Waiting in the wings

THE CAT FEVER HAS BEGUN. SLATED FOR NOVEMBER, THE CAT IS NOW ON THE MIND OF EVERY MBA ASPIRANT. THE RIGHT APPROACH AND ATTITUDE TO THE EXAM CAN MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE

 

 

   The month of June commences an uphill battle for a majority of the over two and a half lakh CAT aspirants, as they start their meticulous preparations for the fiercely competitive exam. With over five months left for the CAT, you have the potential to ensure you make a major difference to your chances of cracking the CAT this November. All you need are the right preparation strategies.
   Well, you needn’t worry about that anymore. Today’s article focuses on helping you create an outline for your CAT.

ISSUE NO 1: DO NOT GET INTIMIDATED BY THE CAT

Many CAT aspirants get intimidated by the exam and the competition they have to face.The result is that they never really believe they can crack it and it is one of the biggest reasons for failure in the CAT. The difference between a 70 percentile and a 99 percentile score is never more than six to eight questions. Hence, any student who has ever scored 70 percentile in the CAT could have reached a percentile of 97 to 99 by just approaching six to eight questions differently.
   Ask these students three crucial questions, and they will realise how much better they could have scored.

These questions are:

a) How many silly errors did you make in the exam? Let the number of such errors be ‘A’.
b) How many questions did you read in the exam for which you remembered the answers only after you left the hall? Let the number of such questions be ‘B’
c) How many questions did you not read in the exam, but knew the answer when you saw them after the paper? Let the number of such questions be ‘C’.
   Here, your score could have improved substantially, ie, by calculating A×4+ B×4+C×4. Note: This could have happened on the basis of your current knowledge.We have not even started to discuss knowledge increment here.
   It is common knowledge that the minimum value of A+B+C for students whose scores ranged between 70 to 90 percentile, would be in the range of 12 to 15 (in a 75 question paper). You could have had a minimum score improvement of 50+ marks — something that would have ensured a jump of 20 to 30 percentile.

Consider the evidence:

In the latest CAT, there were approximately 75,000 students who scored 70 percentile, while only some 2000 odd students scored 99 percentile. This means that the other 73,000 students lost out just because of a few questions.
   According to calculations, in the CAT 2007 paper, anyone who managed to score 80 percentile, merely had to avoid six errors to get the coveted call. Some 50,000 students scored over 80 percentile in CAT 2007, and had an opportunity to score better. In fact, any student who scored 90+ percentile would be just three questions away from an IIM call!
   The fact of the matter is that 25,000 students scored 90 percentile in the latest CAT. If you were to ask them about how far he/she was from acing the CAT, most of them would be under the impression that they would need at least one to two years of preparation. Worse, most students with a percentile of 70 to 80 would not even believe that they have the requisite intelligence to pass the CAT.

ISSUE NO 2: PREPARE ON A WIDE ANGLED FRAMEWORK

The CAT is full of surprises.This image has been created over 15 to 20 years of constantly changing patterns and question types.
   This image has emerged because students tend to work and prepare in a set way. They use the papers from the past two to three years as a reference, thinking it is representative of what the CAT is today, and base their preparations on it. This is one of the most common follies that CAT aspirants make. Ideally, an aspirant for CAT 2008 will discount what happened in CAT 2000 (for instance) knowing that the year 2000 was almost a decade ago and what happened in CAT then is most unlikely to happen again.
   Aspirants in CAT 2006 had to regret this line of thinking. ‘Facts, Inferences and Judgements’, a question type neglected by CAT aspirants and training institutes across India, made an appearance after a gap of - hold your breath - 14 years. Yes, the last time it had been seen in the CAT was in 1992.
   There have been numerous such cases and examples, but to get to the point - if you prepare for the CAT with a two to three year perspective, you would always be surprised.

Our advice:

1) Prepare for a 10 to 15 year perspective and the surprise element of the CAT will no longer exist.
2) Do not try to guess the number of questions, the types of questions, even the number of sections. Instead be prepared for any change in pattern, and during your preparations, focus on the development of your intelligence to crack the CAT.

ISSUE NO 3: OBJECTIVE SETTING FOR YOUR PREPARATIONS


Cut offs for IIM calls have been in the range of 100 to 110 out of 300 over the past two years. Aspirants make the error of aiming for a score of 110 marks only. If you prepare for 110 and slip up by just five questions, your score would dip to 75 to 80 percentile.
Instead, if you prepare for 150 to 160 marks (50+ in each section), even if you were to make about five to six errors, your score would just drop from 99.5 percentile+ to 99 percentile+.
As we will demonstrate in future articles in this series, scoring 50+ marks in any particular section of the CAT can be easily accomplished! So Keep watching this space.