Yes I know that it has been pretty late since I last posted on this blog, and that its just a few weeks away from the D-day (or the D-week or what-ever) but still I thought its never late for a good thing, so lets try to have a look at what can we expect from the online format of the CAT.
A few things which I want to clearly state before going into the main body of the post, all the things which I am going to write are just my views and predictions, and they may or may not be true, I am not going to write things like the number of questions one can expect in CAT but the type of questions which have more probability of appearing in CAT.
QA :
CBT or PBT (paper based test) , this section should be consisting of similar questions, testing the same set of skills and so it shall need similar approach as theconventional CAT exams (as if there is something like conventional CAT :O).
The point to emphasize here is, even though the total number of questions may decrease (most probably it will) and almost all the coaching institutes are emphasizing that one has to be good in all topics in order to do good in the exam, it isn’t so.
According to observation of previous year CATs one thing is for sure, 40 % marks in any section is sure to get you 98+ percentile, this effectively means you need to do 8 out of 20 (or so) questions right. So why do coaching institutes emphasize on studying all topics, because you never know questions from which section would be easier, the paper may have easier questions from the section you have left while difficult ones from your areas of comfort, now here is a trade-off : you either work on all the topics, so that you can do the sitters from all the areas well or you may decide to be so good in your favorite topics that you can solve the questions, come what may.
DI/LR:
DI is the one section which will probably get affected most.
Reasons:
i.) Fewer number of questions means either there will be fewer sets or fewer questions per set, while the former will make question selection tougher and more important, the later will make sets less worthy and hence you will need to do more sets in the same amount of time for having our desired percentile.
ii.) Aspirants used to fill the tables and other figures with data while attempting DI/LR questions, this facility won’t be available now + It isn’t easy to look at the screen each time you need a data.
No matter how hard this problem seems but it can be solved by one remedy “PRACITCE”.
VA/RC :
More probably then not this time CAT will be emphasizing less on RC questions then on other questions, questions on usage/jumbled up sentences/sentence correction are likely to form major section of the paper, short passages with lesser number of questions than usual may be a surprise package for many.
Suggestions to improve in this section: emphasize less on reading speed and more on comprehension/analysis of the read text, don’t depend too much on techniques like reading the question first and then trying to find out the key-word in the passage but try to actually understand the passage and then answer the questions, if possible work on vocabulary, it might be of help, get acquainted with grammar rules etc.
Some more points to note.
==> Data sufficiency questions may be back in fashion, both in QA and in DI.
==> Less emphasis on lengthy table based DIs, more on crisp logical reasoning questions and a few pie-chart or other figure based DIs, which have many small and related figures per set.
==> Analytical reasoning questions will be in something to look for.
==>Be comfortable and confident, why ??? let me take an example of QA.
There would be somewhere around 20 questions of QA that you will have to do in 45 minutes.
Now lets say you need 4 minutes to look at your watch, adjust the mouse, scratch your neck and other such inevitable things.
Now lets take the following assumptions.
i.) you read all the questions.
ii.) you solve 10 questions, out of which you solve 8 correctly rest 2 you either solve in-correctly or you leave them in-between coz they seem to be lengthy.
iii.) You have an average reading speed, and you take close to 80 seconds to read a question and realize whether you should try it.
Now usually there would be at-least 2-3 questions, which would be from the topics you dread, so these questions you will leave even without wasting reading them and wasting much time, lets say taking 30 minutes per question. So you would have seen 3 questions in 90seconds (Wow, that’s quick !!!) + you will take close to 560 seconds in reading the questions you won’t attempt.
So in total you have more than 30 minutes to attempt the10 questions, out of which 4-5 will be sitters which can be easily solved in about 90 seconds each. Attempting 4such questions would mean you have 24 minutes for rest 6 questions that means whopping 4 minutes per question, and these are the easier questions from the topics you are comfortable in.
Now doesn’t it seem obvious that more than 98 percent of people should get a sectional of 98 percentile plus in QA :P
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Role of Question Selection in CAT ...
Note : This post is the same as the reply given by by me at pg, except the last para which concentrate on the role of question selection in Computer based test.
Question Selection always plays a big part in competitions like CAT, and though it largely depends upon a no. of factors like the paper format, relative difficulty of questions and all, but the most important factor is YOU.
You have to realize that what are the questions that you are comfortable with, what are the questions that you can solve in less time, for some guys like RCs are the only thing they are confident about in VA, for some-other guys RCs may be dreading while Vocab a nemesis.
But then you have to understand, that at times you have to make a trade-off and leave something you are good at just in order to make sure actually get the thing that matters most, a decent(and balanced) percentile.
Now though it depends on person to person, but still I would give u some points which might help you, please understand that these are my personal opinions and hence try them in mocks to see whether they are actually suitable for you.
i.) Don't make any pre-assumption about the paper like I will solve 15 questions in quant, rather chill out n try to find questions which look familiar to you, in the sense that either you have solved/seen such question earlier or the concept involved looks easier.
ii.) If there is any question involving terms such as 'n' or 'x' give yourself 2 minutes to try to put various values of the variable and option check.
iii.) Don't give a LR puzzle more than 5 minutes unless you actually get an idea on where it is leading to, or you have no better question to solve (LR puzzles are kind of addictive particularly for engineers and guys who love puzzles, but then its a exam).
iv.) Make use of bookmark : if u realize that a question looks familiar but you aren't able to crack in a few minutes bookmark it and solve other questions, come back to it once you feel like you have solved all the easier questions.
v.) If you aren't a voracious reader chose passage in which the questions are of factual nature eg: which of the following is the reason cited by the author, or which of the following is the reason provided .....
These kind of questions can be solved by just skimming through the passage, and then looking for the keyword(of the question) in the passage.
Avoid philosophical RCs and questions like, what does author think OR what does author implies.
And now, lets see how question selection differs from a paper based CAT to a cbt CAT.
You must have seen people telling that you should do the questions in two go, one of x min and the other y min, In a cbt exam this could be pretty much time-taking, its not easy to bookmark 10 questions and then you keep searching the questions which you have bookmarked, plus if you guys have appeared in online mock-cats, it takes some time for the questions to load, so in my opinion the strategy needs to be changed a little bit.
Go for all the questions that you think, can be solved in under 2 minutes, bookmark questions only if you know they are easy but you are missing some key point OR if the question is easy but involves lot of calculations avoid using excessive bookmarking. Go to the other sections, do them and then try to analyze your sectional performance and accordingly decide to go again into which section, go and solve the bookmarked questions in the section.
Best of luck !!!
Question Selection always plays a big part in competitions like CAT, and though it largely depends upon a no. of factors like the paper format, relative difficulty of questions and all, but the most important factor is YOU.
You have to realize that what are the questions that you are comfortable with, what are the questions that you can solve in less time, for some guys like RCs are the only thing they are confident about in VA, for some-other guys RCs may be dreading while Vocab a nemesis.
But then you have to understand, that at times you have to make a trade-off and leave something you are good at just in order to make sure actually get the thing that matters most, a decent(and balanced) percentile.
Now though it depends on person to person, but still I would give u some points which might help you, please understand that these are my personal opinions and hence try them in mocks to see whether they are actually suitable for you.
i.) Don't make any pre-assumption about the paper like I will solve 15 questions in quant, rather chill out n try to find questions which look familiar to you, in the sense that either you have solved/seen such question earlier or the concept involved looks easier.
ii.) If there is any question involving terms such as 'n' or 'x' give yourself 2 minutes to try to put various values of the variable and option check.
iii.) Don't give a LR puzzle more than 5 minutes unless you actually get an idea on where it is leading to, or you have no better question to solve (LR puzzles are kind of addictive particularly for engineers and guys who love puzzles, but then its a exam).
iv.) Make use of bookmark : if u realize that a question looks familiar but you aren't able to crack in a few minutes bookmark it and solve other questions, come back to it once you feel like you have solved all the easier questions.
v.) If you aren't a voracious reader chose passage in which the questions are of factual nature eg: which of the following is the reason cited by the author, or which of the following is the reason provided .....
These kind of questions can be solved by just skimming through the passage, and then looking for the keyword(of the question) in the passage.
Avoid philosophical RCs and questions like, what does author think OR what does author implies.
And now, lets see how question selection differs from a paper based CAT to a cbt CAT.
You must have seen people telling that you should do the questions in two go, one of x min and the other y min, In a cbt exam this could be pretty much time-taking, its not easy to bookmark 10 questions and then you keep searching the questions which you have bookmarked, plus if you guys have appeared in online mock-cats, it takes some time for the questions to load, so in my opinion the strategy needs to be changed a little bit.
Go for all the questions that you think, can be solved in under 2 minutes, bookmark questions only if you know they are easy but you are missing some key point OR if the question is easy but involves lot of calculations avoid using excessive bookmarking. Go to the other sections, do them and then try to analyze your sectional performance and accordingly decide to go again into which section, go and solve the bookmarked questions in the section.
Best of luck !!!
Friday, August 28, 2009
Preperation Strategy : 60 days to CAT .
This post isn’t intended to be for every-one, this has an intended set of users.
i.) Those who think, they haven’t been able to do full justice to their intellectual and would like to do so.
ii.) Those who aren’t too bothered about the TIME/CL/IMS cut-offs rather who are willing to get into an IIM and preferably an A/B/C.
iii.) Those who are adaptable and flexible, what this effectively means is, those who are willing to learn and to change themselves in order to achieve the greater good.
Let’s look into how to prepare for CAT with 60 days to go.
Considering that there are a few days when you don’t feel like studying, or you don’t get time for that, e.g. you have your end-sem exams, its date for a project submission, you have to do an assignment or any other such reason I am assuming that you have just 60 days to ace for the D-day (or days).
Quant:
This is the one section where the only thing that is more important than hard work is smart work. This is the section where learning actually helps, try to revise the concepts of all the topics covered in CAT, as you read a topic try to solve some questions on that (remember its not the quantity but the quality of questions that you solve) Never ever waste your precious time on questions which take more than 4 minutes, remember CAT isn’t a Math’s Olympiad it is CAT.
When this is done, take as many CAT/MOCK-CAT papers you can find and see if there are questions related to that topic, and solve them. Once the questions are solved, take them again and think of yourself in a situation where you haven’t read the topic then try to solve the question by using option rejection, option checking, or value putting.
Data Interpretation:
There are a lot of teachers and institutes which give a lot of emphasis on learning squares, cubes, percentage tables and what not. I am not saying that they aren’t helpful but perhaps they aren’t that important as they are emphasized, in my little experience I’ve realized that one doesn’t save more than a few minutes by using these tricks, and no doubt these few minutes are important in a paper like CAT but is it worth the effort that you put into, and whether you feel confident while using them. If you keep re-checking all calculations which you have done by using these tricks there is no use of learning them in the first place.
DI is one section where two things are really important, first good question selection and second a cool head. And these things come from practice. But then its very unlike Quant, here you don’t have a well defined course / topics. So what is important is to do quality work on DI. Take a set of DI everyday, or if you are lazy enough to not being able to do that take at-least one DI set every few days, the important thing here is : first try to solve the set in a fixed time frame, say that of 10 minutes, if you can solve it in less than that, then be happy and go to sleep, else try to solve it in 30 minutes, if you can’t solve it even in 30 minutes then there are two possibilities, either the set wasn’t worth attempting or there is something which is missing in your reasoning. Just do remember one thing, if you can’t solve a set at a particular time this doesn’t mean you can’t solve it. At times what you need in DI (particularly LR) is a click, so don’t get dis-heartened remember its just practice match the final is on the D-day.
Coming back to point if you can’t solve it, discuss with some-one who you know is good to solve this kind of questions, he/she may be your friend or a teacher else you can ask the question at forums like pg (www.pagalguy.com) for those of you who don’t know what pg is, or else you can ask the question at this blog itself.
This is important because this way you would improve your question selection ability, in case you get a set which is similar to one you have solved you will feel confident and it would be easier to solve it.
Verbal Ability:
I know that I am not a very good person to say how to prepare for Verbal ability, but I can give you some tips on how to score good in it.
Use option elimination; at times it is easier to find out which options can’t be the answer than finding out, which option is the answer.
In reading comprehension, avoid inferential RCs which have questions like, what does the author means, or what is the intention of the author unless you have read the topic well and have gained good insight into it.
In para-jumbles, don’t try to find the complete order, rather try to find two sentences which need to be in certain order, and then use it to reject options.
i.) Those who think, they haven’t been able to do full justice to their intellectual and would like to do so.
ii.) Those who aren’t too bothered about the TIME/CL/IMS cut-offs rather who are willing to get into an IIM and preferably an A/B/C.
iii.) Those who are adaptable and flexible, what this effectively means is, those who are willing to learn and to change themselves in order to achieve the greater good.
Let’s look into how to prepare for CAT with 60 days to go.
Considering that there are a few days when you don’t feel like studying, or you don’t get time for that, e.g. you have your end-sem exams, its date for a project submission, you have to do an assignment or any other such reason I am assuming that you have just 60 days to ace for the D-day (or days).
Quant:
This is the one section where the only thing that is more important than hard work is smart work. This is the section where learning actually helps, try to revise the concepts of all the topics covered in CAT, as you read a topic try to solve some questions on that (remember its not the quantity but the quality of questions that you solve) Never ever waste your precious time on questions which take more than 4 minutes, remember CAT isn’t a Math’s Olympiad it is CAT.
When this is done, take as many CAT/MOCK-CAT papers you can find and see if there are questions related to that topic, and solve them. Once the questions are solved, take them again and think of yourself in a situation where you haven’t read the topic then try to solve the question by using option rejection, option checking, or value putting.
Data Interpretation:
There are a lot of teachers and institutes which give a lot of emphasis on learning squares, cubes, percentage tables and what not. I am not saying that they aren’t helpful but perhaps they aren’t that important as they are emphasized, in my little experience I’ve realized that one doesn’t save more than a few minutes by using these tricks, and no doubt these few minutes are important in a paper like CAT but is it worth the effort that you put into, and whether you feel confident while using them. If you keep re-checking all calculations which you have done by using these tricks there is no use of learning them in the first place.
DI is one section where two things are really important, first good question selection and second a cool head. And these things come from practice. But then its very unlike Quant, here you don’t have a well defined course / topics. So what is important is to do quality work on DI. Take a set of DI everyday, or if you are lazy enough to not being able to do that take at-least one DI set every few days, the important thing here is : first try to solve the set in a fixed time frame, say that of 10 minutes, if you can solve it in less than that, then be happy and go to sleep, else try to solve it in 30 minutes, if you can’t solve it even in 30 minutes then there are two possibilities, either the set wasn’t worth attempting or there is something which is missing in your reasoning. Just do remember one thing, if you can’t solve a set at a particular time this doesn’t mean you can’t solve it. At times what you need in DI (particularly LR) is a click, so don’t get dis-heartened remember its just practice match the final is on the D-day.
Coming back to point if you can’t solve it, discuss with some-one who you know is good to solve this kind of questions, he/she may be your friend or a teacher else you can ask the question at forums like pg (www.pagalguy.com) for those of you who don’t know what pg is, or else you can ask the question at this blog itself.
This is important because this way you would improve your question selection ability, in case you get a set which is similar to one you have solved you will feel confident and it would be easier to solve it.
Verbal Ability:
I know that I am not a very good person to say how to prepare for Verbal ability, but I can give you some tips on how to score good in it.
Use option elimination; at times it is easier to find out which options can’t be the answer than finding out, which option is the answer.
In reading comprehension, avoid inferential RCs which have questions like, what does the author means, or what is the intention of the author unless you have read the topic well and have gained good insight into it.
In para-jumbles, don’t try to find the complete order, rather try to find two sentences which need to be in certain order, and then use it to reject options.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Introduction
So here is the first post in this blog.
First of let me clarify why I've created this blog in the first place and why one should read it, the second one is a very appropriate question considering that as of now I am just another CAT aspirant, without any exceptional under-graduate record.
But then, as far as CAT is concerned, do you really think it matters??? Or for that matter that you actually need a very high IQ or a lot of hard work to crack it.
The answer is a clear and emphatic no. All it takes to crack CAT (remember I am talking about CAT as of now and not getting into IIMs or other institutes) is common-sense and a basic (high-school) knowledge of mathematics and English, don’t believe me!!! Read this post completely and if you still don’t agree, you can very well call this blog and the author “CRAP” and move on.
When I was in my class 12’th I used to think there is no life beyond the IITs (and may be NDA, this story will be told some other time), but then as I moved on in life I realized that no there actually is life beyond the IITs, and there is a place called IIMs where even the gold-medalists from the IITs covet to enter. In my time (no I am not too old, my time means 2005-2006) IIT-JEE used to be an exam which demanded hard-work, even the best minds used to burn mid-night oil to get into the Mecca of Indian undergraduate studies. And as you all can see, being an out-right lazy fellow that I am, I failed to get into them and am here in KIIT. Add to that, I am a student with pretty ordinary record, in 10’Th (83), 12’Th (82), B.Tech (8.0/10 till now) and I have been unsuccessful in SSB for NDA for outright 4 times.
But then CAT is a different ball game, in other exams such as IIT-JEE you can see and feel your progress as you get further into your preparations, but unless you actually understand what CAT demands its really difficult to make any significant progress, and trust me you won’t need much hard-word or a IQ of 160 to crack it, take my example, by my previous academic record you must have seen that I am an outright ordinary student and still some-how I’ve always managed to get over 99 percentiles in all but one mocks I’ve ever appeared. And if some-one has 10 out of 11 percentiles of over 99.15 including quite a few of 99.9x and just one exception of 98.xx then he gotta know something which might be worthwhile to look into, ISN’T IT ???
Hoping that this would have solved (may be partially) the second question let’s move on to the first question, why am I interested in this???
==> No-one is perfect, and in no field period, it would be a mutual process where we would be learning from each-other, so I am just making a platform where exchange of knowledge will take place.
==> I’ve seen that a lot of my friends, who are more intelligent than me, and who are putting a hell lot of effort more than me and more than what is required (in my humble opinion) getting way less marks and in turn percentiles than what they deserve. People who score 99.xx in 1 mock and then suddenly fall to 8x.xx are really good, but what they lack is the right approach, and you all must have felt that your marks in mocks aren’t actually a true reflection of your ability; I want to see all of them getting their due.
==> In case I don’t make into some IIM, it would be good to have some of my friends into there. :D
So let the journey begin, please pour in your comments and or doubts, if you have, I will definitely try my level best to answer them.
First of let me clarify why I've created this blog in the first place and why one should read it, the second one is a very appropriate question considering that as of now I am just another CAT aspirant, without any exceptional under-graduate record.
But then, as far as CAT is concerned, do you really think it matters??? Or for that matter that you actually need a very high IQ or a lot of hard work to crack it.
The answer is a clear and emphatic no. All it takes to crack CAT (remember I am talking about CAT as of now and not getting into IIMs or other institutes) is common-sense and a basic (high-school) knowledge of mathematics and English, don’t believe me!!! Read this post completely and if you still don’t agree, you can very well call this blog and the author “CRAP” and move on.
When I was in my class 12’th I used to think there is no life beyond the IITs (and may be NDA, this story will be told some other time), but then as I moved on in life I realized that no there actually is life beyond the IITs, and there is a place called IIMs where even the gold-medalists from the IITs covet to enter. In my time (no I am not too old, my time means 2005-2006) IIT-JEE used to be an exam which demanded hard-work, even the best minds used to burn mid-night oil to get into the Mecca of Indian undergraduate studies. And as you all can see, being an out-right lazy fellow that I am, I failed to get into them and am here in KIIT. Add to that, I am a student with pretty ordinary record, in 10’Th (83), 12’Th (82), B.Tech (8.0/10 till now) and I have been unsuccessful in SSB for NDA for outright 4 times.
But then CAT is a different ball game, in other exams such as IIT-JEE you can see and feel your progress as you get further into your preparations, but unless you actually understand what CAT demands its really difficult to make any significant progress, and trust me you won’t need much hard-word or a IQ of 160 to crack it, take my example, by my previous academic record you must have seen that I am an outright ordinary student and still some-how I’ve always managed to get over 99 percentiles in all but one mocks I’ve ever appeared. And if some-one has 10 out of 11 percentiles of over 99.15 including quite a few of 99.9x and just one exception of 98.xx then he gotta know something which might be worthwhile to look into, ISN’T IT ???
Hoping that this would have solved (may be partially) the second question let’s move on to the first question, why am I interested in this???
==> No-one is perfect, and in no field period, it would be a mutual process where we would be learning from each-other, so I am just making a platform where exchange of knowledge will take place.
==> I’ve seen that a lot of my friends, who are more intelligent than me, and who are putting a hell lot of effort more than me and more than what is required (in my humble opinion) getting way less marks and in turn percentiles than what they deserve. People who score 99.xx in 1 mock and then suddenly fall to 8x.xx are really good, but what they lack is the right approach, and you all must have felt that your marks in mocks aren’t actually a true reflection of your ability; I want to see all of them getting their due.
==> In case I don’t make into some IIM, it would be good to have some of my friends into there. :D
So let the journey begin, please pour in your comments and or doubts, if you have, I will definitely try my level best to answer them.
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