[contender]

Hey Karan thanks for sharing ur strategy .. and yes congrats as well ..
My query is pertaining to VA section.. my score in this section fluctuates too very badly .. have scored 20+ in 4-5 mocks 15-16+ in most and in a few have scored 1-2 as well .. so u know the situation is alarming ..

so if only u guys could suggest me some strategy to improve in this particular section .. at the moment i have thought of going through the PJ, SC and Word usage of previous mocks ... and at the same time shall go through the word list of Norman Lewis as well ..

Appreciate all your help guys ..

Regards,
Contender

[H E C T O R]

Originally Posted by contender

Hey Karan thanks for sharing ur strategy .. and yes congrats as well ..
My query is pertaining to VA section.. my score in this section fluctuates too very badly .. have scored 20+ in 4-5 mocks 15-16+ in most and in a few have scored 1-2 as well .. so u know the situation is alarming ..

so if only u guys could suggest me some strategy to improve in this particular section .. at the moment i have thought of going through the PJ, SC and Word usage of previous mocks ... and at the same time shall go through the word list of Norman Lewis as well ..

Appreciate all your help guys ..

Regards,
Contender

Dude..

Have not seen this year's MOCKS so really dont know wat coaching institutes predict the pattern to be..

From a last year's perspective in terms of pattern, it is pretty simple to overcome wat ur facing..

1) Attempt the one markers.. They re easy and shud help u push ur score above a certain level.

2) RC s are the big ones. All answers are there, they just have to be located or infered ( generally the latter ).. So i wud suggest that u do up the english Usage quickly and slip in quite a few RC s. Practice RC s.. Its one thing that junta ignore.. Practice simple ones as well as tough ones. Helps u get the hang of it in terms of which of the options is "too narrow and too broad".. Something taught across all coaching institutes but rarely put in practice.

3) Read, read and read more.

4) ELIMINATE ALL SILLY MISTAKES. Read if u have to fill similar words or opposites, read NOT in questions.. I used to bungle up quite frequently with silly mistakes

I can only give generic advise without seeing which areas u are messing up, I mean which are the consistency areas n which are the question marks.

Hope I was of help..

[contender]

Inputs considered Karan .. btw i have been doing consistently good in Summary related ques and the ones where in we are suppose to fill the blank with appropriate sentence .. but the problem being that these r often very less in number ..

PJs are one thing tht i am looking fwd to and SC are second in my list .. and i believe practise is the only thing i got here tht can help me out in improving in these two sections .. but if any of u aware of some study material for PJ then tht would be of gr8 help .. i believe though there is too much material for SC it wouldnt be wise doing it now as it may consume a lot of time ..wat do u guys say on this ??

Regards,
Contender

[orca]

As D-day drew near last year I followed an anti-mock strategy in the final 25 days, I finally ended up doing a decent job in CAT2005. I suggest u guys think abt this and see if writing mocks beyond a point actually makes sense.

http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/293959-post144.html

Infact this entire thread was pretty good in terms of diff strategies to approach the paper. Read through when u get the time, it might give u a new perspective to tackling the paper.....

http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-an...r-avenues.html (Ask Career Avenues!)

[wannabmba]

tks 4 starting dis thread.im havin aprob wid my di sec,ie i cant always get d cut offs. can anyone tell me wat d cutoff is usually lik 4 dis sec. prob is dat in a tough di sec, i attempt q s i am not sure abt and end up losin marks:

[H E C T O R]

Originally Posted by wannabmba

tks 4 starting dis thread.im havin aprob wid my di sec,ie i cant always get d cut offs. can anyone tell me wat d cutoff is usually lik 4 dis sec. prob is dat in a tough di sec, i attempt q s i am not sure abt and end up losin marks:

Any sectional cut offs depend on the level of difficulty of the section..
I would rate last year's CAT DI as hard and the cut offs wud have been 10 maximum 11..

Suggested strategy for DI :

1) Attack a couple of one mark set first or one of the simpler ones of DI (not AR). Do ur calculations, as i said earlier learn how to approximate and use approximations liberally. Idea is to cut down time on calculations.

2) Move to the big ones, the tougher and the more scoring ones. Try and look for a question on the similar lines as u wud have seen before. Attempt that. Believe ur gut, if ur first instinct is u can solve the question, go with it.

3) What u write while solving AR or the diagrams or tables u make are very important. There was a section in the CL prep books on it, dunno if the others had it or not. Try going thru it. Saves u a lot of time and makes ur AR quite organized.

Hope it helps.

[TinMan]

Originally Posted by bobbybond

I'm not able to get this.. r u alloting less time while preparing or less time during the test?...

Thanks a lot for ur reply bobby

my time for quant for prep is less

also during the exam the problem with me is that i start with DI and think that i shall leave this after 45 min and go to VA section
but what happens is when 45 min are completed i think i can just allot another 10 min for di itself for the final set as a result time of one section creeps in to another and the result is for the section i attempt (QA) last there will be only 30 -35 min left so i get only 8 -9 in qa

but nearly 17 - 20 in DI

this is my Complete case
analysis and Suggestions please
Bye
Krishna

[bobbybond]

Actuallly speaking, quant is the only section in CAT that requires some amount of prep... so if u can't find time for that... then u r digging ur own grave!

U'll have to stick to time limits...wotever be it! initially the temptation will be there for everyone... especially if the section looks very easy... or very tuf in which case u'll be tempted to attempt more to at least get some of them right... bur always keep in mind that this is all about relative scoring.. and at least 90% of those who write CAT will stick to the equal split time limits...so it will obviously make more sense if u also stick to it... excepting if u r very good in any section, u can afford a +-5 min..but no way anything more than that.

My personal suggestion would be to always keep a section where ur attempt rate is high as the last section, because as the deadline approaches, ur mind tends to get clogged up and having to do a quant problem when there's just 3 mins left will demoralize u... rather it would be much simpler if u had a couple of verbal one-liners during the end.

Think about it...and chose the strategy that would work best for u!
ATB

[TinMan]

Originally Posted by bobbybond

Actuallly speaking, quant is the only section in CAT that requires some amount of prep... so if u can't find time for that... then u r digging ur own grave!
ATB

Did that mean ihave already dug my grave

What to do now
Please help my qa scores are always 9 - 10 but i dont dare to attempt that section anywhere before DI and VA

my attempts are always in the manner of First section is DI (will get around 15 - 20) Second section is VA (15- 20) and then QA (9 - 10 :()
What shall i do please bobby help me out u are the Guys who should help us

Thank u for ur help so far
Bye
Krishna

[bobbybond]

With one month to go, ideally you should be having all shortcuts/formulae in QA at the tip of your fingers. Tackle every mock from now on as the real one. That means stopping prep an hour before exam, not sleeping late on the nite before the mock, etc. Trust me, if u follow this, the real one will look just like a routine. The pressure built on d-day will be plain horrible, that's the reason why many studs would fail to crack it when the need arises.

Krishna, i can't comment on ur scores unless i know by how far u r missing the cut-offs. I repeat, my strategy would be : keep your weakest section in the middle, the easiest one to the end. Unless u have an overwhelming reason to go beyond the time limit in one section, i suggest equal apportioning of time across all sections. Why do u say u wouldn't want to attempt it before DI? have u tried it out?