Found a post by DOC on DT, pretty useful and inspiring.So posting here
The last 1.5-2 months
Now, you would have got a fair idea of where you stand amidst the competition, you know what day will you be taking CAT and most importantly, you know how much time you have on your hands to get even better than what you are now.
You know your strong areas/sections. They can be ranging from as simple as say a geometry topic to the entire QA section. This is one area, you are sure will fetch you marks on any given day. Try to maintain this edge throughout the last phase.
Now, is this the time to learn something new?
Well, frankly speaking, no. Whatever you have done all your life to this point counts. If you do learn something new, you need to practise it so well that you can shift seamlessly during the main exam. But that doesn't mean that you stop learning new things. Till now, you would have encountered all types of questions in mocks, previous CAT papers and institutes material. The things you don't know might be just a variation of things you know. Like say, elevators and escalators concept is nothing new if you are aware of basic time, speed and distance problems. You can work on this area and can improve. But then learning something like say Permutations and Combinations right from the start would be too time consuming. It would be better if you have your basics clear across many areas and improvise during the test rather than trying to cover a lot of areas in detail in these 1.5-2 months.
Strategy:
Get a strategy fixed and implement it in the coming mocks. The strategy should be such that you are comfortable following it and it yields a good score almost always. Like say few people might not be able to concentrate harder at the start of the mock. For them, it would help if you start with areas which do not require that high level of concentration(DI sets, RCs do require you to be more alert). You can start with singlet quant problems or the VA sub-section and then move forward. For someone who is not that good at 'finishing', you can follow the reverse.
Where to keep my strong section?
Well, it totally depends on you. You can take it right at the start to build some confidence and then move to the other sections with a bit more confidence. Or you can take it at the end where, you know that you would be able to do it say even in 35 minutes. Also, remember one thing while solving this section. If you are doing 10 questions in the section you are strong in, you need to back yourself. If you are finding it difficult, others will also find it difficult. Hard as it may seem, it's time to move over to the next section
Also, while making a strategy, make sure it works for atleast 3-4 mocks. It is very easy to discard a strategy just because you didn't score well even though you were comfortable while writing the mock. If it helped you calm your nerves, there is no need to do away with it so soon. Persist with it for another couple of mocks. Do not worry about your mock scores. As someone had said on the forum, even if you get a 100%ile in a mock, you ain't getting admission anywhere but if you get a 50%ile in CAT, there will still be colleges running after you. So, it's very important to perform in the match rather than in the nets. A great mock score doesn't guarantee you a similar fate in CAT and so does a poor score. The most important thing is what you have learnt from those 2.15 hours and not how many people you could beat.
I am still doing 30-40 questions in mocks and not able to do more than 50 questions without 'guessing'. Will I be facing any problem because of this?
Well, you have answered it yourself. 30-40 questions is 50-66.66% of the paper. If you ask me, this score is good enough to get you through some of the top colleges in any entrance exam. If you are doing 30-40 questions, you are spending around 2-3.5 minutes per question at an average(that is time spend solving. The rest of the time will be spent going through questions you don't solve). Now that is something which should ensure you of an accuracy of atleast 85-90%. So, if you are doing something like say 40 questions, and getting 34-36 correct, your raw score would be around 100 which is almost 55% of the total marks which I think is good enough. If you are still trying for more attempts, go in a step by step manner. Don't jump from 40 to 60 and then seeing that it doesn't work, back to 35. Try doing a section quicker than usual. If it works, keep following it and then try the other section/s. People can attempt close to 55 because they have concrete basics and have seen plenty of questions when they 'prepared'. You cannot just go and blast a paper just like that, you see.
And please don't guess in mocks, not even in VA. It may create a false sense of confidence that you are scoring well when actually you are going nowhere.
So, to summarize, take a few mocks, analyse them, get comfortable with your strategy and most importantly, do not worry about others' scores and attempts as good or as bad they seem to be. Believe in yourself and you will score well
