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HibernatoR
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Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: PuNe Age: 27 | How to take CAT as a MANAGER -
06-11-2004, 07:03 PM
Hi PGites
Thought to share this article. A rather different approach to CAT. Hope it helps all the aspirants.....
HOW TO TAKE CAT AS A MANAGER
Let’s begin with a few examples of what has happened over the years.
1.In 1990, for the first time in the history, CAT did away with time limits for each section. By doing this, the test asked candidates to use their judgement and decide how much time they wanted to spend on each section, instead of the usual way of pre-decided time limits. A bit like practicing cycling all your life only to discover on the day of the race, you find a pillion attached!
2.In 1996 and 1997, there was a one-hour time limit imposed on the communication and the maths sections. You had to do RC/VA in the first hour, and the PS/DI in the next. Those who followed unequal time distribution had to forego the liberty of self-timing: harder to apply than you think!
3.In 1999, CAT moved from being a four-section test to a three section one. VA and RC seemed to be have been clubbed. People happily assumed that the second section would be PS and the third, DI/DS. They didn’t realize that towards the end of the third section, there were 24 questions related to syllogisms (those you learn in verbal reasoning). These were sitters, but unfortunately, by the time most people got to this part, it was too late. They had missed out on sitting ducks.
4.The following year saw the same pattern, except that the difficulty level of the test went up a few notches, and took most by surprise. Mid-way thorough the test, many gave up, since things were just not going as planned; only to come out of the hall and realize that it was tough for everybody. They, of course, had a full year to regret. Those who decided to carry on nonetheless, made it.
5.Last year, the same pattern featured, but suddenly the difficulty level nose-dived. It was a slow ball from the fastest bowler in the world. Those who quickly realized it, immediately raised the bar on their ideal score, and went about taking the exam with the newfound perspective. Some wasted time and energy looking for the catch; there was none.
The examples could go on and on, with the specific instances of how the questions appear in varying order of difficulty, how the instructions can try to bamboozle you, et al. The point is that we need to learn from them.
These examples are screaming from the rooftops and saying one thing: TAKE CAT LIKE A MANAGER.
But then, first questions first. Who is a MANAGER? How do you define one? Understanding the role of a manager will doubtlessly lead to what he is expected to do. I looked up the Webster’s and the Oxford dictionaries, and here’s what I found.
The Webster’s Encyclopaedic Unabridged Dictionary:
man.ag.er (n.) 2. a person charged with the control or direction of an institution, business, or the like.
The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary:
man.ager (n) 1. (a) a person controlling a business, etc.
No surprises here, for that’s what CAT is all about: CONTROL. Legend has it that if you don’t control CAT, it will control you in much the same fashion as a wild horse. If you can’t stay on top of it, it will topple you. So if the definition is so simple, where’s the catch? What prevents us from taking charge of the test, if it’s all so easily understood?
The answer is simple, yet startling. In business, there are managers, and there are workers. The manger’s job is to tell the worker what to do, and to make sure that the work given is being done. He has the overall picture of where the company is heading, and will take important decisions affecting the future of the company. The worker’s job on the other hand, is to execute instructions. He simply does what he’s told. What’s more, he will continue doing his job until he receives instructions from above to do otherwise.
How to Take the CAT as a Manager?
The worker’s job is to execute tasks as efficiently as possible. But to be in CONTROL is the manager’s job. And to control CAT, you must don the manager’s hat; something you may not have thought of. Most poor scores in CAT boil down to lack of PLANNING and SELECTION; the primary tasks of a manager. Candidates tend to go after the test, question-by-question, expending all their energies on moving through this maze of questions as quickly as possible. Little do they realize that only a bird’s eye view of the maze (meaning the test) would tell them which direction to take, without which they might as well go blindfolded. The catch, therefore, is that while taking CAT, YOU ARE THE MANAGER AS WELL AS A WORKER, rolled into one. You MUST play BOTH these roles if you wish to do well.
Let’s get more specific. The tasks of deciding which sections to attempt first, how much time to devote to each section, how many attempts you are likely to make, which passages you decide to attempt, et al, are the tasks of a MANAGER. Actually going about reading, solving and answering the questions are the tasks of a WORKER. It is important to distinguish the two tasks and make sure you’re doing BOTH.
In fact, I would go further and look at THREE roles that you must play in order to take control of CAT. You’ll find that it isn’t very different from managing a factory or an office, after all.
Remember that for any task to be successful it must be done EFFICIENTLY and EFFECTIVLEY: It is the worker’s job to make sure it’s efficient, and it is the manager’s job to make sure it’s effective. You can’t have one without the other. During the test you need to constantly change roles: from CEO to manager to worker, and the other way round.
So every time you take a practice test, ask yourself this question: how well do I perform these roles? Chances are, if you do well, you will maximize your score. Of course, that does not mean that you will DEFINITELY make it. Your score may still not be good enough for that year. But at least you’ll know that you did your best. And that’s a far better deal than saying “if only I had managed the test better…”
Ask yourself, “Am I taking CAT like a manager?”
The role of the CEO
Imagine you’re the newly appointed CEO of CAT, for the next two hours. It is 10:30 am on the 21st of November, and your job has just begun. Here are some things you could look at, right at the beginning of the test.
·Is the test familiar, or different? If different, how different is it, and how is it going to impact time to be spent on each section? Are there any big surprises? What is the overall assessment of the test?
·How many sections are there, and what seems to be the difficulty levels of each? How much time should I devote to each section? What should my order of attempts be? WHAT IS MY PLAN FOR THE NEXT TWO HOURS?
As you can see, the CEO’s role is vital, but he has the least time to take his decisions. Perhaps the CEO needs to spend no more than three to four minutes to plan the order and set time limits for each section. This is what PLANNING is all about.
Having done that, he must hand over the baton to the next level.
The role of a SECTION MANAGER
Here, your task is to ensure you make the most of the section, and strictly adhere to the time limit given to you by the CEO. Like a departmental head, your job is to tackle these issues.
·What seems to be the difficulty level of this section? What could be a good score?
·Which questions should I begin with, and which should I attempt only at the end?
What is the order? (Since you’re a section manager, of course, you have the specific expertise in that section on differentiating the easy ones from the difficult. All those hours of dedicated practice will help you here.)
·While attempting the section, am I getting too involved with one particular question or passage? Should I junk it and move on? For example, a good assembly-line manager would ask his worker to ignore a mistake and carry on with the assembly, because the time he takes to repair one product, the worker can make three new ones.
The section manager decides which questions to solve and which ones to omit. This is SELECTION.
The role of the WORKER *
Now that you’ve got instructions from your section manager on what to attempt and what to leave, it is your duty to execute the instructions. This is clockwork, and the more you’re familiar with it, the more you’ll enjoy it. Your objective is to GET MARKS, and NOT just attempt as much as possible. Your section manager will have given you a target. It is your job to attempt as few questions as possible to achieve that target.
Consider this: would you rather have a worker who makes 10 cars (4 of them faulty) or 5 cars (none faulty)? What makes more business sense? While both strategies may yield same net score (10 attempts with 4 mistakes would give you a score of 5, assuming –0.25 negative), what about the time wasted in making mistakes?
Consider this. If you attempted 100 questions and made 50 mistakes, you actually spent an hour in increasing your score, and one hour in decreasing it! Even 60 attempts with 10 mistakes would have been better!
Also, from time to time, it will be the worker’s job to report the progress to the manager. In other words, this means that you must keep a tab on where your attempts are going on an overall level, and not get bogged down by the operative task of solving questions.
ATB
GOVI.......... |
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