The A To Z Of Cat Preparation

[luckynawabs]

THE A TO Z OF CAT PREPARATION
CAT entrance today is one of the most desired career route as seen by the young graduates. Clearing CAT requires certain specific attributes. These attributes are an integral part of a personality of a student and have to be infused as strong values to be made a part of his/her own system of learning.

The A to Z of these values can be listed as follows:

Attitude – CAT is all about a perfect mix of attitude and aptitude. These primarily include Speed & Accuracy, Language Skills, Quantitative skills, Personality, Communication skills & Sincerity. Only a perfect Fit of all these qualities will make it through.
Balance - In your approach to preparation a balance is a must. Focus on all the test area specifically and not over do or under do a test area. Usually a student fails to perform only on account of a test area he has been strong in and therefore had been neglecting it during preparatory stage.
Conviction - MBA entrance is all about a perfect mix of attitude and aptitude. U should have a strong belief on yourself . And your hard work would automatically make it.
A Positive Attitude May Not Solve All Your Problems, But It Will Annoy Enough People To Make It Worth The Effort. – Herm Albright
Direction – It is imperative to give yourself a proper direction for career pathway i.e. if you are appearing for MBA entrance, focus on it as a Career Alternative and just an entrance exam, Management has to be taken up as a profession and not a mere source of Income.
Efficacy - Doing right things is also equally important to efficiency (doing things right). It is possible that U may be solving the mock entrance papers with correct techniques, but are focussing on the areas that need to be developed at the same time, analysing your approach for a better score in the test paper?
Face it – What ever is the reality face it. It might possible that initially U may feel let down looking at your performance in the mock papers but every thing takes time, and U have to face it "Rome was not built in a day"
Gear up - For the challenge ahead. Just when U think U have got the grip on vocabulary for example , U might simply lose points on account of the same. This happens, U must gear up for the element of surprise in the CAT.
Hard work – There is no substitute for hard work in your endeavored for CAT preparation , there is no short cut for success . “I Find That The Harder I Work, The More Luck I Seem To Have." - Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Introspection – Do your SWOT analysis, find out the areas U are weak in. If U are unable to improve your scores in RC , chances are that your reading habits have not been strong or focussed on reading a variety of topics. Work on it, start reading today, it is never to late to work on a good thing.
One Today Is Worth Two Tomorrows. => Benjamin Franklin
Judge your improvement - During your preparation focus on improvements and not just high scores have U improved on the test taking techniques ? , have U been able to manage your time well in the test ? evaluate your performance and be discreet in your judgement.
Killer Instinct - Approach the preparations with a Do or Die attitude, tell yourself “ I am going to make it even if it takes working long hours and late nights for the preparation“. But this should be before CAT, so that not all uncracker of CAT like me commit suicide. IT IS JUST AN EXAM ... don't make it bigger than life .
Learn - Tries to imbibe all the useful thing which come across to U , esp the tip’s and trick in QA section . It’s your learning which is always with U .
"Each Problem That I Solved Became A Rule Which Served Afterwards To Solve Other Problems." - Rene Descartes (1596-1650), "Discours De La Methode"
Maturity – Cracking CAT is not a child game so approach your preparations with maturity. Accept first that U need to learn and that there is much more to learn than what U know.
Nitty Gritty - Work on the detailing. Check out whether or not U have been able to rectify the errors U made plus also work on the time factor i.e. could U have solved the same question which U got right in lesser time?
Optimistic - Attitude makes a difference in the kind of scores U can expect. Focus on it for making things happen for yourself and refrain from thinking parameters like "this is too tough, not meant for me" or "This is so lengthy, how can a person ever attempt the whole section?". But beware optimistic alone can’t help U , if U have only optimistic traits then U are gulling U’r self .
Obstacles Don't Have To Stop You. If You Run Into A Wall, Don't Turn Around And Give Up. Figure Out How To Climb It, Go Through It, Or Work Around It. => Michael Jordan
Practice – Practice practice and practice .Keep working no matter what it takes. U cannot afford to take anything for granted or leave it to chance, your career is on the line. As things might just happen to be in your favour at the last minute and U would realise "Thank goodness I practice on it. I can do it now"
No matter what conditions you encounter in life, your right is only to the works--not to the fruits thereof. You should not be impelled to act for selfish reasons, nor should you be attached to inaction.
-Bhagavad Gita 2.47
Quality + Quantity – Tries to maintain the proper relationship between Quality and Quantity of your attempt. Blindly solving 50 questions a day or 100 questions a day or 2 papers a day etc. does not help.
CAT is not a all attempt paper so tries to maintain the Quality of your attempt.
Persistence Is The Twin Sister Of Excellence. One Is A Matter Of Quality; The Other, A Matter Of Time. => Marabel Morgan
Reading - Read, read and read. Read to enhance U’r reading speed , Read to enhance U’r domain of Knowledge. And last but not least Read to enhance U’r marks.
Shilly-shally – If your target is CAT , U just can’t have a shilly-shally (procrastination) approach, i.e one should avoid doing something like making big plans but never carrying them out.
One Today Is Worth Two Tomorrows. => Benjamin Franklin
Tolerance - To handle frustration and failures. Start with acceptance that "Yes I failed" or "I did not get good enough marks because I messed up" the fact that U have scored less only indicates that U still have a scope to improve drastically. Use U performance benchmarks to motivate yourself and a tool for improvement. For this U need to develop Tolerance.
Ultimatum - Give yourself an ultimatum. "its now or never. I have to make it happen" This will help U to boost your morale and make U work still more and especially when U need it the most.
When We Accept Tough Jobs As A Challenge And Wade Into Them With Joy And Enthusiasm, Miracles Can Happen. => Arland Gilbert
Vision and Values - A vision for self is a must. Look at your self 25 years from now. How do U want to see yourself down the career pathway. Give yourself a vision combine it with values and look at MBA as a mere stepping stone to achieving it.
To Accomplish Great Things We Must Not Only Act But Also Dream, Not Only Plan But Also Believe. => Anatole
Wisdom - To work and plan out well in advance. Do not leave anything for the last minute. It is advisable to start atleast 12 in advance to give yourself a cutting edge. But do not worry if U haven’t start for today with double speed then your peer.
Yen - For next few month U must have yen for knowledge and success
Winning Is Not Everything. It's The Only Thing. => Vince Lombardi
Zeal - To achieve the Peak of a Successful Career Pathway.
Nothing Great In The World Has Ever Been Accomplished Without Passion => G. W. F. Hegel

[grabel]

nice post!!

[CATch2004]

hey nawab ..

honest ...
where did u pick this up from ?

[Gaurav Dixit]

hey! thats really nice,but the question persisits .
where did u pick it from?

[luckynawabs]

got form email edited a large part to make it more nice about 50 % of the email was changed

[gauravsood]

nice post....

[RahulSharma]

Just wonder if nawab will come out with 1 to 150 of CAT

[luckynawabs]

Keep Moving!
THE world is eagerly waiting for men and women who can do things five per cent better than they are being done. This is true. A fitting position will be found for the man who is 'fit'.
Believe in yourself, and your own destiny. If you think you can, you can. Sir Richard Arkwright started life on a few shillings a week, and George Stephenson did the same.
One fellow commenced his career as a clerk and rose, by sheer pluck, patience and perseverance to grace the chair of Professor at Cambridge University.
If you are fit for the wall, you will not long lie on the highway! Don't worry, but work. Don't pine, but push.
Lin Yu Tang, famous Chinese thinker, who settled in America, calls it "Keep Moving".
Says he, "There are times when life is too big for us, when all things conspire to frustrate, obstruct and destroy, when you feel as if you have lost your bearings in a wood, or as if you could find yourself caught in an underground cave and everywhere you turn, you are confronted with a stone of wall."
"In a situation like that when you have lost your way, all you can do is to pick up and go on and keep moving, even though you do not know where you are going."
Columbus did not know where he was going but he discovered America. In struggling against odds, you discover yourself-the richest continent!
In order to have an all-round development of nature, a man must think for himself and also be responsive to the thoughts of others. He must be neither a herdsman nor a hermit.
In order to influence the people of his own generation, a man must be responsive to the public opinion of his day. On the other hand, he must not be the puppet of public opinion, as most men are.
He must live with the multitude, but at times he must go up into the mountain apart. Whoever thinks must be in some things separate from others.
An honest man must pay the unborn what he owes to the dead. Our debt to all the able and noble men of the past, how great it is!
There is not one of us now living who has not been benefited by thousands of people. The fact is that we are all born in debt to all the intelligent and kindly men and women who have ever lived.
We owe them for our ideas, our comforts, our happiness, our natures; and as we cannot pay them, we must pay the living and the unborn, and try to leave the world better than we found it.
A stone that is fit for the wall!
Will not long be left on the road.
-Take care and best of luck
Prashant Modani

[luckynawabs]

Is it Determination Or Destiny?

DR Maxwell Maltz, in his famous book, Psycho-cybernetics, stresses the fact that the conception we have of ourselves largely determines both our actions and our feelings.
It is not the circumstances of life which determine our destinies but our attitude towards these circumstances. We are the captains of our souls. We can and should take control and make whatever we will of life.
"You act and feel", he declares, "not according to what things are really like, but according to the image your mind holds of what they are like."
"You have certain mental images of yourself, your world and the people around you, and you behave as though these images were the truth, the reality, rather than the things they represent."
Consider a man ascending a high mountain, climbing higher and higher up the mountain pass. Rounding a sharp bend he suddenly comes face to face with a ferocious-looking bear. He retreats as he can.
He is met, at the next bend, by a party of climbers who burst into laughter at his predicament. They know what he does not, namely that the bear is merely one of a team of actors who are shooting a film. But the climber acted as if the bear were real. He reacted, not according to reality, but according to what he believed to be true.
There is a basic need to get our mental images right. This is a matter of cardinal importance. Many people, however, find this difficult and that it takes a great deal of time to remove false pictures which may have been built up through the years.
Somehow they don't seem to make the progress they would like. They still lack confidence. They still suffer from self-doubt. They still feel inadequate and unhappy whatever they do.
William James has provided us with a good clue to solving this problem. James taught that we rely too much on our feelings to guide us. We should realise that our actions, not our feelings are the key.
"Action", he said, "seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together: and by regulating the action which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not."
"Thus the sovereign path to cheerfulness, if cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there."
We can change our actions. And when we change our actions our feelings will automatically change.
But remember that the final, vital, effective step is to act out what you want to become.
Visualise the action you should take, make your pictures detailed and vivid. Suggest constant success.

[luckynawabs]

How I Cracked CAT? - Kalpana Bhat

Name: Kalpana Bhat
My background: Associate, JP Morgan Chase & Co, San Francisco - 2000 to present
PGDM IIM Ahmedabad 2000
B.Com Ethiraj College Chennai 1998


My Testing Experience
I decided sometime during my 2nd year of college to give the CAT a shot. So, in May 1997, I borrowed the IMS material from a friend and started "preparing" for the tests. Like a good pupil, I started by following instructions and studying the material but I caught myself nodding off on more than one occasion. So, I decided to can it and dive right into the tests. That is when things got really interesting!! I took about 5 tests and never scored more than 70. That is enough to make you throw your hands up in despair and give up. But, I kept at it doggedly and trusted what people called the "learning curve". After about 10-12 tests, I could safely infer :
what I was good at and what I needed to work on
which questions to pursue and which ones to skip (for want of time)
that it was time to retrieve my 10th and 11th std Math text books, dust it and give it the once-over
that there is only one way to go and that's UP!!!!
To put all of the above in perspective - after the initial disappointment, I did not miraculously grow a brain!!! I just developed the ability to balance the little time I had and pick questions judiciously. It is crucial to know which questions to answer and which ones to re-visit IF you have time later!!! One is not fighting the familiar demons, like math or reading comprehension, but the break-neck speed at which the hands of time are flying! By Nov 1998, I had taken approx 40 tests. I also checked on the internet but unfortunately, there are very few resources offering CAT sample tests. But, GMAT will do. So, once you have exhausted your practice resources, use the sample link : http://www.800score.com/gmat-home.html. Just keep practicing. Try doing at least one test a day leading up to the big day.

My CAT
The year I tested (1997), the test was divided into 2 portions. QA and DA were part of the first half and RC and VA were part of the second. We were given one hour for each portion. After the first hour, we were made to hand in our QA-DA section and then we received the RC-VA section. I think QA-DA had 85-90 questions and RC-VA had 90-95 questions. For me, the DA and VA portions were reasonably challenging while the QA and RC sections were relatively easy. I focussed on attempting the maximum number of questions that I knew I had a shot at getting right. If a question was not of a familiar format or of a format that I knew would take time to solve, I kept it for later. This strategy works for me but it is important to determine what methods of filtering work for you. In Feb 1998, I found out I had calls from all but 1(Kozhikode) of the 6 IIMs.

My GD and Interview Experience
I had not registered with IMS. So, I did not really have a lot of structured GD or interview preparation. I just trusted my luck and common sense. I filled out the form which has the "Why do you want to do an MBA", "Describe one incident where you took on a leadership role" questions honestly. Just be prepared to defend every word you state in that piece of paper. The interviews just whizzed by and I won't dwell on them too much. Suffice to say that the IIM-A GD and interview went really well. Both in the GD and the interview, I took strong stands and stuck to them.

The GD was a case study involving an army driver who decides to break the rule of not using official vehicles for personal purposes. After dropping off his commanding officer very late one night, he is very tired and takes the vehicle home. On the way home, he hits a child and kills him/her. He is obviously guilty of involuntary manslaughter but is he guilty of violating the army code of conduct? Should he be discharged? The case study gave rise to some interesting debate. At the end, we were asked to give a brief written synopsis of the GD.

The interview was very interesting too. A number of questions directed at me were either from my courses (accounting, mostly) or regarding my ethical values. When is the LIFO method of inventory valuation used? What would I do if I saw a corrupt politician in action vis-a-vis a third person? What would I do if I saw the same corrupt politician harming my own family? And more questions in that vein .... What the interviewers are looking for, both in the GD and interview are basically, honesty, strength of conviction and of course, at least a few correct answers! Don't ham when you don't know an answer. Just say you don't know!!!

In April 1998, I found out I had gotten into IIM-A. My 2 years at IIM-A were a roller-coaster ride.. But, I will go into that some other time ...

Until then, good luck and Godspeed!!!