M.B.A, Master of Business Administration is a degree which will never go out of fashion. It is the most coveted profession.
Common Admission Test (CAT), is the common entrance exam that you have to take to get admission to the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), at Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow, Indore, and Kozhikode. Many other institutes like, MICA, Nirma Institute of Management, S.P. Jain Institute, also draw out their candidates based on the performance in CAT.

The exam itself consists of four parts which are Verbal Ability, Reading Comprehension, Problem Solving and Data Interpretation. All the questions are multiple choice and you should shade your choice of answer (only with a HB pencil) in the computer coded answer sheet. For every correct answer, one mark is awarded and for every wrong answer, 1/4th of a mark is deducted.

Analyse the Tests:

Test-taking is the most important aspect of your preparation now. Take two or at the most three tests a week. Test-taking should be followed by an in-depth analysis of the complete paper. Analyse what mistakes you have committed and how you will rectify them. Also check the questions that you have missed, and whether you have missed any ‘easy’ question! That will help in your choice of questions later. Remember, CAT is not about last minute cramming and revising. It’s about being alive and mentally alert, here and now.

Mock CAT

You should obviously take several mock CATs as part of your preparation. You should take them at regular intervals instead of bunching them together in the last fortnight or one month before the exam. Ideally, you should take two mock CATs per week in the last two months. Of course, one of them should be the AIMCAT (All India mock CAT) on a Sunday. This will give you your relative ranking compared to aspirants across the country. The second one could be in the middle of the week, which will allow you to measure yourself against a more intimate group of test-takers.

Taking mock CATs is only one small part of your preparation. After taking any practice test — particularly comprehensive tests like mock CATs — you should spend enough time analysing the results so that you get the maximum value out of the experience. If you spend two and a half hours on the exam, you should spend at least four to five hours on analysis and review. Otherwise, you’ll only get partial value and won’t learn your relative weaknesses and strengths.

After you’ve finished a test and its analysis, you’re still not done. Attempt the questions which you gave a miss the first time through. This should be done without looking at the answer key to check your marks. Set a time limit to do this; it may require two to three hours depending on how many questions you left blank on your first attempt.

Now is the time to check how many of your attempts are right by using the answer key. At this stage, do not look at the solutions with explanations, if they are available in your mock CAT.

Re-attempt all those questions which you answered incorrectly, still without looking at the solutions, to see if you can correctly answer the same now. You will find that you are now able to get a few more questions correct even without looking at the solutions. This is the way to improve your learning. You do not need to set any time limit for this stage. At the end of this stage, there may still be some qusetions that you answer incorrectly.

Also, there is the possibility that you run across a type of question that you just do not know how to solve. For these questions, look at the solutions and review the fundamentals and theory. In the following weeks, be sure to spend time on that area separately.

A planned approach to preparation is a must for the best results. Remember, a systematic approach to exam-taking will ensure that you scale the heights required to get the institute of your choice.

CAT-Day:

One of the biggest pitfalls is that as students we always search for short cuts, asking ‘which is the easiest way out and which are the easiest questions?’ A critical issue here is the tremendous urge to skip questions. We tend to lose concentration at different stages during the exam and tend to skip questions because of the pressures of time. But things get better if you follow a couple of golden rules. If you want to identify the questions to attend, it is imperative that you read all the questions.

Categories: Achieve your goal, Common Admission Test (CAT), MAT Papers, MBA, MBA Entrance Exams
Tags: CAT Papers, MBA Papers