Last chance to bell the CAT

With CAT being only a month away, anxiety level amongst students is at an all-time high. The root cause of the anxiety is the dilemma - are these 4 weeks of any importance or is it that the die has been cast and you should just wait for the outcome? Typical queries are:

Should I study the concepts or attempt more Mock papers? Should I do topics where I am very weak or should I completely ignore them? The following 6 tips will help you use the next 30 days (and nights) effectively and ensure that these precious days are not frittered away.

(1) Personal Appraisal: Start by assessing where do you currently stand. Analyse the last 5-6 Mock Tests and prepare a topicwise list of strong and weak areas. Be as specific as possible. E.g., while analyzing Verbal you can say "I am weak at vocabulary, FIJ questions whereas I am good at grammar and RC."

(2) List of "Must-know" Topics: Looking at the last 5 year trend in CAT, there are a few topics which account for the bulk of the questions. E.g., Number System, Algebra, and Geometry account for nearly 30% of the quantitative section. If you are weak in these areas, immediately start working on these topics even if it means learning the basic concepts. Avoid solving extremely complex problems but be thorough with the basic question types. It is difficult to crack the CAT without a mastery over the above mentioned topics in Quant. The mantra for the next few days should be consolidation, final strategy & hardwork

(3) Consolidation: This is the time to consolidate what you have done for the past few months. At this stage, even if there are areas/topics which you are either not very sure of or have not started yet, there is no point in trying to study new topics (except for the must-know topics). So if you have not done the word list yet, there is no point in starting it now.

(4) Final Strategy: Now is not the time to experiment. Consolidation is the name of the game for exam strategy also. To get a call from the IIMs, you need to perform well in each of the three sections that come in CAT. Since there are chances that one section may not go as well as you expect it to, you need to have a contingency plan to counter any possible downside in any section. One possible time allocation strategy is 40- 40- 40- 15 min Strategy. Here you give 40 minutes to each of the sections and keep about 15 min as the buffer time to either  salvage a section or to maximise scores.

(5) Practice, Practice and More Practice: "The easiest way to success is hard work". Make this maxim your motto for the next 30 days and devote as much time as possible to CAT. This is also not the time to spend too much time on solving many MOCKs. Do not solve more than two per week. Analyse them thoroughly. Take sectional tests and make sure you are in regular touch with all topics.

(6) Self Management: While all students focus on the "hard aspect "of CAT (which is the actual act of studying), one must not ignore the "softer side" of CAT (which is making sure you are in the best possible frame of mind while taking the actual CAT). A few suggestions are a) Be ready for steady improvements and not Meta improvements in your percentile scores. b) Practice stress management techniques like Meditation, Visualisation etc. The focus is to make sure that you are in "your peak performance state" on the D-day
To summarise, consolidate your preparation and stop experimenting with your exam strategy. Practise Visualisation/ Meditation for atleast 15 mins a day. Remember, God helps those who help themselves.

 The writer, Hemang Panchmatia is Product Head - CET & Faculty -Verbal at CPLC.