what went wrong..??

[FreakazoiD]

I can only think of specifics at the moment.

1) my watch stopped working 5 minutes into the exam
2) I started with quant which was a BAD mistake; till the nov 23rd exam I had always started with DI. The switch to quant coupled with my timings going haywire (thanks to my watch) meant I had just 25 minutes left for DI.
3) Made the mistake of attempting those mini-RCs (passage followed by 1 question). All options seemed right to me and by the time I realised my mistake, I had already wasted 10 minutes on 4 of them and got all wrong
4) To add to my DI woes, believe it or not, I missed the last 2 pages in the qn.paper completely. I was already pretty tense during the DI section, knowing I was short on time, and then I saw one question end midway on one right-hand-side page. I didnt bother to turn the page, thinking that was where the paper ended. Whether I would have managed to solve the questions on the next page or not is a different matter.

Those were the things that went wrong (all I could think of )

cheers

the freak

[inkognito]

i think i should just start by trying to figure out what i did right .... hmmm well i think i was able to make out the sitters ( acc to me atleast ) pretty fast - but that's where the good part stopped - after analysing the paper - i realized that i got a grand total of 24 wrong out of 84 attempts - out of which 19 were really really silly mistakes - not what u really expect in a CAT paper - but i guess this was a problem with me right from the beginning and i guess i never tried really hard to correct it. + my time management fell through the roof - only for the second time in 2 yrs ( never learnt my lesson from the first time i tried this stunt ) i started with quants - ended up spending 45 mins on that - then did a 30 mins in VA/RC -with one of my lowest attempts and accuracies in this section ever. Then, the next hell hole was LR which i thot was my strong point - but which I mucked up just as skillfully - I suck at DS and this time THAT was the only consistent thing through all my tests including the feb 15th one

and the results as usual were as expected

Nikhil

[rikesh]

yes...it was in the Business Standard...i dont remember the date...but i guess..its this weeks Tuesday or Wednesday paper....that Cat is on 28th of november....maybe 6th or 7th of July...not sure....just check it out....

rikesh

[spaceman spiff]

I've always been doing well in DI/DS but I screwed it up when it mattered the most. I had gud ptiles of 98+ in d'other 2 sections and a miserable 84 in DI which brought my overall to 97.8. looking back, I wud say I was taken in by seemingly simple looking questions and being a little careless got a lot of them wrong.

What I've learnt from this attempt is : somehow...just somehow get 32+ in VA, 14-20 wud do in QA and 20 + in DI shud see you thru. Again I'll stress that its VA that can make or mar your score ( unless you happen to be God level in QA...and which most of us ain't ). Having been there, we all know its not that tough. Presence of mind, concentration and a relax frame of mind shud see one thru to a gud ptile

[Jackal]

i think the pressure part can b dealt with the "nato" approach.. remember freak u used 2 dismiss it as bull shit b4 the CAT..
it actually works.. do not think abt the results 4 tht 2hrs at least...
well this is what happened with me.. i went into the hall with a +ve frame of mind.. aiming 4 a 99%ile.. and a minimum of 95 in the worst case..
started with english as usual.. 35 attempts in 42-43 mins.. attempted all the verbal with pathetic accuracy.. and surprisngly got 9 outta 10 of those RC Qs right.. shud have attempted more RC.. in any CAT paper i always have good accuracy in RC.. neways got a score of around 20-21 here
then peeked at Quant found it 2 b tough.. so i thought now no IIMs for me i should aim 4 other lower colleges..
moved 2 DI attempted some 28-29 with a score of 20
and now the worst part starts..
moved 2 quant with a aim of gettin just a decent score here which cud fetch me the MDI call... the first 2 Qs i saw were sitters.. got both of'em in the 1st min.. and then i picked all the wrong Qs... and kept solving even if i was going no where... became really tense here.. lost it totally.. panicked.. and knew tht now the game's over.. cud attempt just 12 in the last minute took 3 wild guesses...
got a net score of 5 here
got overall 89%ile with 51%ile in quant even nirma and ubs didn't give me a call..
gotta work on quant and also plz will someone teach me how 2 search 4 sitters.. i missed 12 absolute sitters in the maths section...
how do ppl find sitters so easily
neways there is always a next time..

cheers
puneet

[mailtabrez]

good thread this one.i think first n foremost one should hav a good tried n tested strategy to bell the cat whic shud b worked out around ones strenghts n weaknesses...and nato approach....yes one shud not pressurise himself unduly thinkin bout results...

[prabhu_cat]

Ok, let me give you the most foolish things that one can do to not succeed in CAT.

1. Mark answers randomly. Believe me, i thought i would never do it. Imagine marking 10 questions blindly. Well I was so psyched out in hte last 5 minutes that something I had never done before, and knew was not be done, JUST DID IT.

2. Mark randomly with no pattern. I just marked adcbcddcabbcdab.... with no pattern. A smart guy later pointed out that if I did mark randomly, I had a better chance if I marked all As, or all Bs, or Cs or Ds. He even proved it using some probability theory (which I still cannot prove).

3. Slow preparation in last week. I tought as I had done enough, i should slow my pace and learn to relax. Last 7 days just took 2 tests, and was very slow off the block in CAT. That was the end of CAT.

4. Start with Math . Biggest mistake. It is not that my Math is week, but the CAT had really tough Math, and I thought I was screwing it up. Ended up screwing the rest of the paper too.

More blunders later, too many in a single mail really reflects bad on me.

[Jackal]

just bumping this up, a nice discussion
might pursue

[dICONoCLAST]

well...jst was goin thru mistakes..dat dats back to 2003 cats..i m sure ppl must have gt over with them by now..
JAcal..was here..giving life to this long dead thread..
sooo..i am adding up..my mistake..bt for caT@2k4
my only mistake was..nt to appear for it..wen all things were set..coz..of some damn reasons..i cant even think off.. ..ofcourse my most whaciest decisns..ever made..
now..lets see..wats stored ahead..

rrdg

[badshahkhan]

gave extra time for both English n Quant n finally landed with a little time left fr Di. needless to say, screw it up big time... so despitr getting overall percentile above 99, did not hv a single IIM call last yr.....


only lesson... try to give equal time to each section... dont overestimate or under estimate any particular section