When the CAT 17 result was released on January 8, I was completely in shock, as I had no idea of what to do next because 83 percentile will never help me to get IIM calls. The only thing I had in my mind is to take admission this year or prepare for CAT 2018 but sometimes you know the inner satisfaction is more important because when we are not satisfied with the decision which we make is worthless. So after a month of deciding what will be a good option for me I have decided to prepare for CAT 2018.
You know a famous person once said that the key to success lies more in smart work than hard work but that doesn't mean hard work goes in vain. But by smart work, your work becomes less difficult.
DISCIPLINE, DEDICATION, DETERMINATION ARE THERE FACTORS THAT CAN BRING YOU ANYTHING YOU DESIRE.
So here I would like to share how you can plan your journey for the next 8 months & things that you should always try to avoid from my personal experience.
So let's start with Verbal Ability. In verbal ability, you can expect around 24 passages and 10 other questions which comprise of para jumbles, odd man out etc. For reading comprehension, I would suggest that you read the editorial of the Newspaper daily and solve some 2 to 3 passage per day it will be sufficient to ace the verbal section of CAT. Whenever you make a mistake in RC always analyse it and try to avoid those mistakes next. The reason why I suggested that you practice passage is that to develop your skill to solve inference based question because in CAT there is almost all questions are inference based question you can hardly find any fact-based question if you are lucky. For vocabulary, you can go for Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis and always maintain a word sheet in which you should always write a new word which you come across. Whenever you are solving a question on either reading comprehension or para jumbles, try to set a timer and look at how much time you are taking, it really helps you in the long run.
DATA INTERPRETATION AND LOGICAL REASONING
In recent years, the difficulty level of DILR in CAT has gone to a notch higher so you need to really work hard in this section to get a good percentile. For this, go through all the basic type of question in first 2 months then solve all previous year question paper to get a taste of how CAT level DI&LR sets are. Then solve as much as mock possible so that you can get acquaintance with the different type of sets. Keep a notebook on how to solve those puzzle and categorize them like tournaments, matrix, relation, group etc. It really helps you a lot and before taking any mock just go through it so that you can understand how to approach these type of question.
PRACTICE A LOT!
QUANTITATIVE APTITUDE
For quantitative ability, you need to clear all your basics so spend 3 to 4 months period on basics. Topics like Arithmetic, Geometry comprises almost 18 to 20 question so try to complete these first then go to the Algebra part. After going through all the basics, you need to start taking topic-wise tests so that you could know which is your weak area like I always struggle in permutation and combination. Always set a timer and solve question it will help you to know how much time you are taking, take sectional tests and mocks as much as possible.
Here the most important point is to ANALYSE the mocks and the sectional tests. Believe me guys, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how many mocks you have taken rather how many mocks you have analysed. If you don't analyse your mock it is a complete waste. After taking mocks, you should always spend a day or more, if required, to analyse. It will help you to improve your test-taking strategy and to know the area in which you are weak so you can improve your score accordingly.
SO PREPARED WELL FOR CAT AND DESTROY IT!