In the previous two posts, we took a look at the first two building blocks to increase your score and percentile on CAT Quant — Accuracy & Question Selection. In this post, we will look at the third building block — Speed.
Everything seems to have speeded up because of COVID, queries that I usually get as we draw nearer to the CAT — test-taking fear, stress, and anxiety — have now turned up in the comments section in early July itself. Due to the pandemic, a lot of CAT-19 aspirants also seemed to have let go of admits into schools they would otherwise have joined. So all of these retakers have got back to the SimCATs 2020 with a vengeance and that is evident in the high scores in the first few Sims. And they are desperate to see their best scores at the earliest. My personal take is that the notification of the CAT is still not out, we do not know when the test will be held this year. It might be delayed for all we know. And whatever be the case everyone is effectively condemned to a rat in a cage existence for the next three months at the least and that is being optimistic. So what all of us need is to …
In the first part of this post we covered the first building block to achieve higher scores and percentiles on CAT QA — accuracy. In this post, we will take up the next one — selection. QA is the section that gets the maximum attention of test-takers of all stripes and there is always a litany of frustrations and queries that plague aspirants — I am good at Math and like Math but my score just does not seem to go up! Should one attempt the long Arithmetic questions? I feel every problem is do-able! I get stuck for long with one problem without realising it I realise there were many problems I could have solved when I analyse the test The answer to all of these questions lies in the way you select questions and the way you navigate between them.
Unlike the other two sections, QA is a section that has a direct link to what you have done in school and college. Most of the topics that are tested on the CAT have also been a part of the school curriculum. This I feel is the biggest roadblock in front of test-takers wanting to achieve higher scores on the CAT Quant because high Math scores during X and XII exams do not automatically imply doing well on CAT Quant.
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 Padmishri 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…
The post on the new and baby IIMs was meant to be a sort of reality check for aspirants who have to choose between these schools and others. My intention was not to dissuade anyone from joining but to help them make the right choice when faced with a list of schools to choose from. An alum of IIM-Visakhapatnam and still a regular reader of this blog, Abhishek, commented that the new and baby IIMs were not as bad as the post made them out to be. We got talking and it turns out that since since I had only mentioned established private schools — with schools such as NMIMS and SIBM in mind — it was construed to mean a much longer list. But all is well that ends well and Abhishek has written a piece about his MBA experience from IIM-V And yeah, I will vouch for Vizag (the shorter and more used name), the city I was born and raised in — it has a certain charm to say the least and …
It was back in the 2015-16 season if I remember correctly that Sachin first managed to track me down by leaving a comment on my blog. I was handling the IMS business in Chennai, he was a student of IMS based out of Kolkata and he wanted some advice on quitting his job and taking another shot at the CAT. The thing with really mature students is that they need guidance only at a really broad level, the rest they customize themselves (and there is the blog, anyway) and Sachin is one such individual. He went on to get an admission into the relatively new Sustainability Management Program launched by IIM-L. Since then he has been doing quite well and has even played a part in helping an administration out during the current crisis. If you read his post you will find he had all the ingredients that a student joining a new or baby IIM or a new program needs — this post. Here is his journey in his own words. From back of …
Give the number of queries I am getting about the new and the baby IIMs, I thought the best way to shed a bit more light on them is to get my students who have gone there to write about their experience. This one is by Siddharth, who is not a student, but was part of the IMS Team in Kochi. So I met him whenever I went down there to take a session, which was usually once a year. Siddharth graduated from IIM-U this year and this is his take about the same. Some of the parts were new to me as well, especially the part about why he chose IIM-U — I think knowing why you want something, being clear about it, and not trying to invent ten other reasons apart from the sole reason is not a common trait. So here are his two cents on this experience at IIM-U. MBA was a kind of an escape plan for me back in 2017. But it turned out to be the best decision …
I know this has been a while coming but to me it made sense get a complete hang of the how the crisis is going to unfold and its implications before venturing an opinion. By now I have received enough and more queries to know what the major & minor concerns and the main decision-making conundrums are. So, let’s jump right in. Placements — It is all about the economy! The first and immediate concern is the summer placements — they usually happen right at the end of the first trimester will that be happening, will they be delayed, or will they not happen at all. Well, they might be delayed a bit for since the start itself has been delayed and whether the quality will suffer or not depends completely on the economy. From all the sources the news in the short-term is not looking good at all. The period from now till mid or late next year is going to be a pretty rough ride. Internationally, another financial sector crisis like the sub-prime …
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