Having recently scored 99.97% in MH-CET, a lot of people have come up to me asking for suggestions on how exactly did I get to this number. Now different people will have different answers to this particular question (given that a lot of people secure good scores in numerous MBA entrance examinations) and all of them are right as everyone’s approach will be tailored to the way they study and which colleges are they planning on targeting.
However, one thing that was kind of a common theme was how one should prepare for a particular college or examination from the start of their journey. And my answer to this question has always been a little different to what I have seen others say. I am of the belief that at the start your focus should be more on clearing your basics, whatever be the topic or subject and making sure you know everything about everything. Don’t skip the topics you find to be a little difficult (with many students that I have talked to skipping Geometry or Permutations and Combinations) as those might exactly be the ones which end up ruining your chance of securing a seat in a premier college.
The main reason behind my answer here is that the basics of every module are the same and it doesn’t matter which college or examination you are targeting, the start of your journey will be the same. The first 3-4 months of your preparation should be solely focused on this aspect and you should try to get your hands on those FAT reference books and making sure you know how to approach all the different kinds of questions that you might come across. Hopefully, by the end of August, you’ll be done with this part of your study plan and then comes the main part.
With so many examinations a normal MBA aspirant appears for such as NMAT, CAT, SNAP, XAT, CET etc, one should be adequately prepared for all these hurdles. Now given that every examination has a different paper pattern, how does one ensure that they are adequately prepared for each of them? It’s actually very simple. GIVE MOCKS. Mocks are where you get to know which section of your paper you should focus more on and they help you form an attack plan for your D-day.
Let’s take CET for example. Here we have 200 questions and only 150 minutes so it’s fairly obvious that you won’t be able to attempt all the questions. The sections in this exam are Mathematics (50 questions), Logical Reasoning (75 questions), Verbal Ability (50 questions) and Visual Reasoning (25 questions) and a lot of students tend to skip Visual Reasoning given that it is not there in any other examination. However, it is one of the easiest sections in MH-CET and one should definitely be looking to attempt more questions from that section instead of the Logical Reasoning section whose difficulty level is quite high when looked at in comparison. Thus the main theme here would pick and choose your battles as while you might not be able to solve every question you come across, you can attempt as many as possible by focusing on the sections which are your strengths and ignoring the ones which are your weaknesses.
Another reason behind starting your preparation without keeping in mind a particular college or examination is that you end up giving all the major examinations which in turn increase the number of options at your disposal comes decision day. In March, after the results of your MH-CET exam would be out, you’ll have a fair idea of which colleges you are going to get a call from and then you can decide which one you would like to go to. But this would not have been possible if you had focused on just one college or examination from the start of your journey.