[CAT 2010 Helpline] By IIM Kozhikode students - The last mile to CAT 2010

MBA CAT 2023
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Dear all, For the third year in a row, we bring to you the PaGaLGuY Official CAT Helpline in collaboration with the Students of IIM Kozhikode. CAT 2010 is less than a month away, and now is the time to ask all your ‘last mile’ questions t…

2

Dear all,

For the third year in a row, we bring to you the PaGaLGuY Official CAT Helpline in collaboration with the Students of IIM Kozhikode. CAT 2010 is less than a month away, and now is the time to ask all your 'last mile' questions to people who have been there and done that.

On this thread, you can ask IIM Kozhikode students about...

  1. What to do in the last month
  2. Forming a test-taking strategy
  3. How to deal with weaknesses in preparation
  4. How to be prepared for the D-Day
  5. Tips for each section
  6. How to avoid panic, How to motivate yourself

So if you have any questions on the above topics, post them here and get them answered by multiple IIM Kozhikode students to get rich perspective.

PS - it would be nice if you first went through the thread and see if your question has already been asked by someone. Why ask again something that has already been answered?

Cheers,
Apurv
3

Thanks Apurv,

For opening this thread, I was eagerly waiting for the same. I used to follow last years thread, which guided me and many fellow aspirants on the road to cat journey.

I wanted to thank last years mentors for the guidance and motivation that they provided. It really meant a lot. I wanted to write a thank you post on last years thread, but it was closed before that. Just few days before cat, everyone is confused, and is bombarded with lots of advices, which one to follow or not to follow, everything seems vague. This thread provides a relief from all that.

I want to thank in advance all the mentors who will be helping us, for talking their valuable time out and replying to our queries. And puys, do make most use of this thread, you wont find the deep and genuine replies to your queries anywhere else. ;)

Regards,

4

ok so here's my question:
what to do in the last month before cat?My %les are swinging in the mock cats.If I do well in 2 sections the 3rd one goes awry.How to do well in all the 3 sections?

5

Thank you, Apurv!

We are delighted to be a part of this initiative this year as well. The aim of this thread is not to discuss individual problems and caselets. We intend to focus more on the macro aspects of it, rather than specific problems.

Feel free to post any doubt/query/opinion or suggestion. We will try to resolve them as soon as possible and in the most comprehensive way possible. In case any specific queries about the online format come up which we are unable to resolve, we will attempt to sort them out in consultation with the appropriate authorities at IIMK.

Please be specific in your queries, and back them up with what you have been doing. For example, merely asking 'What should be the strategy for CAT?' is not very useful, as strategies will depend a lot on your state of preparedness, your strong and weak areas, etc. Ideally, include the following when you ask something :

- Your strong and weak areas
- Your overall mock scores
- Whether there has been any dip or rise in these scores in the last month or so
- Your current paper strategy

Include as much details as you can.

6

Hi.

My major concern is VA. Can i improve VA by putting in effort in these remaining 55 days left for CAT? If yes, how?

Thanks

7

Dear Seniors,

MY CAT is on 22 NOV..
for me "All" Topics of QA/DI/VA are not covered even till now.. :(
What should be my strategy for last 7 weeks?

Also one query: Does it mean that my CAT paper will be tough as I have chosen almost the last day for it...

Thanks
shriyash

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Hi,

Thanks a lot for opening this thread 😃 :).

I am giving my CAT on Nov 22nd..the penultimate day.

I would have gone through the Quantz topics (TIME book) in another week...(read as went through and worked sums and formulae). And am planning to only work out and work out problems from Quantz and DI (including previous year papers and mocks) in October...and then finally, start my revision by end of October.

Could you please tell me if this approach will be beneficial, if not harmful, with the CAT in mind?

Note: Am good at Verbal and LRDI. Quantz is my Achilles hell, as of now. In mocks, I have been constantly maintaining >95 percentile in VA, wavering around 70s in LRDI and not managing to cross 40 percentile in Quantz :-(

Thanks a ton :),
Satish

9

Hi GUys,

Here goes a long list of queries.

1. My attempts have always been in the range 30-35 and so i have never crossed 90 %ile :(. If accuracy is good, then i end up in 80-90%ile or else am limited to 70-80. I always start the test with a mindset that i will not waste time on any particular Q and try to read every Q but always get stuck on some particular Q (frankly, it takes time for the sol to strike me in some medium to difficult level Q and so i think that if i give a little more time, i will be able to crack it as i do not want miss those 3 marks. THis results in two things. EIther I get the answer or I give up and that too after spending some amount of time (I know that tHis is very wrong, but the greed of those 3 marks overpowers me 😞 ).

2. Due to above mistake, i miss out on some easy Q or am not able to devote the required amount of time to every Q. I ask you, is it that cat crackers are able to devote reasonable time to every Q, it means then that they are confident of answering a Q in 2-3 mins? I am not able to solve so fast currently(though i might be able to with practice).

3. VA-Reading comprehension - At times, i have observed that some passages do not need to be read at all. Qs can just be answered by searching for a keyword in the passage. Is this a suitable approach? I think this can only be applied to data based Q but still every DB ques cannot be answered like this, right or can it?

4. Though i have not missed a single mock of TIME and IMS, i still think that i need to give many more tests so that i get comfortable with it? (less mocks have been the reason for nervousness) I am planning to give a mock every day startng Oct and so shall have practiced 30-35 mock till D-Day. Are these many mocks sufficient to make me mentally prepared or am i being over cautious?

5. People say that strategies should be flexible. In what way? Every one will have one basic strategy regarding the order of sections, the order of Q etc etc. how can one change this based on the paper? If my order of sections has been QA-VA-DI, in what circumstances would i take the risk of shuffling this order during the exam. After all i have been all this time comfortable with this order and so why should i put it in disorder? In entirety, what does a flexible strategy mean?

Please suggest some of your strategies, Would try to add them to my already existing one.

10
Hi.

My major concern is VA. Can i improve VA by putting in effort in these remaining 55 days left for CAT? If yes, how?

Thanks


Hi Avinash,
You can definitely improve upon your VA since you have ample time at hand. Firstly, try to gauge which parts of VA you are comfortable with. Start strengthening these parts by consciously reducing the time required during solving these. During mock-tests, attempt such questions first and only then move on to next sections. Simultaneously, keep preparing for vocabulary, which I believe is more difficult to develop in a short span of time.
As a personal opinion, reading comprehensions can be mastered at in a reasonable amount of time. Also, you are assured a very good percentile if you are able to solve only the reading comprehension questions. So maybe you can look at developing your "reading comprehension" section.
11

Thanks for this wonderful initiative.
I am weak in TSD in QA and Game/score board related problems in DI. Please suggest what and how I should do in the remaining 45 days of my CAT.
Have gone through all the basics of TSD in books and understood them but still find it very hard to tackle it.
Any suggestions would be very helpful.

12

hey hi heet here

ummm well i got the same problem as most of the others do. my percentiles sway from 99-79 in mocks and am really worried about my accuracy in the verbal section. plus i'm damn strong at ldi and mediocre in quant. in the sense i can hardly get thru the cut offs for quant. plz suggest friends.


thanking you 😃

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ok so here's my question:
what to do in the last month before cat?My %les are swinging in the mock cats.If I do well in 2 sections the 3rd one goes awry.How to do well in all the 3 sections?


Analyse it a bit regarding the reasons for the swings in percentiles. From my personal experience I can tell you some people tend to perform better (percentile wise) when paper is easy and struggle when its tough while for some it is vice versa...This is when you cannot identify one particular strong or weak section because it fluctuates a lot with the level of difficulty....go through your mock tests to see is this may be the case

The other obvious reason may be lack of time management skills or concentration issues when some people have a tendency to falter in either of the first or the last section that they attempt....

As I said revisit some of your mocks with these points in mind....see if you can identify your problem in a more precise manner, so that people here can be more specific in the suggestions for them
14
Dear Seniors,

MY CAT is on 22 NOV..
for me "All" Topics of QA/DI/VA are not covered even till now.. :(
What should be my strategy for last 7 weeks?



Dear Shriyash,
You still have time at hand. Devote it for preparing in the most optimal manner. Try strengthening your strong sections first. Also make a conscious effort to learn from your mock-cats. Spend some time analyzing your mistakes in the mock cats, along with learning the tricks of solving problems.
As far as difficulty level is concerned, mostly CAT questions are randomly picked up from a question-bank. I don't think that your paper will be tougher than anyone else's for the simple reason that questions are chosen randomly and there is hardly any repetition.
15
Hi.

My major concern is VA. Can i improve VA by putting in effort in these remaining 55 days left for CAT? If yes, how?

Thanks



When in doubt, be optimistic. Work hard and smart in these 55 days that you have.

Start by giving sectional days extensively for the next couple of days. See if you can identify sections you are particularly weak at, or something which you are good at and which can possibly be leveraged.
If you can give us some more idea on these fronts it will help us to suggest on a suitable strategy.
16
Hi,

Thanks a lot for opening this thread 😃 :).

I am giving my CAT on Nov 22nd..the penultimate day.



Hi Satish,
The approach is definitely beneficial since you are devoting more time towards solving problems from study material as well as previous years' papers.
You have to practice quant more since you have been scoring less in it.
17
Hi,

Thanks a lot for opening this thread 😃 :).

I am giving my CAT on Nov 22nd..the penultimate day.

I would have gone through the Quantz topics (TIME book) in another week...(read as went through and worked sums and formulae). And am planning to only work out and work out problems from Quantz and DI (including previous year papers and mocks) in October...and then finally, start my revision by end of October.

Could you please tell me if this approach will be beneficial, if not harmful, with the CAT in mind?

Note: Am good at Verbal and LRDI. Quantz is my Achilles hell, as of now. In mocks, I have been constantly maintaining >95 percentile in VA, wavering around 70s in LRDI and not managing to cross 40 percentile in Quantz :-(

Thanks a ton :),
Satish


Simple suggestion...aggressive preparation for QA and somewhat for DI. VA is one section which probably suffers least because of the lack of practice so you can afford to devote some extra time for other two sections.
For the improvement I am of the opinion that rather than any book or even any other teacher, best help would be of someone around you who is good at QA and is also preparing fr CAT...If you have such a friend around you, just start giving mock tests and section tests and solving questions with the person...doesnt matter if you keep on ending up with much lower marks, just discuss everything you dont manage to solve....It will really be of help in analyzing the approach towards QA...

preferably have as many such discussions as possible....treat them as your mentors, and reap the benefits very soon (which is needed)
18
Dear Seniors,

MY CAT is on 22 NOV..
for me "All" Topics of QA/DI/VA are not covered even till now.. :(
What should be my strategy for last 7 weeks?

Also one query: Does it mean that my CAT paper will be tough as I have chosen almost the last day for it...

Thanks
shriyash



The CAT paper "seemed" to increase slightly in difficulty level last year, but then those people were much more mentally prepared for seevral reasons

This slot thing is not in your hands, dont think about it...focus on things which are under ur control
19

HI,

I am struggling in the mocks and have managed to get an average of 70 per.
When i come back home and analyze the mocks i always feel that i have made a particular mistake due to incorrect interpretation or making silly mistakes etcc.. after looking at the questions i feel i could have done it but at the next mock again the result is the same.
plz help i need of some genuine help.

20

HI,
I have given my cat last year and ended up with a percentile of 97.72 OA but a mere 88.68 in VA inspite of alloting it more than an hour. I'm very comfortable with QA and LRDI and i consistently get more than 95 percentile in both of them in my mocks. My VA scores vary a lot : 50 percentile to 80 percentile. I'm very confused as to when i should answer this section in the mocks. I read really slow and hence i am not able to perform well in the RCs.. Actually i end up leaving atleast 10 questions without even reading them. Could you please suggest as to what can be done in this one month so as to boost my VA scores. I have a good grasp of voca but i get VERY VERY confused when i look at the options in any VA/RC question..