The time needed to get a good percentile in CAT depends on the current understanding and clarity of the concept of the student. As you know CAT is divided into 3 sections VARC, LRDI and Quants.
In this article on how to prepare for CAT 2024, we will prepare a guide that will help you get an idea of how much time you need to get the good percentile. Remember the CAT is unpredictable so its percentile depends on your performance on the D-Day.
VARC Section
The first section of CAT is VARC. In CAT you get 4 RC passages and 8 VA questions. Some VA questions do not contain any negative marking so you can guess on it.
Pointers to decide the duration of prep
- First of all, give a sectional of only VARC. Once you give a sectional you will get an idea of your current position. Don’t get demotivated if RC passages are hard to solve or VA is tricky.
- If you understood the theme of the RC passages and out of 4 RC can get 1 RC entirely correct then it is a good performance. Here gut feeling and guesswork are not included. You should have reason to select the answer.
- So here the time needed would be a little less. Around 3 months with full dedication and mocks can get you a good percentile.
- If your performance is not attractive then around at least 5 months are required including mock test and sectional test.
- Preparation tips- We are considering the average student here, so the tip would be to read the newspaper daily and on an alternative day write a summary of any article in the news. Along with this take a sectional test of VARC on an alternative day and analyse the reason for the wrong answer. Even for the correct answer check your reasoning and reasoning given in the solution.
LRDI Section
So we have 4 sets in LRDI in CAT. A surprising fact, even solving 1 set can get you 90 percentile in the LRDI section. Take away from it? Students find it difficult to solve even the 1 set of LRDI.
Pointers to decide the duration of prep
- Here no pointer can help you if you select the wrong set. The wrong set consumes a lot of time and in the end, you cannot solve the set completely.
- The LRDI preparation is entirely based on the practice and selection. So if you practice daily and give good time to this section you can excel here.
- The least duration to prepare for the DILR section would be around 4-5 months. Here we assume that you master the art of selecting the right set.
- General tip - Learn some basic percentages and formulas which will help you save time. Also, arrangement questions appear frequently in CAT so work on that. Read all the sets and then select the one that can be solved by you.
Quants Section
By the time you reach to quants section, you will be exhausted. The Quants section can be a nightmare for those who left math after 10th. Some may say that the quants questions are basic and till the level of 10th but I hate to break this thinking. It is true that some questions are basic and include conceptual knowledge but identifying them can be tricky.
So for engineers, this can be a good section to gather marks but for non-engineers, this section can be a little tough.
Pointers to decide the duration of prep
- If you have a good hold on concepts like time and distance, and quadratic equations then around 4 months can give you a good percentile.
- But this is not the case with everyone. So we assume you are starting from scratch with 0 knowledge about all this. Hence the time duration required would be at least 6 months with full dedication, practice, and mocks.
- Some even required more duration i.e. around 8-9 months. This is because covering all the topics of quants can be challenging for a person who doesn’t like math.
- Tip - Practice as many questions as possible. Also in quants around 5-7 questions are easy, so identifying them is your real task. Then around 4-5 questions are medium so select them and you can get a good percentile.
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Conclusion
No one can tell you the period required for you to get the high percentile. It depends on your clarity of topics, your selection, and your performance on the D-Day. If you lose your calm on D-Day then even the practice of a year cannot help you secure a high percentile. Remember to be calm and practice as much as you can. Give at least 5 hours of daily study to CAT preparation.
One tip - Give mocks. Generally, those who secured the 95+ percentile are those who had given around 30 full-length mocks and 50+ sectional tests. So mocks hold importance in CAT preparation.
The author, Vishal Khatri, has scored 98.29 Percentile in CAT 2023 and will be joining IMT Ghaziabad (2024-2026).