CAT is just around the corner! And here are a few tips that will help you prepare for it.
Read
Try to work on your encyclopedic knowledge, read a lot. This will help you with the verbal section and lead to your overall development. Many times, the language isn’t a barrier in comprehensive exercises, it is the domain knowledge on which the article is based, hence, having a general insight on various topics can always come handy. Focus on topics like economics, sociology, and psychology. No matter how much grammar you mug up, you won’t remember until they register into your subconscious mind via regular usage, when you read frequently, you learn to tell the right usage from the wrong one.
Climb up the ladder, don’t jump
Brush the dust off your basic mathematical concepts. Solve as many questions as you can under a timer, find out areas you can work upon, topics you are good at, and questions that are very time consuming and must always be avoided during the test. Once you are clear with your concepts, don’t spend a lot of time on solving questions just from the book. Move on to giving mock tests.
Dig up the best questions
The best question bank for DILR is previous years’ question papers. Solve them with dedication, try to go for sets instead of individual questions in the start. Don’t pick a new set in the last few minutes, aim at a simple individual question in that time frame.
Practice and analyze
You’ll come across this advice time and again and take it very seriously. Give as many mocks as you can and analyze them. There is no use of giving mocks if you don’t analyze and improve. Look out for easy questions that you missed out on, find out the difficult questions that you spent a lot of time on and should’ve avoided. Find out your silly mistakes and topics you can still strengthen, work on it, and don’t give up.
Exam Hall Mantras
Do not try to solve all the questions
Remember, CAT checks your management and analytical skills, it isn’t about who can solve all the questions, it is about who a better decision maker is. The test paper has a variety of questions belonging to varied topics and difficulty levels, find out your areas of strength and weaknesses, learn to differentiate between a difficult and an easy question, you must be able to pick up just the right set of problems in that limited amount of time, and the only way to do that is through practice.
Time Management
Always solve practice problems under a time constraint, you don’t want to get caught up with a lengthy question in the main exam. Just because you can solve a question doesn’t necessarily mean that you must attempt it, the time that you use to crack that one question is better utilized by someone else who solves two shorter questions.
Always scan the paper
This is probably the most important aspect of solving the test paper, without this step, neither can you manage your time, nor can you select the best set of questions for yourself. Make sure that no matter how you approach the paper, always have a look at all the questions. You may always keep aside a few minutes to have a quick look at all the questions before you proceed with solving the questions. This is very easy for sections like QA and DILR; for Reading Comprehension, you may read the first few lines to have an idea about the passages.
The A-word
The numbers matter, but they may add or deduct from your result based on your accuracy. Attempt too many questions while marking wrong answers, and the person who attempted half your share is a better candidate. Even though the paper says a negative one, for every wrong attempt, you lose four points.
Maintain a positive attitude and do not stress your health away. Take care of your mental and physical fitness, and just bell that CAT!