It is that time of the year again. The official notification from the IIMs is out and for the first time in recent times the exam will be held in the month of December. Every year around 2 lakh aspirants register for the examination to get admission into the prestigious Indian Institute of Management.
Out of these only around 2,000 get selected,which is around 1% of the overall.
Some very common myths
That CAT is an easy exam (which is true with T&C): I know this may seem baffling to some but a majority of students have this viewpoint with most of them comprising of those for whom this is their first CAT attempt and who are just giving it to get a feel of the exam. Let me explain this with an example. When I gave CAT for the first time I scored 88%ile with no mocks and no preparation whatsoever. Since this was my first ever attempt I was happy with 88 thinking “If I could score 88 without preparation,scoring 98+ will be easy”. Alas! Not to be.
Since CAT is a relative exam, you are ranked in accordance to your performance with the whole country. But CAT is also a very famous exam throughout the country. Aspirants give it seeing it as an easy way out, natural progression after graduation, because their peers are giving,parental pressure, etc. Most of these aspirants prepare half heartedly or get worn out during the preparation since they are not interested. Therefore,at the end of the day,maximum 10,000 people are preparing seriously for the exam which comprises of 10% of the aspirants. Hence the major competition is the top 10%ile and not the first 90%ile.
Have a look at the graph below:
As it can be interpreted from the graph, initially effort and percentile are directly proportional but as you move towards the end of the graph even a small rise in percentile requires a huge effort from your side. One of the main reason being that people are more focused and better prepared as you move to the top 10%ile.
The more mocks you solve the better it is: This is a very common error committed by students I feel. They give more importance to the number of mocks they solve over a thorough analysis of the solved mocks. An analysis over a solved mock helps reveal your strong and weak sections and topics,time spent on each question and most importantly the mistakes you committed. Analysis of your own mock should be of utmost priority before moving to another mock. It may so happen that you commit the same mistakes over 10 mocks which could have been rectified had you analysed the first one itself.
Practice is not required if I am strong in one section: This one is commonly committed by engineers. They neglect Quant thinking they are strong in it and hence end up not practicing it. This leads them to commit errors which they might not have committed had they practiced. I have seen examples of exceptional people in Quant faring badly in Quant because they laid over emphasis on Verbal since it was their weak point. Make sure you practice your Strong section for minimum an hour everyday so that you don’t develop cold feet at the last instant.
The more questions I attempt the better it is: This is CAT’s main weapon, I feel. Students generally have this misconception that the more questions they attempt the better it is. Normalisation is something that no one knows how it works. It is the most ambiguous thing about the exam. Aspirants, in order to counter this, feel that the more questions they attempt, the better it would be. Sadly this is a myth. Curb your temptation to attempt more questions if you are not sure about the answer. Control that urge!
Interview Preparation can be done later: This is not entirely a myth but a faux-pas committed by aspirants. The general perception is that the interview preparation can start once the results are announced but sometimes it ends up being too late. The interview preparation can be started side by side with the CAT preparation by following or reading about current events or knowing about your profile a little bit more. An investment of half an hour on a daily basis is more than sufficient for this.