The last 7 days: How to revise & consolidate your preparation

Aman Jindal

Before shooting your question go through this: Step 1: If you have covered most of the syllabus & given decent number of full length mocks (at least 10-15), follow only step 2. If you have covered most of the syllabus but not given any mocks: follow Step 2 & Step 3. I you haven’t done either of it, don’t worry :) there is a plan for tackling this as well: go to step 4. Step 2: The key point here is to consolidate your hard-work & visualize in entirety. QA&DI: Distill your notes to create a 1-2 A4 sized pages write-up. It would have important formulas (only those that you consider necessary & not all the formulas on a topic say Geometry). Along with those formulas keep a maximum one liner hint to the troubling questions so as to create a mental map of formulas & associated tricks. LR: Revisit your problem sets in detail, and jot their key twists in one or two lines. Now most of the problem sets are variants of a particular type. For instance the seating arrangement problems, so keep all the seating arrangement twists under one head. Again this entire process should take max 1-2 sheets. Verbal: Well the good news is that in Verbal there is never much to revise. In this section your mocks analysis & the errors you made therein is critical. So apart from the basic theory revision, identify the recurring theme of your errors in mocks. If there is no pattern, even then there are no issues. Generally in Verbal section, our strike rate of correct answers/questions attempted remain constant. Summing it up: The above process would take 3-4 days. On the 5th & 6th day just go through your 4-5 pager write-up once or twice daily. This customized crisp write-up would help you synthesize your preparation across topics & would act as a sharp memory whetting tool to increase your speed & efficacy on the D-Day. Good Luck!! Step 3: If you haven’t given any mocks than it is mandatory for you to give one full length mock each day. This is not for judging your preparation, it is just to acclimatize yourself with the test taking procedure & time management. Thus apart from consolidating your preparation above, get battle ready with the exam day practice. I am sure you would bell the CAT provided you have covered the syllabus & revised it thoroughly. Step 4: So what to do if you haven’t done anything? Remember what we are going to do is fire-fighting, kind of the high pressure jobs that the like of Jason Bourne & James Bond do. You need to be prepared to give in your all for the next 7 days. Sleep for 6 hours daily and study for the rest 18 hours. QA&DI (First 3 days): Pick up any reputed coaching material or a sought after book in the market. Go straight to the formulas section at the end of the book and read them up. Then the summary pages of each chapter. Remember our strategy is to move from the general to the specific. Then start attempting questions from each topic. Do the basic questions of each topic first. Then the tough questions. Don’t worry even if you never reach the tough questions at the end of 3rd day, remember we have already made the complete syllabus overview at the onset itself. But try to push the envelope. LR & Verbal (The 2 days): Solve the major LR category problems. Remember first the basic questions across all types and not get bogged down by the tougher problems at the onset. In the Verbal section, practice questions of each type & do 30-40 RC’s (total) across different topics. Full Length Mock (The 6th Day): Just give one mock, one & only one, on the morning of the 6th day. It would give you a feel of how it is going to be the next day. Don’t see its result and neither the score, it doesn’t matter. You have given it just to have a dress-rehearsal. Then by 5 o clock in the evening wrap up a quick overview of what you have studied in the last 5 days. Get your things ready for the exam the next day and sleep for a full 10-12 hours peaceful sleep post that and bell the CAT next day Jason Bourne style – quick, simple & with ease. Remember most of the runs in a match are scored in the last over!!

02:20 PM

Ishwar Chandra

How to tackle the inconsistency in my mock scores 32 correct and 15 incorrect questions 27 correct 12 incorrect Overall attempts in my mocks

02:34 PM

Sanjana Nakod

How many questions do I aim at attempting for a 99 percentile? And the accuracy level ?

02:35 PM

Ishwar Chandra

How to tackle the inconsistency in my mock scores 32 correct and 15 incorrect questions 27 correct 12 incorrect Overall attempts in my mocks

02:34 PM

Aman Jindal

Hi Eshwar: could you provide me the break up what kind (VA,LR or Quant) questions you are doing wrong ? and what are the ones you are getting correct

02:37 PM

Ishwar Chandra

How to tackle the inconsistency in my mock scores 32 correct and 15 incorrect questions 27 correct 12 incorrect Overall attempts in my mocks

02:34 PM

Aman Jindal

Hi Eshwar: could you provide me the break up what kind (VA,LR or Quant) questions you are doing wrong ? and what are the ones you are getting correct

02:37 PM

Kanika Gupta

Non-mcqs do not carry negative marking. But they will surely affect our accuracy level. Will this phenomenon have any impact on our percentile?

02:38 PM

Sanjana Nakod

How many questions do I aim at attempting for a 99 percentile? And the accuracy level ?

02:35 PM

Aman Jindal

Hi Sanjana, first of all it is subjective that how many questions you need to get correct for 99%ile. It depends on how tough the paper is. But to give you a ball park figure, in my opinion if a balanced paper comes, you need to get around 60-70% of the total question correct.

02:40 PM

Ishwar Chandra

Hi Aman, VA side - I'm getting Parajumbles which are mostly Non MCQ types correct Whereas, fill in the blanks, some tricky RC question types and eliminating odd man out sentences are always wrong DI - Pie charts and calculation intensive questions are fine but questions like bar diagram and line chart questions are getting tough LR - Puzzles that have 15-20 various points jotted down consuming a lot of time Like 6 different families living in 6 different houses in a colony having 6 different names and their conditions Coming to Quant, Non MCQs are difficult and hard to crack conceptually from Numbers

02:45 PM

Amit Lonakadi

Hello aman, How to revise VA RC and DILR ? Is it better to go through all mocks or sectional tests or books .

02:46 PM

Kanika Gupta

Non-mcqs do not carry negative marking. But they will surely affect our accuracy level. Will this phenomenon have any impact on our percentile?

02:38 PM

Aman Jindal

Hi Kanika, First non-mcq's are difficult to attempt with no option to eliminate. Secondly, the probability of going wrong is higher. So the non-negative marking is not going to effect scores that much and I expect the scores percentile relationship to maintain.

02:48 PM

Bosco Sylvester

how do i increase my attempts???

02:50 PM

Ishit Kothari

Hello Aman, how much score is require for 95 percentile?

02:51 PM

Ishwar Chandra

Hi Aman, VA side - I'm getting Parajumbles which are mostly Non MCQ types correct Whereas, fill in the blanks, some tricky RC question types and eliminating odd man out sentences are always wrong DI - Pie charts and calculation intensive questions are fine but questions like bar diagram and line chart questions are getting tough LR - Puzzles that have 15-20 various points jotted down consuming a lot of time Like 6 different families living in 6 different houses in a colony having 6 different names and their conditions Coming to Quant, Non MCQs are difficult and hard to crack conceptually from Numbers

02:45 PM

Aman Jindal

Hi Eshwar, You have made a very good analysis. I would first suggest concentrate on your strengths & attempt these questions first in your paper. VA: Getting fill ups & odd-man out consistently wrong, may point to a weakness in grammar. Probably you could brush up on that. In RC's try not to attempt the ambiguous question. DI: Bar diagram & line charts are simply a more detailed way for presenting pie charts. So try to think of them as pie charts plus accompanying data rolled into one. Each kind of chart has its own goal. In line charts be mindful of trends, as line charts primarily goal is to do that. Map the type of chart & the type of questions asked to solve them quickly.

02:57 PM

Ishwar Chandra

Thank you Aman. Kindly throw some light on LR and Quant tough areas too. Thanks in advance, brother.

03:01 PM

Bosco Sylvester

how to increase the attempts??

03:02 PM

Aman Jindal

Eshwar's Reply continuation: LR: for these kind of problems there is no easy way out, there is that x amount of data to process in a standard fashion. Your speed with increase with familiarity. Quant: Cracking quant questions without options is always tougher. A simple heuristic that you can use is concentrate on the unit & the possible range that your answer must fall in and then solve the question backwards. But I would always advise, to attempt these questions in the end unless and until they are sitters.

03:02 PM

Bosco Sylvester

how to increase the attempts??

03:02 PM

Aman Jindal

Hi Bosco, There is a simple way of increasing attempts. Many a times we fall behind by getting bogged down in certain questions and these questions happen to be from topics that we are confident in. So attempt paper with a clear ahead and have a simple flow chart in mind, if you aren't getting how to solve the question in first 20-30 seconds, leave it & move on. Your attempts are surely going to increase.

03:06 PM

Ishit Kothari

Hello Aman, how much score is require for 95 percentile?

02:51 PM

Aman Jindal

Hi Ishit, This is again a very subjective answer. But you should at-least attempt to get 50% of the total questions correct. Again it depends on the toughness of the paper. I would advise to not go in with this mindset of getting x number of questions correct. Your target must simply be: "As many correct answers as possible". Good Luck !!

03:09 PM

Bosco Sylvester

one more thing, in lr if i a kind of getting 2 out of 4, should i try completing the whole or move on to next??

03:09 PM

Ishwar Chandra

Yeah that point about solving Non-MCQs towards the end, in Quant sec is so true. Because they're always tempting given the kind of non-negative marking nature they possess. Hey, can you throw some light on right selection of RC passages and LR sets By right I mean highly accurate.

03:09 PM

Amit Lonakadi

Hello aman, How to revise VA RC and DILR ? Is it better to go through all mocks or sectional tests or books .

02:46 PM

Aman Jindal

Hi Amit, For RC: Going through mock is the best strategy, as there is not much back up theory anywhere. It is mostly a common sense kind of a game. VA: Both mocks and books should help, as for sentence correction & odd-man out a bit of grammar understanding helps. A book titled "Grammar Sucks" by Gary Robert Muschla is what I used in my preparation days. DI&LR: Again scant foundation theory. Most of it is sense and speed in calculations. But theory lies in the sense of categorization & type of problems. So use books to get familiar with the types & your sectional tests to understand your level of preparedness in each. I would strongly advise to note down on a piece of paper all the major heads of questions (for example seating arrangement questions: circular, straight line, facing same direction, opposite etc.) and go through a question of each type. Then go to your mocks and see what went wrong in real time, was it lack of understanding, calculation issues or simply time management. Identify the cause, eliminate it & bell the CAT.

03:19 PM

Bosco Sylvester

one more thing, in lr if i a kind of getting 2 out of 4, should i try completing the whole or move on to next??

03:09 PM

Aman Jindal

Hi Bosco, the same rule applies everywhere. It is a cold ruthless logic. Move on if you are not getting it. I can understand in LR, it is even more tempting to hang around if we have solved the first two questions and the next two remain. But remember these questions are not running anywhere, you can always come back to them after attempting everything else. Further you need to be mindful of the type of LR question you are attempting: If the LR set is such that all questions are independent then it is fine to do 2 & leave the tougher ones. But if all 4 questions are interlinked and answer of first two lead to the other two and your answer to the lat two are not in the options. Then probably the first two answers are wring as well. So leave that LR set altogether. I know from personal experience, it is very painful to leave a set after spending 10 minutes on it & getting nothing. But remember you need to very systematic & disciplined while attempting your paper if you want to maximize your score.

03:26 PM

Ishwar Chandra

Yeah that point about solving Non-MCQs towards the end, in Quant sec is so true. Because they're always tempting given the kind of non-negative marking nature they possess. Hey, can you throw some light on right selection of RC passages and LR sets By right I mean highly accurate.

03:09 PM

Aman Jindal

For LR: it is quite straightforward. Go through the case quickly, and if you have solved a similar set in your prep, quickly solve it. Else if it is a new set, then I would advise solving it later as early on if you spend time on it & don't get it , the pressure is bound to mount as time would be lost without any gains. Again the key is familiarity with as large number of LR sets as possible. RC: From the first para you would know what the topic of RC is. If its in your domain, then go fir it first.

03:30 PM

Ishwar Chandra

Thanks a lot Aman. I will definitely buy 'Grammar Sucks'. Thanks for sharing your insights.

03:32 PM

Ishwar Chandra

Thanks a lot Aman. I will definitely buy 'Grammar Sucks'. Thanks for sharing your insights.

03:32 PM

Aman Jindal

It was my pleasure. Take care and all the best for CAT & beyond.

03:34 PM

Aman Jindal

Hi Guys & Gals, I am signing of for today. I would be here from 20:00 to 21:00 again tomorrow for your hand-holding in the run up to your CAT exam. Good Luck !! May you all ace it. Regards Aman Jindal IIM Kozhikode (2015-17) 99.03 (CAT 2014)

03:37 PM