The response to the first SIMCAT was great and it was nice to see so many students jump into the fray from the word go. But the plunge as most of you would know is similar to jumping off a diving board for the first time — the moment of impact, the bewilderment when you are under the water and most importantly the desperate eagerness towards the end to somehow get back to ground again. (I have never jumped off a diving board but was once caught under the waves on the beach when I was quite little, thankfully my dad managed to rescue me).
Just like you would not bother too much about the score given to your first ever dive do not think too much about the score you got. This is neither an engineering exam nor a blood test. So what is it and how should you evaluate your performance?
The four cornerstones of aptitude testing
The four concerstones of aptitide testing are concepts, application, test-taking strategy and mental toughness.
On a scale of 100, the weightage to each of these depends on the pattern of the test but on average they would be 25%,30%, 30% and 15% respectively.
Concepts, Application and Mental Toughness need no defining but what most test-takers do not understand is the key role by test-taking strategy that has two parts
- Question Selection
- Time Allocation
Choosing the right question
Question Selection becomes very important on a test where you do not need to answer a question before you move ahead and you can navigate to and fro between questions.
On the GMAT for example you HAVE TO MARK an answer before you go ahead and you cannot return to that question again so there is no question of choosing or leaving a question.
On the CAT and the GRE, you do not have any such compulsion. So your task is to identify and solve the easiest questions or sets first, mark the medium-level questions later and never attempt the really tough questions.
How many of you chose questions wisely in the first SimCAT?
- did you answer questions in serial order as they appeared?
- did find that you ended up wasting time on tough DI or LR sets only to find out too late or after the test that there were easier questions or sets?
- did you have unread questions at the end of each section?
If your answer to any of these questions is YES, it means that this first SimCAT is simply an eye-opener for you with respect to your test-taking strategy.
Can you develop this ability to identify the right question to do immediately, mark the right question for later and leave the tough question by the next SimCAT? The answer obviously is NO. You will develop that skill only after solving quite a few SimCATs. Also, we will dedicate an entire 3-hour session to it later in the season.
Time-allocation
The CAT has always been doing flip-flops on the question of where it stands with respect to time-allocation. Over the last decade they have alternated between having sectional time-limits and having no sectional time-limits.
I for one am not in favour of sectional time-limits since it plays crucial part in evaluating a candidate’s ability to strategise — use the resources at his/her disposal (relative skills on various sections) to maximise the outcome — clearing sectional as well as overall cut-offs.
When you have to divide your time properly, choose the right questions and solve them correctly, you have to play three roles those of CEO, Manager and Worker respectively.
With sectional time-limits you end up playing only the latter two roles — Manager and Worker. Most you by now would have realised that for the better part of SimCAT 1 you were doing only one role — Worker.
We do not know what changes this year’s CAT will ring in but if they remove sectional time-limits things will surely get infinitely more interesting (or tough depending on the way you view it).
How many of you let your performance on the second section affect your performance on the third section? I am sure quite a few would have. This is where the fourth stone — mental toughness — comes in.
Of the four cornerstones most of you will be still in the work-in-progress stage on first two — concepts and application. The other two stones you will lay by taking as many SimCATs as possible.
You are not going to see your best scores till September
Those of you who haven’t prepared for an entrance test taken by so many people might be tempted to view your SimCAT 1 like you view engineering exam. If not in the mains, then definitely in the supplementary! Once I finish the concepts I will start scoring well. Yes, your scores will go up but so will the scores of others!
So accept the reality that you will take time to develop expertise in all four areas — concepts, applications test-taking and mental toughness.
In all probability you will not see your best scores before September.
Who are those people scoring 170s and above!
I am sure you would have seen that the scores and percentiles of toppers will be in a different range and obviously that will set you wondering if they are from a different planet.
Well, most of them will be test-takers who gave a serious shot last year but could not make it for some reason.
There will also be a handful of people from a different planet such as a student of mine last year who scored a 180 in his first SimCAT after attending classes only for a week and having never prepared or appeared for the CAT before!
But not everyone needs to be like that. Many greats have made modest starts. Some food for thought:
- Number of matches SRT played before first ODI century — 78
- Number of years it took Djokovic to win his 1st Major – 5
When you are taking a SimCAT you are competing against the most serious aspirants among the approximately 2,00,000 people who register for the CAT, so you really need to be on the top of your game to hit the higher percentile ranges.
How to analyse a SimCAT
Back in the day when I was preparing for the CAT, I spent as many hours if not more hours analyzing a SimCAT as I spent taking it. So the first half was spent taking the test, the second analysing it and only then would I go to the beach to meet friends (that is what I would do every day in the evening in the small beach-town that is Vizag).
What are the things that constitute a great analysis?
What is the best score you could have got?
Irrespective of what you current level is you should look at
- the mistakes you should have avoided
- the questions you should have avoided
- the questions should should have solved
to arrive that the best score you could have got. You need to get that number after every test to know what you are capable of, what was within your reach.
What are the things on which you succeeded but you could have succeeded better?
You should look at the questions you solved correctly and see if you could have done them faster.
- could you have cut down on solving that DI or LR set if you had spent more time at the beginning trying to understand the set?
- could you have solved some questions/problems faster by not writing so much, by approximating or looking for an alternate approach?
Use this to a list of the process improvements you can make in the next SimCAT.
Solve all the unsolved questions in the SimCAT
Yes, I know you have not yet touched that Geometry book yet but your learning need not be linear. Use every unsolved question to learn concepts from topics you have not yet covered. So if there is a trapezium problem then you can at least learn the formula for area of a trapezium by learning to solve that problem.
People keep asking for tough problems, especially tough DI and LR sets. The SimCATs will always have the best sets. So spend enough time trying to solve them on your own before looking at the solution.
If you consistently do these things over the next few months after each and every SimCAT, be it a take-home one or a proctored one you will start seeing results.
If you stick to only solving the books and not doing this part of the job then you are really not preparing for the CAT but for a college exam.
Developing a skill takes more time than learning a concept
As I have mentioned many a times before, cracking the CAT is a skill and it will take time to develop. But the reason I keep repeating this is that one needs to view the whole process with the right mindset.
So think of the first SimCAT as the first time you took a car out after learning how to drive a car in the driving school — one will be overwhelmed by enormity of the task and the pressure of driving in real-time traffic. But by repeatedly taking out the car all by oneself, one learns, one will bang the car, make a dent in it, but one will get better for sure.
All you have to do is take as many SimCATs as possible, spend enough time analysing the tests you take and stay patient, the results will show.
Incase some of you haven’t enrolled for the SimCATs – you can do so here.
All the best for the next SimCAT!
The CAT Writer 
Very nice article…immensely useful for the cat takers.
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Glad you liked it.
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Thanks for explaining the things so nicely…its definitely going to help CAT takers
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Thanks Ma’am, glad you liked it.
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Superb article. Thanks for the insights given by you.
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Glad you found it useful Sudeep; keep prepping.
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I find your way of writing very inspiring. Thanks Tony! Will be applying the things you mentioned in SIMCAT2.
Veer
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Glad you liked it Veer. Just pay a lot of attention to the things you want to change and execute from test to test. The improvements will come in increments, stay patient, we are in for the long haul.
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Thanks Tony! It was very inspiring! will be applying the pointers you mentioned in SIMCAT2
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Thank you sir for making me understand about CAT exam and how to attempt the questions. Will apply the same next time
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Glad you found it useful. It will take some time before you are able to execute to perfection but start from the next Sim.
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Thank you sir, for providing the ideas about attempting SIMCAT test and so in CAT. Will apply the same in next SIMCATs.
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Nicely Written.But I have a query.. There is a peculiar problem which I generally face in my mocks,especially in the VARC and DI LR sections. (Don’t know if others also face this!!) In both these sections(RC and DILR), we have questions in the form of a set( one needs to read the full thing first before attempting any questions).Now generally at the end of one section when I am left with about 10-12 mins, then selecting a set becomes a problem. Because I need to select a set(or Paragraph) which can be worked out/read within 5 mins and atleast 2-3 questions can be solved in the remaining time. If I cannot do the first task of reading/working out within 5 mins, then the whole point of attempting that set/RC becomes useless and I will be simply wasting my 10-12 mins reading or working out a set/RC which will yield no result. So how can an appropriate set/RC selection be done especially in the last 10-12 mins of a section? Or stated in simpler terms, is there any way by which I can identify a SITTER question by just glancing through a set/RC?
I think my doubt is trivial but I have been facing this problem in my mocks.So couldn’t resist asking this!
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Hi Srajan,
Firstly set-selection in VA-RC should happen right at the beginning. So you cannot be choosing in the last 10 minutes.
If you go through the Verbal Strategy posts on the blog via the link at the top, you will learn the process to do the same.
The same thing applies for DI-LR, you need to read the 4 DI-Sets and 4 LR sets for about 2-3 mins and rank order then so that you choose the easiest ones to solve first.
How to do this, you can go through the How to improve your DI-LR post.
Ideally your last 10 minutes should be spent on the worst sets. By then you should have milked all the easy and medium sets.
The judgement to rate and choose can be perfected only after you solve atleast 100 sets of DI, LR and RC each.
Hope this helps,
All the best!
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I scored 94.6%ile in CAT 2016. I decided to re-take CAT in 2017. After a preparation gap of 6 months I started my preparation with SIMCAT Take Home 1 and secured 122 marks with 89.34%ile.Am I going right? What should be my next step? How should I proceed with my preparation?Should I just practice more or should I start from scratch?
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nice article.
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Superb article
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Glad you liked it dark knight 🙂
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Guys, MBA coaching is a fraud business.
Read “MBA bubble” book from Amazon Kindle to know fully about this hoax!
MBA degree costs huge amount and doesn’t guarantee placements too. The amount is to only make the institution richer. And of course , people in the b school business will be the only ones pushing you to pursue an MBA.
Waste of time and money.
All the best for people preparing for cat and other shit!!
You will be taking 10 years to repay the educational loan from your 18 hours a day job..
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If we take each and every b-school in the world then the point you make can be debated.
The book you are speaking about does not necessarily evaluate the ROI and placements scenario in India.
If one gets into any of the top 20-schools in India, then one can easily get a salary that is 2.5 to 3 times the pre-MBA salary.
Yes repayment will take time and work hours will be long 9-12 but not 18 hours.
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Hello Sir,
My credentials:
10th – 90.6
12th – 79
Engg – 8.74
Work Ex – 2.5 year
GEF
I scored 94.91 (CAT), 99 (NMAT), 96 (IIFT) this year.
I was not able to convert NM, IIFT, MDI calls.
I have only converted IIT KGP MHRM call.
I left my job in June beginning. I intend to write GRE as well to be on the safer side. I plan to take up a job post exams.
Will taking a professional break for a few months hinder my chances of making it to good b-schools?
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Since you have 2.5 years of experience already this gap should not be an issue at all.
They will ask you about it in the interviews, you need to convince them that the break was necessary to reach your goal of pursuing an MBA from a top school.
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Pingback: CAT 2017: Setting the right targets on your way to a 99 percentile – The CAT Writer
really thanks for the instructions
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Glad you found them useful!
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HELLO sir , i recently appeared for simcat 6 and haven’t reviewed any of the mocks so i should start reviewing the simcat 6 and onwards or start with simcat 1
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Hi,
Do 6 first and then from 1.
All the best!
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I scored only 36 marks in the first SIMCAT…..should i be worried ?
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Nope. You have more than 7 months to get better.
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My scores are fluctuating, two months ago I attempted CAT 2017 slot-2 and scored 100 marks and today I got 48 marks in SIMCAT-1. I am questioning my abilities, really pissed off.
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Hi Bharat,
The SImCATs are usually a tad tougher than the actual CAT. Also, VA 2017 was nowhere as tough as VA 2019, which is what we are trying to replicate in this year’s SimCATs.
So the only valid inference is that as of now you are good enough to tackle that level but not a higher level.
If these are the only two tests you have taken then such fluctuation is quite normal.
The season is long, you have 15 SimCATs and a 7-month period to improve your ability across the three sections and across levels, so too early to be questioning yourself and being pissed 🙂
Will do a post on how to evaluate a SimCAT once the percentiles are out.
All the best!
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