How to prepare for the XAT
As a test, XAT is possibly as tough, if not tougher, than the CAT with a unique section and many unique question-types. This post lays out a prep strategy for the XAT.
Author: Tony Xavier
What after a horrible CAT?
Be it the day of the CAT or be it when the final admit results come out it is not easy to be a mentor — on one hand you are happy for students who crack the exam and get admitted and on the other hand you feel sad for those who have a bad test day or fail to convert. The toughest thing was always to meet a student who was happy, knowing that the one waiting outside was sad. So with the years, one develops a certain equanimity since one cannot be so happy that one is not able to empathize with the ones who are having a hard time and one also cannot get so bogged down by sadness that one cannot partake in the joy of the successful. In some cases students just disappear, somehow they take it very personally, that they have failed, they have failed even after reading all the blogs and attending all the sessions, they feel almost as if they have let me down. And I am …
Getting ready for CAT D-day
You have about a few days left and some of you might still be awaiting answers to some questions such as whether should you listen to what happened in the earlier slots, what should you do if you know you might not get sleep Saturday night, etc. Last year I made an audio clip (initially shot as a video) that answered all of these queries, queries that deal specifically with the three days leading up to the test, and all the pending questions. As on every Friday before the CAT-day, we are doing a stress buster session — Anything But CAT. We will host five rooms where we will discuss specific non-CAT topics of interest: Cricket & Tennis, Football and other sports, Harry Potter & Fantasy Books, Music Room, Quizzing. All IMS students will receive a link for the same.
Are you ready for a real test?
From very early on in our lives we are exposed (or subjected) to this word called TEST. As we enter the higher grades, the role that TESTS play or are supposed to play in our lives steadily increases. If we look back, for most of us, tests have always been part of a trinity, they have always been concomitant with two other things — fear and prayer. At some point of time all of us, when faced with a test (including yours truly), have felt at the least a sliver of fear running through our bodies prior to a test and even the most unbelieving of us has muttered a tiny, little, prayer under our breaths.
What do you see yourself doing on CAT Day?
One of the biggest questions that you need to ask yourself is how do you think of yourself with respect to life? Do you think of yourself as an individual who makes life happen or to whom life happens? Do you see yourself at the doing end of things or at the receiving end of things? Do you believe or do you hope?
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…
Are you prepared for Mathematical Reasoning in DI-LR?
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 …
How to select the right DI-LR sets
Most of you who are taking the SimCATs will know that the DI-LR section is one that will make or break your CAT.If it goes well, you will take that confidence into the QA section finish strong. If your performance on the DI-LR section goes south then you will start feeling the fatigue and will fade away in the last section. The latter has been the case with most test-takers over the years.
How to crack the DI-LR section of the CAT – II
In the previous post, we took up 6 of the 8 sets from the DI-LR section CAT 2017 Slot 2 and took a call on which ones solve and also looked at the best way of solving the same. In this post, we will look at the remaining two sets and also what is making the DI-LR sections on recent CATs unique.
The CAT Writer 