Tips for preparation for CAT'05..from all u guys..

[vijay317]

Hey i suppose ther r many other ppl like me,....
i gave CAT'04 after givin a few AIMCAT's..and am geetin a score of 40+ with a single digit score in Verbal...
So i want u ppl to help me out in preparin for CAT'05..
So all u guys who did this b4 can thro some lite on this ..
thnk u.

[shrikanthk]

Hi,
Even I couldn't crack it this time.Getting btw 50-55 with single digit in QA.
As far as cracking cat is concerned ,i believe luck does play a greater role than
what most people believe.For instance, this year's paper was quant-heavy and anyone who's not good at qa was at a disadvantage straightaway. Similarly,ppl
good at VA had a distinct edge in the cat retest.
Btw,I made the mistake of neglecting my sectional %iles during simcats.
I never scored 95+ in all the 3 sections though the overall %ile was 98+ all the time.Also,the ims simcats being verbal heavy, didn't give an accurate picture of
where I stood.
As of now,I don't know how to get over the depression which has engulfed me
for not having got any returns after 3 months of good effort.

[newguy]

Hey Guys...

Just one word : Relax !

I have already told it in the CAT analysis thread and would like to reiterate that CAT is all about good habits..

Srikanth says that Quant was heavy...I am not an authority on this but I beg to differ ! Rather, I have not seen an easier quant in last so many year's paper...may be 97 paper was easier than this !

So, Why did Srikanth tell that ? The answer lies in the habit we guys have imbibed over the period of writing SO MANY Mocks...Some of them include :

-- Give too much importance to the cosmetics of paper...Where is what ? Rather than What is in it ?
-- Prejudiced against a certain type of question ( again because of mocks )..For example..take RC....last 5-6 mocks were just impossible and I was so afraid to even read the passage in CAT..I was damn sure that it will be somethng which TIME gives...I will eventually end up reading the entire passage with 10 % comprehension and 0% accuracy while answering the questions. With this apprehension in mind, I read one passage and found it easy ...then did 2 more...but there was no time for others ...attempted 13 question, got 12 right ! Here I would also like to add that when I attempted CAT 2003 Retest paper in September, I found RC easy and made a strategy that I will do all the RCs first and then start Verbals..It is worth it...But so many bad experiences in Mocks made me forget my strategy !

Learning : Mock and CAT are different ! DO NOT apply one's strtaegy to the other !

-- Talking of prejudice , I am exceptionally good at number crunching..I was consistently getting 99.9 types percentiles in DI but I never attempted LR ..Never thought of doing so as there were always enough DI in the set to help you achieve good score...

Coming to CAT...It was all LR...barring mixer set, (income, exp, saving) set...I got so disheartened that it didn't even happened to me that it's not a time to complain about the paper but make the best out of it...

Learning : those 2 hours are not meant for complaining ! We can always complain later...I actually did so..TIMES OF INDIA 22nd Nov..Front Page..Last Statement...That's me !!

Another Learning : Be reasonably good at all subsections !!

-- Last but not the least....don't start preparing for CAT so early...I would suggest to read some good books , buy some interesting maths books...imbibe genuine interest in you for Quants, numbers, reading ...I am very sure that even if you get serious about CAT Preparation - the mock way by the end of August...that should be good enough !

Guys...It was nice preparing with you guys ... I may be out of PG for a while but will be back whenever I need to .... msg me if you would like to discuss more about it !

Ciao.....

[kuk-du-ku]

....

[orca]

I too gave it this year and screwed up big time.....actually had no hopes of making it this year so no big disappointment for me.

My learnings from CAT this year: -

1)Basics first and strategy later. I went into this CAT with a "very good strategy" that was blown to pieces even before the exam actually started.This "very good strategy" had enabled me to get a good score in some mocks like CL MoCK5 where Overall cutoff was 58 and I got 67.XX. I aint blowing my trumpet here but what i am trying to say is what works in the mocks may not work in the actual thing.

2)People usually say "my english is pretty good but I am weak in RC". The fact is one can improve pretty fast in RC(2 months) but getting the usage Q's right will take some doing. If u have been a voracious reader throughout(thankfully I was) then it might make things a little simpler. Most of the mistakes occur in very simple usage Q's than complex RC's and PJ's coz they give u a false feeling that this is very much doable. Give the CAT paper to an unprepared guy and I can bet my right hand that he will attempt the usage Q's first and will get some of them wrong....whereas u can recognize and bypass tough RC's and PJ's with practice and safely avoid them.

3)QA is more of using common sense than doing some fundu calculations. Same applies to DI, if u r spending a lot of time on calculations u r doing something fundamentally wrong. Donot neglect LR, it can land u 5-6 marks in 7-8 mins flat if there are some easy sets around.

4) It makes sense to give the extra 5 mins to ur strongest section. It is VA in my case. In CAT 2k4 I gave 40 mins to VA(u can forget the first 5 min bcos of the shock value so only 35 mins net).Attempted 29 marks only and got 27 rite and 2 wrong.If I had given 5 more mins to VA I wud have landed another 4-5 marks for sure. My logic behind this is if I cant clear the QA cutoff in 35 mins I cant do it in 40 mins either.This is a purely personal observation and is open to debate.

5)Go with an open mind. Sounds very simple but I wud say this aint all that easy.

[CATq]

hi guys,

Could agree more with newguy and others. I am expecting anythign b/w 50-56 (cause i did nt Check the VA keys of IMS,CL et al, too many discrepencies , also the hockey set , its will decide my fate ), the only thing going in my favour (atleast based on the posting on PG so far) is that i have decent score in all 3 sections.

My take on BILLI:-

Concentrate on improving ur fundamentals, nothing else (at least at this time).

ENG:-

REad as much as you can ... try to become a voracious reader (if ur not already ), this helps, esp in RC.
Doing mocks etc in the last 6 months will help you in identifying what are your weak points.

if you know you are not good (acc. wise) at some areas (e.g. for me it was always usage based /grammer ques) chuck it in the actual paper ( i did the same adn i have no doubt that it was the right thing , i tried those qeus at home )

DI:- dont neglect LR... PERIOD (like newguy me too suffered because of this ).

QA:- strong basics, CAT QA hardly needs any high fundas. clear ur concepts you will be thru.

Dont plan like u will max in this or that section, try to be good at all sections(i knw it is tuff but its worth it). You never know which section will be tuff and which easy.

Last but not the least.. keep ur cool ( i did this .. well almost )


BOL for CAT 2005
Cheers!
CaTq

[shrikanthk]

Originally Posted by newguy @ Fri Nov 26, 2004 8:18 am

Hey Guys...


Srikanth says that Quant was heavy...I am not an authority on this but I beg to differ ! Rather, I have not seen an easier quant in last so many year's paper...may be 97 paper was easier than this !

What I meant by quant being heavy was that quant was the most scoring section
in this paper.Thus anyone who is good at QA would have been able to capitalise.
Ppl like me who went in with the intention of scoring 13-14 in QA and clearing the
cutoff weren't able to do so.That's because we had the predetermined notion that
QA can never be scoring!

[newguy]

So, Why did Srikanth tell that ? The answer lies in the habit we guys have imbibed over the period of writing SO MANY Mocks...

That's what I was getting at ! The prejudices we acquire over the period of writing so many mocks should be introspected once in a while and shrugged off....That's what my intention was !

Even I never did good at mocks because of exceptionally tough TIME mocks....This thing sank in me that I just have to solve 13-14 question and I am done...This time, I did 13 questions ..I got a score of 19.33 marks because out of those 13, 9 were 2 markers !

So, it ultimately boils down to fresh mind ...do not have any preconceived notion about any sections or subesections...Just take it as it comes !

[coolsoumya]

Originally Posted by shrikanthk @ Fri Nov 26, 2004 7:08 am

Hi,
Even I couldn't crack it this time.Getting btw 50-55 with single digit in QA.
As far as cracking cat is concerned ,i believe luck does play a greater role than
what most people believe.For instance, this year's paper was quant-heavy and anyone who's not good at qa was at a disadvantage straightaway. Similarly,ppl
good at VA had a distinct edge in the cat retest.
* * * Btw,I made the mistake of neglecting my sectional %iles during simcats.
I never scored 95+ *in all the 3 sections though the overall %ile was 98+ all the time.Also,the ims simcats being verbal heavy, didn't give an accurate picture of
where I stood. *
As of now,I don't know how to get over the depression which has engulfed me
for not having got any returns after 3 months of good effort.

srikanth i think this was the easiest quant tat u can ever hope for...iam no quant stud but this was as easy as it can get...di was heavy


soumi

[shrikanthk]

I need to articulate better.Maybe 'heavy' was the wrong word.
Soumya,
What I meant by 'quant-heavy' *was that quant was laden with gettable questions.
So,a person good at QA would have been able to exploit this section to the hilt.