[sushobhan]

CAT PREPARATION - PART 1

Importance of Speed, Accuracy & daily ranking!

Almost every CAT aspirant knows that CAT is a test of comparative intelligence and NOT individual excellence. Still many test takers spend 60% of the time measuring individual performance in the regular tests. Moreover, with the CAT 09 going online this year the share of comparative intelligence tests is expected to decrease further to 20% because of the under-preparedness of many national CAT prep organizations.

What is comparative Intelligence?

Think about yourself and another 2.75 lakh waiting for the 10 deciding days of computer based CAT 09. Possibly, they all would have some trainer directing them for the C-Day. They all would have deeper knowledge of the previous CATs. Then, what makes you superior to them? How will you be “first among the equals”? Obviously, coming “First among the equals” means competing daily with all of them rather than spending last 2 months on learning and achieving percentiles. Probably, that’s the reason CAT aspirants are turning towards online test providers more than those who offer mere learning experience that lacks ‘benchmarking’ option at a larger scale on daily basis. Moreover, many have already joined one online testing programme over and above the classroom programmes in order to stay abreast on both the fronts.

Comparative Intelligence in Quant & DI

Quant and DI in CAT have consistently been rated as – difficult and challenging. Even though there have been times when people find the verbal section extremely difficult, still Quant and DI have always been characterized by the ‘tricky’ and ‘logical-input based’ questions. Thus, in order to ensure a balanced score-card one has to give due importance to achieving comparative intelligence in these two ‘Logic’ based sections.

Therefore, importance of measuring and improving your speed, accuracy, attempt and percentile in each online test that you take cannot be over-emphasized. The daily online practice and evaluation of the ability to calculate faster will not only help in speedily maintaining the blend of speed and accuracy but also in reassuring yourself that you are ready for Tech-CAT. Hence, expertise in Quantitative reasoning ability needs to be reassured on daily basis through regular online testing and analysis.

This makes it vital to study not only the nature of Quant and DI sections in a CAT but also to learn ways to master them online.

Meeting daily ranking challenge:
Is it really a challenge?

Yes! It is, – especially for those who are struck in the middle of their CAT offline preparation and expected to have access to online resources only after September 09. Moreover, the offline organizations that responded faster to the computer based CAT challenge are still struggling to provide the right testing interface to their students.


1. Method(s) of solving questions
You can use any of the four methods to answer the question in Quant or DI section.
a. Direct or convectional method as you does in your school days going from the question to the answer. This method, however, is least preferable.
b. Eliminating the options or going with the options. This is always the best and quicker way to reach the required answer.
c. Substitution of some values in the question. This method is very much useful for Algebra problems
d. Using direct method and Elimination method simultaneously.

2. Selection of Questions

While selecting the questions to attempt we have to be very careful. One must remember that in exams other than CAT we have to do complete as many number of questions as we can. On the other hand, in CAT a possible scenario may be the one where the test taker leaves nearly half the questions and still makes it to the top. The ability to select questions with easy statements and not-so-close answer choices can be developed by analyzing your MOCK CATs regularly at this stage. The expectation that CAT 09 will be Linear and NOT Adaptive further emphasizes the need of better selection of questions.

3. Improving speed of calculation

The time spent by a student in Quant and DI section on calculation is about 20% and the rest 80% is spent on comprehending the concept of the question. So beside your basic concepts you should have to work more on your calculations. It is recommended to spend at least 15 minutes daily on doing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Also ability to recall tables, squares & cubes up to 30, and multiplication between some common numbers like 13 x 12, 18 x 24 etc will be handy in getting the best out of the 20% time one spends on calculations.

4. Accuracy

Since, the time doesn’t permit us to solve all the questions. It becomes important to make sure that one solves 65% of questions at an accuracy rate not less than 80% rather than doing 80% of questions with 60% accuracy rate. If the paper is trickier, then an attempt and accuracy can be adjusted to find the optimum balance.

5. Handling traps in the language of the question

A well prepared student can fall in the traps in a few questions in CAT. You have to clearly see what is being asked in the question. For example, consider the following question:

Question: A student is expecting of getting 90 marks in the math paper and overall 75% marks in five papers but he actually gets only 80. What percentage of the marks he finally gets if the marks in other four papers are same as expected?

Solution: Well the very first answer from majority number of students will be 73% as they themselves imagine the maximum marks of a paper as 100, which is a trap in the question. This happens because in many examinations maximum marks are 100, but this does not hold true in this situation.

So the answer for these questions will be data insufficient or can’t be determined.

6. Preparing for a changed CAT-Quant pattern

Be prepared with every type of permutations and combinations for the pattern of CAT 2009. Will it have 5 or 4 options per questions; is it going to be ¼th negative or 1/3rd negative for a wrong answer; will the number of question decrease or increase; will the sections have sub–sections and further sub-sub-sections with varying marks per question or not; which topics would be visible more in the CAT 2009; what adjustments should be made in the attempt pattern if there are more questions from an unexpectedly less preferred topic like time and work etc. All these uncertainties should be addressed and discussed with your online trainers at this stage only in order to be prepared for the same.

Hence, in order to reach the 99.99 mark it becomes imperative not only to have familiarity with different ways of managing the attempt and finding the answers to the optimum number of questions but also adding a proven strength to the prevailing methods of testing to get daily ranking vis-à-vis rest of India. And to ensure this regular online testing and analysis on the resources like Online Math Tutoring | K-12 Math Homework Help | SAT-GRE Preparation is the key.

One must always remember that.

SOURCE - TCYONLINE