Author: Tony Xavier

CAT Miscellany: Early Morning Slot, Insomnia, and other blues.

I did my last webinar for the season recently but there will still be a few non-prep queries that will be swirling around in your head. This post is will cover all of those niggles that do not prevent you taking to the field but are a bother that you can do without. Is there a chance you might have burnt out or are running solely on adrenaline? Those of you who have attended all of my webinars know how much store I set on having optimal mental energy. So for me a lot of issues can be traced back to the quality of our mental energy. Some of you might not realise that you have depleted your energy sources and are running solely on adrenaline Ask yourself the following questions? From the answers to the questions above you will know the state of your mental energy right now. Ideally, you should be feeling alert and light from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep. There are about 10 days …

Growth hacking your way to a 99-percentile and beyond

A few years back, I attended the Chennai convocation function for aspirants who cleared the Company Secretary (CS) exam (a relative of mine had cleared the exam). The Chief Guest was Padmashri-awardee T. N. Manoharan, who is a pre-eminent figure in the Banking and Accounting sector in the country with his book being a must-read for all CA aspirants. He was part of the government-appointed team that cleaned up the Satyam mess and paved the way for the transition to Tech Mahindra. His keynote address was leavened with wisdom and had too many punchlines for me to recount here, but one of the things he said is spot on when it comes to the way we should deal with success and failure. He said…

How to crack the DI-LR section of the CAT – I

Just like I keep getting queries on how to increase RC accuracy, despite the Masterclasses and the Last Mile To CAT sessions, I keep getting queries around the DI-LR section as well. In this series of series of posts  I’ll dive really deep down into actual CAT DI-LR sets and see if I can come up with some kernel of truth beyond just the solving of the set that can help aspirants approach the solving of the sets better.

Why your actual abilities might not be as good as you think they are

The purpose of this site has been to examine the problems that students keep bringing back to me over the years, and as the important ones get addressed I keep getting other questions that depending on how one looks at it are either simple or hide more than they reveal to the casual observer. One such conundrum is this one, a paraphrase of a problem that I have answered in many comments: I do not know what happens to me during the test — I do pathetically, sometimes I am even ashamed to mention how much I score — but when I sit after the test, I find that I can answer all questions easily. How do I deal with this nervousness, how do I tackle this? You are looking in the wrong mirror — your post-test performance does not really count The biggest thing test-takers discount is that they are solving the whole paper for the second time! When you read it for a second time You completely and conveniently ignore the fact that …