This guide has advise on how to prepare for the CAT exam, voluntarily contributed by the IIM Lucknow, PGP Batch of 2012-2014. Every one of these students actually prepared for and successfully navigated the CAT exam. They have “Been There, Done That”! You get distilled advise on how to prepare and how not to prepare for this tough exam right from the horse’s mouth.
This guide does not teach you how to solve the actual CAT questions. Neither does this book have sample CAT questions and their solutions. The coaching classes and manuals do a very good job of teaching that. This book offers advise on did successful candidates make the most of these exam preparation aids.
A randomly selected sample of students answered survey questions regarding how did they prepare for the CAT exam. They offered their best advise for students aspiring to do well on this exam. Consider two illustrations.
In Chapter 5, an IIML PGP student who scored 99.63 percentile on the Quantitative section and 99.50 percentile overall on the CAT gave the following advise on How To Prepare For QUANTITATIVE APTITUDE Questions:
“The best approach to prepare for this section is to first start with practicing the basic fundamentals from any standard book. (up to Class X) Structure your preparation. Start from Basics and then move to advance level. Once your Basics are clear you can do your advanced level prep quickly. Your focus should be on learning the concepts rather than just memorizing the formulas. Practice a few mock tests as these tests will boost your confidence. While giving the tests, the very important aspect of quant section is time management. If you are unfamiliar with a particular question skip it and proceed further. You should also mark questions which you can review later. Maintain your cool. Don’t panic while giving the test and don’t worry about the results.”
In Chapter 4 on How To Prepare For LOGICAL REASONING Questions another student who scored 99.18 percentile on the Verbal section and 99.83 percentile overall on the CAT exam, gives the following compelling advise.
“There is always an underlying logic and a construct. Try to get the construct as soon as possible. It is most often a 2-d matrix. Figure out what to put in the columns and the rows. Then do 2-3 passes through the hints and fill up as many matrix cells as possible. Try and learn how to solve Sudoku or Kakuro if possible. They operate on the same logics. In the exam if you are stuck there is one clue that you must have missed that solves one critical cell that you have missed. Look at the clues closely once again. Generally if you have gone through the clues and can’t solve it then it’s a waste of time. Try to get the matrix and then you can easily solve 3 questions in 3 minutes.”
These two illustrations represent a small slice of invaluable CAT preparation advise from successful candidates.
Part 1 of this book is on the best approaches to cracking the verbal section of the CAT. Here, a sample of IIML students review how to prepare for Reading Comprehension (Chapter 1), Paragraph Completion (Chapter 2), Paragraph Jumble (Chapter 3), Logical Reasoning (Chapter 4), style of questions, frequently seen on the CAT.
Part 2 of this book is on cracking the quantitative section of the CAT. Chapters 5 and 6 outline strategies on how to successfully prepare for Quantitative Aptitude and Data Interpretation questions.