[devilbemyguide]

Hmmm.... had posted this on the time aimcat thread . Thought that by posting it here, will be helping the non Time juntha too... posting with some modifications.


Guys (and Gals).. My name is Puneet. I was a TIME student, then went on to become a TIME faculty for verbal & di, and presently doing my MBA from NITIE.

Thought I would give a few suggestions for ur cat prep....In case u r not taking the time test series, use the months range given in the brackets to prepare accordingly.

1. The first 6-8 mocks are for experimentation. Experiment. Try out new strategies.
dont bother much about ur percentiles and ranks.... my avg percentile during the first 6 mocks were 90-95. This usually happens in the months may to july. Enginners might be having their semester exams during this time. Dont bother prepping for cat too much during this time.

2. Mocks 8 - 12 (August) : access urself thoroughly. Find urself a preparation partner. this is very important. your preparation partner should be more or less at a similar level as u r or perhaps slightly higher. Benchmark urself against him.& both of u should motivate each other to up the level of performance. Start doing sectional tests also at this period of time.
My preparation partner was a guy called vinod(now in IIMB). His avg percentile during this mocks period was 99, mine 97.

3. Mocks 13-18. Takeoff time. Settle down on a strategy. Identify ur biggest strength. Also identify the section which u can do best under immense time pressure. In my case, i was very good at di, I also have a reading speed of around 850-900 words per minute. This reading speed ensured that I could finish all my RC's in about 12-13 minutes time & could devote more time to quant.

I used to start with DI(about 35 minutes, as it was a strong section), then went to quant, spent around 45- 50 minutes over there, then went to verbal for 30 minutes. Used up the remaining time to go back to any section i wanted to maximise else used to do some checking the omr for errors in marking( In th actual CAT, I spent the last 5 minutes checking the OMR for markings).

Also, the last 15 days b4 CAT, preferably take a leave from work/college & keep urself focussed on the job at hand. Motivate urself and ur preparation partner.

Vinod(my prep partner) got 99.34 percentile in CAT 2004.
He got calls from IIMb & IIMc. Converted & joined IIMB.

I got 99.23 percentile in CAT 2004. .DI - 89.09.( mild screw up in my strongest section.... what an irony...) Quant - 97.63... Verbal 99.01.
Got AIR 138 in JMET 2004

Calls from MDI,NITIE, SJMSOM IITB, DMS IITD and VGSOM IITKGP.

Converted SJMSOM IITB and NITIE. Joined NITIE.

Both Vonod & myself are freshers from R.V. College of Engineering, Bangalore.

Hope this will be useful to all u CAT 2005 takers. Mail me or PM me for any clarifications.
Pagalguy rules.

Cheers

Puneet

[simple_aspirant]

hey devil

help me out..

i was also a test series student of time last year...

in the first few mocks, percentile varied from 95-97; in the 10-15th mock it was 90-95 and in the last 3-4, it hovered below 90..

i dont know what happened last time but i would like to know what was the reason behind my dip in percentiles so that i dont repeat the same mistake this time..can you guess what was wrong with my preparation..and how can I improve on the same...

[devilbemyguide]

Originally Posted by simple_aspirant

hey devil

help me out..

i was also a test series student of time last year...

in the first few mocks, percentile varied from 95-97; in the 10-15th mock it was 90-95 and in the last 3-4, it hovered below 90..

i dont know what happened last time but i would like to know what was the reason behind my dip in percentiles so that i dont repeat the same mistake this time..can you guess what was wrong with my preparation..and how can I improve on the same...

1.Well, I guess u peaked way too early. What kind of preparation did u do in the months of May-July? Was it a very intense preparation. Look, everyone goes thru a peak & then comes down after that.

2. Either this or what perhaps happenned was the competition got tougher in the later stages. What u need to do is get ur basics pucca by August this time. Do each & every one of last years papers(mocks) again. Especially in ur weak sections, redo them. Find a partner to benchmark urself against. And aim to beat him.

If u have problems in any specific sections, feel free to ask. Eventually, by mid november, u have to come to a stage where u can tell urself that 2 hrs is a very long time for cat & i can do it in less time than that. Trust me. It is possible.

Ask me if there is anything more specific u want me to address.

Cheers

Puneet

[simple_aspirant]

yeah

may be the first thing happened to me...

in june-july, I was spending 8-10 hours in the preparation n then I joined a software comp where I was not able to put in any effort on revising the things except analysing the Mocks..I think i need to remain in touch with the fundas till end along with analysing mocks...

n any suggestions on improving in English Usage section...i mean sone great funda book of any institute you would like to refer..

Simple_Aspirant

[badshahkhan]

i dont think it is the issue of peaking early. rather in the beginning, the competition is less stiffer n u tend to achieve better percentile. once cat approaches, more n more serious people joins in the race n then the situation becomes tough. the rank n the percentile starts going down. plzz include more details abt ur percentiles in various sections . this wud help in better advice tht i can offer frm my side.

regarding va i think reading a lot helps the most. n read relevant material. this can be in form of newspapers like hindu, magzines n so on. dont read fiction novels. they r nearly a waste of time, if u dont hv reading as a hobby.

[thatsnick001]

Well, Devil, I m new to PG and would like to know much more info about cat exam
I have just gone into my final year BE Mech and would pass out in 06.
I have heard that getting a job first for about 2 years and then giving cat would increase me score by 5 marks...is it true?
Also is R S Aggrawal (Quant) of any use for Cat prep or is it necessary to join anyof the classes like you did ?Any examples of your friend who went into iims without coaching class?

[sunshine]

Devilbemyguide,
I'm a software engineer and preparing for CAT all by myself.I need some advise from you regarding quant and di.I find that I'm lacking in speed.Any particular pointers on improving speed?Or can you give some general advise about how to go about quant and di preparation?
Inputs highly appreciated.

[devilbemyguide]

all right... will try and answer most of ur queries here.... including the ones i got on pm.

Quant:- This section seems to be the nemises of 90% of the people. Well... some strategies....

1. Topics: Numbers,Geometry,Equations,Mensuration,Time & work & some coordinate geometry along with basics of trigonometry should be known thoroughly. Topics like ratio proportion,simple compound interest,permutations, probability.... Basic knowledge is sufficient in these. Rarely are any direct questions given on ratio proportion,simple interest etc.
Then there r topics like Time & distance,statistics,special equations which r best left alone after a glance. Time and distance has the history of producing very long questions. So unless u r very strong in quant, dont break ur head over these topics. Give it a glance. U never know when they can ask a direct question from these.

2. Method of preparation: Go thru the basics first. Solve some basic problems... dont rush headlong into a tough problem without getting a feel of the topic first. Ur confidence may be severely dented if u do so. Next, try and do a simple topic test.Ur coaching classes will give u enough material to work on. Next, if u r writing cat for the second/third time, I am sure u will have quite a few old mocks lying around. First timers will need to borrow some old mocks from their seniors.

Now say u have 30 old mocks. Take out 15 of them & put them away. The remaining 15 mocks, do all problems on the topic u have just finished preparing. This is more than sufficient for any topic preparation.

PLEASE, in case u r guessing some answers, now is the time to see how good u r at guessing. If u r consistently getting more than 50% of ur blind guesses right, then continue to guess...( I dont know how u can get so many guesses right though, defies probability... but have see a couple of guys do it consistently), else dont guess any questions....

I told u to take out 15 mocks(old) & keep them aside. In the last 15 days b4 CAT, use these mocks as a combination of 3 sectional papers(i.e. do each section in these mocks seperately as a sectional test)

This should do for quant.
___________________________________

Next post is on DI

Cheers...

Puneet

[bonkers]

R ! E! A! D! I! N! G! speed of 850-900 wpm ???@#$#%#$%
how did you manage to do that ????? i have a reading speed of around 270-280 or say atmost 300 in cool areas. how to pick up speed like that or atleast take the count to 450-500 . Speed is a major concern to me . Please help ..........

[devilbemyguide]

Hehe... will address the verbal rc queries in the next post... for now.... DI.


Well... for DI, usually, the line graphs & the bar graph questions are the easiest to solve.u people shoul go for these questions first.
then comes the pi chart. remember - 1% in a pi chart = 3.6 degrees, 5 % = 18 degrees & 10 % = 36 degrees. If u remember this much, u can very quickly calculate for any other angle/degree thus simplifying ur calculations.
Then do the data table questions & then finally the mixed variety. Take care of the changes in units during the question. Many errors result thru this.

Also, one way to shorten time during a question is to have an idea of the answer options. Suppose 1722, 1817, 2341 and 2655 are four options for a question and u r in a situation where u have to do 46 * 57.4 to arrive at ur answer, now look, 4 *5 is 20(the ten power digits are multiplied). So the first 2 options are automatically eliminated.Also if u notice,46 is closer to 50 & 57.4 is closer to 60. do 5*6. thats 30. So 46*57.4 is closer to 3000. So the answer would be option 4 & not option 3.

Since the answer options are well spread out, u can afford to take this risk of approximation.

If u r spending 35-40 minutes on DI section, remember , atleast 30% of that time should be spent on LR. There can be quite a few sitters here.

DI & LR are learnt only thru practice. U can follow the method i suggested for quant topics over here too if u wana do topic wise prep for this section.

____________

All right... next post on Va/RC

Cheers

Puneet