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

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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?

  • Do you feel fresh and mentally alert throughout the duration of the test?
  • Do you tend to flag after DI-LR?
  • Do you feel as fresh as you felt months ago when you began the prep?
  • Do you need to pump yourself up and motivate yourself to gather enough energy to take a test?

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 left to the test and it is not too late to shift your focus from practising crazily to building up energy reserves to handle D-day, which as you know will demand more energy than a mock taken in the comfort (or discomfort) of your room.

I have covered everything about how to manage your energy, stress and anxiety in this webinar, it would not hurt to refresh whatever I covered.

Another obliquely related post that I think you should read (or re-read) if you haven’t is this one.

Between these two I think you will find what you need to get into the right state and manage your energies.

I got the worst slot — the super early morning slot!

For some the early morning slot might be a blessing in disguise since that is the time when you usually prepare, for night-owls it can be their worst nightmare come true.

Either way, you need to start tuning your biological rhythms to ensure that you reach the exam centre by 7 A.M and by 8:30 A.M you are absolutely fresh and raring to go.

If I were you I would do the following for until D-day:

  • Having had a light dinner by 8 PM
  • Ensure that I turn in by 10 PM
  • Wake up at 5 AM and get fresh by 6 AM (all you need to leave for the exam centre is to wear your clothes)
  • Do a small round of breathing exercises and meditation for a total of around 10-15 minutes
  • Read a chapter of any spiritual book or text that helps you go into the right frame of mind (5 minutes)
  • Have a breakfast involving one or more — bananas, soaked almonds, oats, eggs (if your centre is in a different city then soaked almonds and bananas are the easiest option)
  • Get ready to leave (during the run-up to the test, start your preparation)

Obviously this has to be modified by you to account of the travel time to the exam centre.

I do not know if 12:30 is a good slot or a bad slot!

If I have to choose a slot among three to take the test, I would choose 12:30, it is a bit later than the time at which I am at my optimal, 11:00 to 14:00, but I would not complain the way I would with 8:30, which is way too early for me, and 4:30, which would mean getting out in the afternoon (something I hate :-))

The thing with the 12:30 slot is that like the early morning slot you have to slightly alter your biological rhythms, your body is programmed to feel hungry between 1 and 2, over the next ten days you need to reprogram it.

The following would be my plan until D-day

  • Wake up at whatever my usual time is but not later than 8 AM and get fresh in an hour (all you need to leave for the exam centre is to wear your clothes)
  • Do a small round of breathing exercises and meditation for a total of around 10-15 minutes
  • Read a chapter of any spiritual book or text that helps you go into the right frame of mind (5 minutes)
  • Have something super-light at whatever your breakfast time is (maximum before 9) to trick your body into believing that everything is the same — I would suggest two bananas and some soaked almonds
  • Start your prep or log in to work
  • Have a proper breakfast just before the time you would need to leave for the test centre on D-day to reach there by 11 A.M — oats, eggs, upma, whatever floats your boat but nothing too heavy
  • Resume your prep or work

Those with the 4:30 slot need to do nothing different! Just go about things the way you normally do since it is neither a feeding or a digestion slot for the body!

It goes without saying that everyone should try to take SimCATs in the time-slot of the actual test.

Insomnia induced by test-day nerves

I am sure there are those of you who know that you will not be able to sleep the night before the CAT. The sheer nervousness, you are sure, will have you tossing and turning all night.

Even in this case, the best option is to pull an all-nighter two nights before the CAT and not sleep during the day that follows so that the night before the CAT, fatigue will overcome nervousness and your body will crash to sleep. Do not leave this for the end, try it once or twice before.

Managing your diet in the lead-up to the test

I was surprised to get a query around the kind of diet one should have but then I also remember talking to my colleagues about physical fitness for test-taking, so in a way, the question is very relevant.

I will try to answer the question from whatever little reading I have done and whatever experiments that I have done with respect to diet and I will try to keep it really simple. This is something that everyone can take up irrespective of the slot.

Food can help you feel two ways, one — extremely happy, satisfied, heavy, and ready to hit the sack, which is what happens when you have food that you and maybe most people really like such as biriyanis, and desserts (you get the drift). This state of body and mind after this is perfect for watching something silly while lying down and going off to sleep. As someone who really likes food and can really eat a lot, I have done a lot of this in the past and treat myself to this feeling of satiation twice a month (usually immediately or the day after a webinar :-))

The other thing that I have also done is have phases where food made me feel another way — nourished and light, exactly the way one feels after eating some fruit.

Afternoon Slot .jpg

Given that all of you want to crack the third or fourth toughest test in the world (JEE, UPSC, Gaokao) I suppose you know which one of the two options you are supposed to choose.

So just eat a certain amount of fresh foods (fruits and nuts) and food that is not fried, overtly spicy, and oily (the non-vegetarians, please savour the meat and eat smaller portions), basically home-cooked food in moderation (delete the food apps on your phone)

Also, stop eating when you are just about three-fourths full do not crave for the feeling of heaviness.  I have found that even milk makes me feel heavy or rather makes me aware of my gut and I hence cut it out of my system, you should try it as well.

And yeah, no snacks, at all, nothing out of a plastic packet, they don’t just make you feel heavy but bloated and make you crave strong flavours.

Ensure that you include some amount of light exercise every day

One thing that is least talked about is the importance of exercise for mental activities such as test-taking and I cannot vouch for this more. Whenever I sit at my desk for a long time, after a point I feel stale as if my brain is not working, all I need then is a good short walk and get the blood flowing through the body again. Movement is what gets oxygen into our system and makes us feel fresh.

It has been proven that sitting for long periods of time has many harmful effects and I know professionals who have desks that can be adjusted for height so that they can stand and work. You do not need to get one now but you need to counter the effects of sitting for a long time at your desk to prepare long with college or work.

All you need to do is a  light exercise at an intensity that only at the end of 30 minutes will make your breath reach your mouth, and perspire slightly. You should not be panting, and your t-shirt should not be drenched. I would suggest a walk or a jog early in the morning or late at night or Yoga or (light) weight training for those who are already doing it.

As I have said before I cannot think of a better thing than adding a few breathing practices to your day.

Some of you might be thinking, is all of this really necessary?

Well, yes and no.

If you are my friend who is a 12-time 100-percentile or one of his students who had a 100 the year before last and scored just a mark or two fewer than him, you do not need any of this. These guys are at a level way beyond the test and the test doesn’t need them to stretch. If these guys have to compete on a different exam with many more people at their level I am sure they would also benefit from being in prime physical shape. But everyone else, including yours truly, can get better by being really fit.

Magnus Carlsen, the current world chess champion and the player with the highest ELO rating ever,  does a lot of exercise work as well, he works out every single day, basically a lot of aerobic training. He says it crucial to be able to sit and think for hours at a stretch, so yeah, if Carlsen does, you and I should as well.

Growth hacking your way to a 99-percentile and beyond

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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…

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

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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.

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

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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!

  • You have already spent 40 or 60 minutes with the 25 to 35 problems.
  • You have already tried half of the problems for atleast 2 to 3 minutes each
  • You attempted all the rest of the questions at least for 1 to 2 minutes.
  • You have understood all the superficial aspects of the question
  • You have already tried the obvious methods

When you read it for a second time

  • your brain registers what it missed or took for granted the during the exam
  • your do not draw the same table or represent the information in a DI-LR set the same way that you did during the exam
  • you actually understand the anchor condition because in the exam you did not give it enough thought
  • you thus start correctly solving the questions you spent 2 or 3 minutes on during the exam
  • you gain confidence and then correctly solve the questions you spent 1 or 2 minutes on during the exam
  • you conclude that your problem is nervousness

You completely and conveniently ignore the fact that in reality you spent, on average, 4-5 minutes on every question, or in other words you took twice the time to solve the same section.

You took two stabs at the question.

You are adding the score of first and second innings into a single score!

Estimating your capabilities by post-test performance creates a vicious cycle

In your head your actual capability on a section is 35-40 marks because of the way you ace it post-test whereas your actual scores are in the 15-20 range.

After every successful post-test solving you approach the next test with the same mindset — I am awesome at this section, this time I am going to score 35-40.

What happens when you go in with this thinking?

  • To score a 35-40 you have to attempt around 16-18 questions and get 13-15 right or attempt 4 sets or all RCs
  • This means that you going to attempt almost 2 out of 3 questions
  • More importantly, this means that you have just about 2 minutes per question
  • You feel under the pump right from the beginning
  • A few questions go wrong in the beginning and the downward spiral starts
  • You desperately try to keep your head above the water for the rest of the section — everything but your head is still
  • You come back home, pick yourself up, resolve the section, and feel good
  • You think my level is 35-40, next time I will nail it
  • The cycle, unfortunately vicious not virtuous, continues

And another thing also happens because of these misplaced targets

  • All the question-selection strategies and solving techniques that IMS mentors, including me, keep going on and on about in Masterclasses, Last Mile to CAT and other videos are thrown out of the window
  • You think that all of these strategies & techniques are not practical in actual test conditions
  • You relegate the processes to the background and go back to being you and doing you.

Accept your true ability and set realistic goals

I am not saying that you can never score 40! You sure can, but not right now! Right now, your ability is somewhere in the middle — not 15-20 or 35-40 but 25-30.

This might be tough to accept —

  • you think you are good at VA-RC since you read a lot
  • you think you are good at QA since you like Math a lot and have done well in the past

But the fact is that this exam and the question types and the format have nothing to do with your capabilities in general.

It has everything to do with performing in the format of the test. The only true indicator of ability is your performance on the test. You are a good test cricketer does not mean you will be an ace at T20 and vice-versa! You play exceptionally well in India does not mean you will play exceptionally well in England!

So, this is what you should do.

Set your ego aside completely, put the test above you.

Set a target of your current average score plus 10. If you are currently scoring around 15, do not aim for more than 25.

Solve only as many sets/questions that you need to solve to reach this score.

If you are used to aiming for 3 sets, it is okay to aim for only 2 of the easiest and get them right.

What this does is that

  • the pressure of the timer disappears
  • you have enough time to execute the selection correctly
  • you have enough time to execute the processes correctly
  • you are more likely to achieve your target

Once you achieve a 25 for 2-3 tests, add another 10 marks, let your score stabilise at 35 and then add another 10.

Some papers might be damned difficult but if you are selecting right then you will clear the cut-off and get a good percentile despite a lower-than-target-score since your targets were realistic to start with.

Your problem is nervousness only if…

Nervousness is a valid problem only if you are scoring exceptionally well in the TakeHomes and tanking only in the Proctored SimCATs

Your performance in sectionals is not a valid indicator of your ability since you are not comparing apples with apples. The comparison is valid only in VA-RC since it is the first section and you have as much energy in the SimCAT as in the sectional. When you take a QA sectional in a SimCAT, you are doing so after your brain has done 80 minutes of hard core thinking!

So, if you fall into this category — great TakeHome scores but drastically reduced scores in Proctored Sims — then, yes, nervousness is a problem. I will be doing a session about the same later in the season.

But in the meantime you will not do badly to set reduced expectations, that in itself will decrease the pressure.

There is enough and more time from now until the end of November.

Enough time for you to set the right targets and slowly work your way to higher scores, provided you do not slave mindlessly but work strategically

  • identify the your problems with test-taking correctly
  • set the right targets, and
  • sit down to prepare, be it practice or testing, every single time with a clear goal — I need to select better, or I need to execute processes better, I need to cut down on errors due to misreading and miscalculation.

The goal is not to score a hundred in your innings but to score a good fifty, during which

  • only the right deliveries were played at,
  • every shot played hits the centre of the bat,
  • every shot is played right into the gap and
  • gets you as many runs as the ball deserved

Walk, jog, run, and finally, fly.

The real reason why your QA scores are below par

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While the previous three posts on Accuracy, Selection, and Speed are more than comprehensive in terms of what is needed to push your score north, I still keep getting messages from students who are unable to come to terms with QA. They say they have done concepts and enough practice as well but none of it seems to be pushing the scores up and the confidence levels are pretty low.

It was only a few years ago, that I figured out the core issue with these students when I was sitting with one — he was preparing for the GMAT and had a decent amount of work-ex and by the time I had met him he was already through with two attempts spread over two years with sub-par scores. He was willing to put in another attempt and a year more if required to get a par score.

I gave him some broad guidelines and assigned a personal mentor to him, and met with him regularly to discuss overall prep strategy, some specific pointers, and test-taking strategies. But at the end of another year the score was the same.

I could not figure it out — the guy was very professional, super-committed (something you would have figured by now), doing reasonably well in his job, and super-positive despite everything.

It was when he came to meet me again that I threw a few questions at him, questions that I had solved in class and he had attended multiple times, and his reaction to them and the way he reacted when I told him the solution — Oh, ya, ya, ya, ya! — that I figured the core problem — he was mugging up Math!

Do you learn Math the same way you did for your X & XII exams?

This I realise is a bigger problem than what is assumed. Students whose only interaction with Math has been for their X and XII exams, who have never prepared for an aptitude test before, and took extensive tuitions for their school exams, do not even know that the Math they did then and Math they have to do now is the same but the way it is tested cannot be more different.

Those papers needed parrots, parrots who could replicate things step by step and with good handwriting.

And nothing could be more different from that than a CAT paper.

So ask yourself that question, do you mug-up concepts or do you actually understand why ax.ay = ax+y

If you do memorise and have always done so then you need to really start from scratch and it is not easy and you will definitely need to do approach it more holistically.

I suggest doing this free course by Barbara Oakley — she had a BA in literature and worked in the defence services before taking up engineering later than others — https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

Read this book by her as well — A Mind for Numbers

Another thing to keep in mind is that even if you somehow mug stuff up, get a bit lucky, and manage to get into an IIM, the first-year course will be as tough, if not tougher than CAT Math — you will be graded relative to others and the others is everybody who has cracked the CAT (the only reprieve is that time is not a constraint). A lot of the students who are unable to complete the MBA Program or finish it over a longer period — would have failed in the first-year Math subjects.

Do you know basic concepts but have no clue how advanced concepts came about?

Do you know how the formula for the number of total factors of a number — am.bn — (m+1)(n+1) — came about?

Those who know how this came about will know how to solve this question discussed in Part-II of this series:

How many factors of 1080000 are not divisible by 40?

I am sure many know the formula but yet not know how to answer the question. If they happen to read the solution, they wonder why it did not strike them.

It need not be that you have this issue in the whole of QA. It can be that you have this problem only in some areas — Numbers and Geometry or Geometry and Modern Math. — or only on specific topics such as P&C and Logarithms.

If you are in this bucket then you need to focus on understanding how formulas came about so that you develop the ability to solve such questions.

Do you try to memorise patterns?

The last category is test-takers who are good at Math but their approach to prep is to memorise as many different patterns and endless sub-formulas (formulas derived for an endless list of special cases) as possible.

The problem with the approach is that whenever they are faced with a problem, their first instinct is to try to map it to a formula or a pattern they have solved before.

It is not that there are no patterns, there are patterns and in recent years CAT has become more pattern-based than before. But all that needs to happen is for 8-10 problems that do not fall into a pattern but are otherwise solvable, to appear in the paper and these test-takers will not be able to handle them. If a few of these problems turn up at the beginning of the section then their confidence can take a major hit.

Another issue with mugging patterns is that you need to keep a lot of your brain space free for all of these patterns and sub-formulas. Those who have exceptional storage and memory between their ears can afford to follow this approach. I prefer to have only the bare minimum of formulas and patterns in my head and go by pure logic — the lower the fuel in the car the faster it can go. I think the golden mean between the two where you know the patterns but are willing to look at a problem first up with fresh eyes is crucial.

Always visualise yourself in front a problem as a doctor faced with a patient. What does a great doctor do? Listen to you fully, ask the right questions; suggest the right tests, if required; figure out the exact problem; and suggest the least medication possible.

The different kinds of mugging listed above are reasons behind you truly not solving a problem.

If you are truly honest with yourself about this part of your prep then you will be able to make the changes necessary to achieve a good score on QA and as I mentioned before it is not just CAT QA that is on the line but also Quant in the MBA Program.

You need to always start with the WHAT and move to the HOW

Some students have written saying that when they try to not copy-paste patterns they find that their mind is blank and they do not know what to do.

Imagine a F1 driver going to drive on relatively unknown tracks every time he goes out to drive — the key word is “relatively” not completely unknown. He or she will draw upon the experiences but still drive as if it were new.

It is exactly like sport, you practice in the nets but every pitch, every match, every ball is different.

This is exactly what makes the Big 3 matches in tennis so interesting, they have played each other million times but they know that every match can be won by either of them, this despite knowing everything inside out.

And what is different?

Each and every time the questions asked of them by their opponent will be different.

WHAT is being asked is different.

If Nadal is hitting the ball closer to the lines, Djoker knows he is being asked a different question, and he knows that has to find a response in real time while drawing on the past.

If Federer is just creaming winners off the forehand, then Nadal knows he is being asked a different question.

The first task always is to figure out the WHAT and the move to the HOW instead of thinking about the HOW.

When students say nothing strikes them it is because they are thinking that the HOW will come and strike them. Nothing strikes you if you are not looking for it, except lightning!

Let us take a question to see what I mean by figuring out the WHAT and moving to the HOW.

Question 1

If all the factors of 5040 are arranged in descending order then which will be the fifth factor?

We know that the greatest factor of the number is the number itself — 5040.

WHAT — But we need to factorise this first since we need to find the top 5 factors.

HOW — 5040 – 24*32*5*7

WHAT — If this is the highest one then what is the one after this?

HOW — I need to remove the smallest possible factor from this.

What is the smallest possible factor that I can remove? 2

So, the next factor in descending order will be 23*32*5*7

For the third one, we remove a 3 — 24*31*5*7

For the fourth one, we remove a 4 — 22*32*5*7

For the fifth one, we remove a 5 — 24*32*7 — which is what the question is asking us for.

What if the question is tweaked?

Question 2

If all the factors of 5040 are arranged in ascending order then which one will be the 56th factor?

When I read this with fresh eyes, I know that this seems crazy, am I really supposed to write all the factors from 1 to 56? Surely, you must be joking, Mr.Question-man!

There must be another way — they won’t be paying an average salary of Rs.25 LPA at IIM-A for someone to do such donkey work!

WHAT — Before I go ahead I need to know how many factors are there and where does 56 stand?

HOW — To find out the number of factors I need to factorise the number

5040 – 24*32*5*7

The number of factors — what you will know from all your of previous practice — 5*3*3*2 — 60

There are 60 factors and they are asking me for the 55th, so, instead of going from 1 to 56 I can come down from 60 to 56.

From here the problem becomes the same as the previous one.

For some this might be a huge change since you have to undo all your previous mode of dealing with Math, for others it might turn on a switch that they never thought they had, but for everyone there is no other way.

The weird part is that even those who have made it to the IITs do not seem to get this. I had a student from IIT-Ropar in one of my GMAT classes and he was like — you must know all the patterns by now, so you can answer all questions!

It is like saying Kohli knows to play all shots, so every time he goes out he will make a 100! We know, it does not work that way!

Yes, teaching helps, but every teacher does not get a 100 every year in QA right?

On good exams, one gets rewarded for thinking nor regurgitating!

So, stop mugging, start solving!