test series may not be such a bad idea. It will give you good practice, shall help you remember formulae for the quantitative ability section, familiarize you with the pattern, and help you manage your time better. But I don't think you'll benefit much in Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning as mostly no difficult formulae are involved and every question is a fresh one.

Future?
I'm not very keen on doing an MBA and I don't know how seriously I'm gonna give the interviews.

Just in case you were wondering, of my randomly chosen questions I got one right and two wrong. So, that's a net profit of 2 marks. I don't know how much difference that made but if you are an MBA-aspirant you might want to work on your luck too.

for more information http://mainsamayhoon.blogspot.com/2008/01/my-strategy-for-cat.html