Planning for CAT 2014 - Mission CAT in 150 days

Mission CAT in 150 days!  (This is the first article in a five-part series on strategies for CAT by ARKS Srinivas) Mission 272 turned out to be a roaring success. Who would have thought, even four months back, that the BJP would romp home in UP with 71 seats out of 80. Unthinkable? The unthinkable happened. But, nothing happens without effort and meticulous planning and rigorous work at the grass roots level. The dream of a top class MBA goes through CAT! Anyone preparing for CAT 2014 would do well recognize this.   Many students don’t start their preparation till they have filled the CAT forms! It is true. Yes, there are the second and third timers who have written CAT already and believe that they are better prepared than the first timers. But, the fact is that, everyone has to start afresh. You can never be fully prepared for CAT. Five months is actually a long time to prepare for CAT. However, the available time can quickly disappear if there is no plan to use the time wisely.   Target 2014    While there is no clarity whether TCS will indeed take over the conduct of the CAT exam from Prometric, there is a high chance that the pattern may not change drastically. So looking back at CAT 2013 may give an insight as to what is required to get through CAT 2014!   CAT 2013 pattern       Many students don't understand that the CAT exam may be difficult thanks to some of the questions in the paper, however the marks required to get through to get into the IIMs could be as low as 40% of the total mark. While there is a concept of Equated Scores and Normalisation, almost every student gets more or less a similar level of difficulty in the paper and hence understanding the marks required would make the preparation easy.   Mission 100!  Getting into IIM A, B, C and every other CAT based institute is possible with a score of 100 out of the possible 180. Even at a score of 75 and 80 many IIMs would have called students for the Personal Interviews. If you also have a quota certificate the required run rate would be even less. However, when you have 150 days to go, having a lofty target and systematically working towards that target is imperative. In the next four articles, following this, the mission to make this 100 possible would be laid out. Like UP has been won at every area/booth level for the BJP, it is important to win every mark at every area/topic level. With VistaMind as your guidance partner, Gear up for Mission 100! To gear up your prep levels, check this out InsideIIM Test Prep Live