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CAT 2020 Changes: Are you ready for a sprint?

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Beware of what you ask for, it may come true, a saying goes. All of you who felt a 3-hour test was too long and wanted a shorter test have now got what you want but going from the stories about the way test-takers have felt and performed in the latest SimCAT in the new format, most seem to be ruing the change.

Whenever there are major changes happening all around you, what is paramount as that you who are the centre of these changes be still. More importantly you need to be very clear about the things you can know, the things you can never know, and the things there is no point in knowing. Most importantly, you need to be able to calm, strategic (or tactical), and ruthless, to navigate the changes.

The reason behind the changes

It is more than obvious that the reason behind the changes is not any sort of dissatisfaction with the pattern that has remained unchanged more or less the last 5 years but or the need to test newer or different skill sets.

Long before even the notification was out, I thought that they would go back to holding the test over two days with four slots or even a week to account for social distancing requirements but when the convener announced that it will held in one day as it has been over the past few years, it did come as a surprise. I remember thinking to myself that they are either winging it or we are in for a surprise.

Their way of managing has been to increase the number cities to six and the slots to three and it was the latter that caused the reduction in the duration of the test. The CAT has never been a test-taker friendly exam — so those who will end up with an 8:30 slot in the 6th city of their choice (a city they probably have never been to, not to mention travelling in the midst of the pandemic) have no other option but to do as well as those who get their preferred slot in a centre in their hometown — it is a lottery and citizens of a poor, developing country that we are, we are used to accepting our fate, grinning & bearing it, and fighting. I do not think anyone ever paused to think what will be good for the test-takers — take it or leave it seems to be the message.

And yeah, I would not be surprised if they revert to the old format next year.

The impact of the changes — fewer questions

It does without saying that the number of questions will come down proportionately — the Math says it has be 66 or 67. Beyond this everything else is speculation since we do not have any idea of figuring out what is going on in their head.

If I have to take a bet in terms of number of questions, I will take a bet on the higher side since they do not lose anything by giving more questions, it is not a test of completion anyway. If they have been giving 8 sets in 60 minutes of DI-LR for the past so many years, then I do not think 24-26 questions per section and 75 questions in total with 4 marks each is perfectly feasible.

My highest bet would be on 26-24-25 — VA-RC: RC — 16, 4 Passages, 10 VA; DI-LR: 6 Sets, 4 questions each; QA: 25 questions

My logic for the same is CAT unlike the GMAT, which seeks to differentiate in the middle, since it is a benchmarking test, seeks to differentiate at the top since it is an elimination test — they do not want scores bunching up at the top — having more questions will differentiate the 99 from the 99.5 and 99.5 from the 99.95.

We can indulge in endless speculation over all the options that the test-setters have in mind but they would remain just that — speculation. I would rather follow good ol’ Kipling’s dictum — If you can keep your head when all about you are losing their

Also since the change is primarily a logistical one they will try to go about things without changing much else, or to put it differently I do not see a necessity to change anything else — question types or areas tested — so I won’t be worried about Grammar and freak out about it (I will be worried about something if most of the others are good at it barring me, I don’t think 200000 Indians , including the top 1 percentilers, are going to develop expertise in Grammar and become champs at it in the next few weeks, no way) but if freaking out is your forte, go ahead and howl out to the skies.

The impact of the changes — Are you ready for a sprint?

The biggest impact of the change is in the way we have to perceive the duration we have for a section.

When we have 60-minutes for a section, I think most people will experience it and perform into the four parts (the parts in the brackets indicate what happens to those who do not well):

  • Slot 1: 0-15 Minutes: Settle down and get a hang of the paper, solve a few sitters (do not even know how 15 minutes flew by)
  • Slot 2: 15-30: Consolidate and get going (start to get hang of things)
  • Slot 3: 30-45: Consolidate, go past the cut-off (have the cut-off in sight)
  • Slot 4: 45-60: Mop up the left overs, maximise (panic, panic, panic)

I have stated the extremes and I am sure many of people will fall somewhere in the middle.

In the 60-minute format as you see there is enough and more room for you to

  • settle in get comfortable
  • inefficiently go back and forth between sets
  • waste time scratching around RC passages, DI-LR sets, Type Bs in QA, realising they should be left alone and moving on

In 60-minute format the difference between the 80-percentiler on DI-LR who solves 2 sets and the 99.95 percentiler who solves 6 sets is not that the 80-percentiler needs 30 minutes to solve a set but that the 80-percentiler wastes a lot of time unproductively across sets before finally getting hold of two sets.

Basically you can be inefficient, you can choose a wrong set, and still manage to clear the cut-off since everyone else is in the same boat.

In the 40-minute format you do not have the luxury of the first 15 and the last 15 minutes. It is a sprint from start to finish you have to bat for the entire 40 minutes the way Kohli and Dhoni bat and run as a pair (or used to rather), pushing hard each and every time — no time for dot balls at the beginning, no scope for crazy slogging at the end.

More importantly you have no room for error as far choosing sets and questions is concerned — one wrong passage or set, and be ready to welcome CAT 2021.

So set and passage selection is of utmost importance. Investing 5-minutes and selecting decisively is much better than risking 10-minutes. I covered selection procedure in detail in the Last Mile To CAT series that is available on myIMS.

But this does not mean that you need to front load the selection there are different time management strategies that you can apply.

Time Management Strategies

Given that selection becomes so important, the time management strategies should also be revised to maximise your scores in the shorter format.

For QA, the A-B-C approach discussed in the LMTC and in my QA posts, does does not change at all.

For VA-RC and DI-LR, there is more than one approach that you can try out.

All the strategies outlined below assume that you are familiar the Rating Process I discussed in depth in the LMTC Sessions as well the number of questions you need to answer for different percentiles.

VA-RC Time Management Strategy

STRATEGY I – Rating on the go

If you are a slow reader, will take more than 5 minutes to read and rate the passages, and do not want to feel panicked then Rate on the go

You can apply this strategy in three different ways depending on the percentiles you are targeting

Lower percentile targets mean you need to solve fewer RCs, you can afford to leave the worst ones.

STRATEGY IA – Rating on the go — RC-VA-RC

  • Start with RATING RCs
    • If an RC is rated 7 or above solve it then and there
    • If an RC is rated below 7 leave it for the time being
  • Solve all VA questions in 10-12 minutes
  • Return to the RCs rated below 7 and solve them in decreasing order of rating

This will works for all percentile targets, especially those targeting 80-85 percentiles, since you are not going to get stuck on the bad RCs and can score of VA as well.

STRATEGY IB – Rating on the go — VA First

  • Start with VA and solve all questions in under 2 mins per question
  • Proceed to RC and rate each RC
    • If an RC is rated 7 or above solve it then and there
    • If an RC is rated below 7 leave it for the time being
    • Return to the RCs rated below 7 and solve them in decreasing order of rating

This works for all percentile targets, especially for those targeting 90-95, since you have a chance to take a shot even at the painful RC. It is easier to execute since you are handling the two areas VA and RC in chunks.

STRATEGY IC – Rating on the go — RC First

  • Start with RATING RCs
    • If an RC is rated 7 or above solve it then and there
    • If an RC is rated below 7 leave it for the time being
    • Return to the RCs rated below 7 and solve them in decreasing order of rating
  • Solve all VA questions in the end, ensuring that you have around 2 minutes per question

This works best for those who are already scoring above 95 and have a decent reading speed.

STRATEGY II – Rating First

If VA-RC is your strength, you have a pretty good reading speed, you know how to vary it, and are comfortably crossing 99 percentile always, you can do the rating first

You can apply this strategy in three different ways depending on what suits you.

The reason why this works for the 99-plus percentilers is that you are anyway going to solve all questions, this will ensure that you gauge the difficutly of the whole paper in the first five minutes and can plan your section accordingly.

If your find the RCs are all easy or medium, you can go with IIA.

If you find that a few of the RCs are going to be tricky, you can go with IIB

If VA is your strength you can go with IIC

STRATEGY IIA – Rating First — RC First

  • Start with RATING RCs
    • Rate all the RCs and solve them in decreasing order of rating
  • Solve all VA questions in the end

STRATEGY IIB – Rating First — RC-VA-RC

  • Start with RATING RCs
    • Rate all the RCs and solve only the ones rated 7 and above in decreasing order of rating
  • Solve all VA questions
  • Return to the RCs rated below 7 and solve them in decreasing order of rating

STRATEGY IIC – Rating First — VA First

  • Start with RATING RCs
    • Rate all the RCs, assess the level of difficulty, and decide the sequence
  • Solve all VA questions
  • Solve all RCs in decreasing order of rating

DI-LR Time Management Strategy

Strategy I – Rating on the go

  • RATE a set
    • Solve it straight away if it is rated 8 or more,
    • If not leave it for later
    • After you solve all sets 8 rated and above return to solve the remaining sets in descending order of rating

Strategy II — Split Rating

  • RATE Sets 1 to 3
    • Solve all sets rated 8 or more
    • If there are no sets rated 8 or above rate the next 3 sets
  • RATE Sets 4 to 6
    • Solve all sets rated 8 or more
  • SOLVE all remaining sets in descending order of rating
90 Percentile95 Percentile99 Percentile99.5 Percentile99.95 Percentile
SET SELECTION8 mins.8 mins.6 mins.6 mins5 mins
Easy10 mins.10 mins.7 mins6 mins.6 mins.
Easy10 mins.10 mins.7 mins6 mins.6 mins.
Moderate12 mins*12 mins10 mins.10 mins.8 mins.
Moderate/Tough11 mins*12 mins10 mins.
Tough5 mins*
SCORE24-3030-3636-4040-4448-52
* Indicates sets that need not be solved fully to reach the score targets

You need to experiment to find out what works best for you

I often find students very scared of changing their test-taking strategies. As if changing their strategies is going throw everything haywire.

I have a different take, unlike cricket where attacking from the get-go is a high-risk strategy since it means you might lose crucial wickets, here you are not taking any extra risk.

Whether you solve VA at the beginning, middle, or end, should have no bearing on how you do on VA since your technique on VA is what will help you answer a question correctly. Again unlike cricket where opening with a spinner with a new ball is different from bowling when the ball is older.

So in order to find the strategy that for you results in maximising your scores you have to experiment with different strategies.

Do not forget, someone once experimented and sent a young SRT to open in New Zealand.

The highest score in SimCAT 10 was 200, so despite everything the topper maximised in the shorter format as well. Do not be surprised towards the end of the season more people start scoring in excess of 180.

Back in the day when VK, Scrabbler and I were preparing the pattern was 4 sections with 50 questions each in 120 minutes. I remember that in one of the mocks I scored 136 (1 mark, -.25) and thought surely this I will top, only for a friend to score 150-plus.

On average, intelligence does not increase or decrease over generations so I am sure after taking some time to adjust, test-takers at the top will push themselves to go for maximum in every section and toppers’ scores in the 120-minute format will start edging closer to the scores in the 180-minute format (If T20 cricket has taught us anything it is this one thing)

Whatever the format the three pillars do not change

  • one should always have a strategy to choose questions
  • one should have a time-management strategy
  • one should be able to solve with good accuracy

Do not forget, you are taking the test, not vice-versa

How to fill the S.P.Jain profile-based form

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S.P Jain (SPJIMR in full or SP as it is usually referred to) is one of the most underrated business schools in the country. One of the highlights of the S.P.Jain admissions process is that applicants have to choose their specialization at the time of application. While this might be tough for freshers who do not have enough information and self-awareness to choose a specialization, it is a boon for applicants with work experience. Read More

One of the many ways

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A few mornings ago, at the end of holding a particularly strenuous Yoga pose, my brother let out a gasp and his back slumped back onto the mat, but it was one of those days when my mind was sharp and still like the tip of an archer’s arrow, and I went to the ground with an even breath and a straight spine — it was the first time it had happened in a long time. Straight away in my ears, I heard the voice of Shaji shouting at me from one end of a really large room – I only said relax, back straight!

The yelling was from a warm morning in the year 2013 after I had just moved to Chennai after taking up the IMS franchise for the city. I had taken a place very close to the miniature beach in Besant Nagar (or Bessie as the locals call it). On one of the very first evenings there I took a stroll around the beach and came upon this structure or building or rather what I think is the best word for it – space.

As soon as I saw it and took in it for a few seconds, I thought, this has to be it — a year before, while in Mumbai, I had read a few articles about the groundbreaking classical dancer Chandralekha and had also seen a video of a piece choreographed by her and that had made a strong impression on me, and on reading more about her, I had discovered that her studio is in Chennai and when I saw this space I was certain that this was it.

Chandralekha is considered groundbreaking because she re-invented or reinterpreted what Bharatanatyam can mean through the lens of an even older art form, one that is considered a precursor to all the South East Asian martial arts — kalarippayattu. Shaji, a young practitioner and teacher of kalarippayattu, was one of the two people in the piece choreographed by Chandralekha that I had watched, the other was the writer Tishani Doshi.

So, when I saw the place, I made up my mind to go in and find out if they taught the laity, it turned out that they did and before long I was inside.

Spaces 1

Shaji was as old-school a perfectionist as one could get for a teacher. He would spend a long time arranging and re-arranging students in what seemed to be a random asymmetrical order. Looking back I am guessing it was to ensure that he could sight each one of the 30-odd students who turned up at 6 A.M. from places that were as far as two hours away. He rarely uttered a word apart from the instructions for the movement in Malayalam (like it is in the Japanese way there is very little active teaching, you are expected to watch, follow, and execute until you get a hang)

The session opened with a 30-minute, non-stop movement & kicks-based warm up by the end of which my lungs were ready to explode, and it was on one of those initial days when he had said relax at the end of the warm-up that I slumped against the wall, breathing audibly (to myself) — that was when he shouted at me.

After about 15-odd sessions I gave up because I realised that very few of the students who came there were amateurs like me. Many of the students were dancers who did this for strength and flexibility, while others were full-time students of Kalari who stayed there for a better part of the day. I felt that unless I was serious about pursuing it as an art form, which would take more than the 90 minutes of everyday class that I was putting in, I would be disrespecting it and it was obvious that they were not teaching the classes for the money (else they wouldn’t have been charging a meagre 500 per month). And given that I had just invested money to get into a business, there was no way I could give any more than 90 minutes a day, which in itself seemed difficult on most days.

But what I learned from those few sessions was immense. Firstly, commitment to something is not limited to being strong-willed enough to turn up for the mandated session. True commitment means managing one’s energies during the rest of the time in such a way that you are fully switched on during the time you are present (people rarely understand this, we think as long as we are turning up for something regularly despite our super-busy schedules, we are committed). But whenever you are late for something, have only somehow managed to reach on time, it is very clear that your commitment to the same is only that much — 18-carat not 24-carat. If you are fully committed you will always be slightly early, you would have collected your thoughts and are absolutely ready to dive in.

The second learning is completely related to making the commitment happen. I first started reading about, becoming more aware of my breath and practising pranayama, in the year 2007. I had read a few really good books and practised intensely for close to three years. But I never really made it a part of the rest of my workout routines be it weight-training or yoga.

Over the years, I have realised that as far as managing our mental and physical energies is concerned, breath is everything. When I was getting into a series of strenuous poses today, I was constantly aware of my breath, or rather my focus was both on the pose and on my breath, the focus was to ensure that I did not take shallow breaths, which for me personally, during a pose, has always meant exhaling fully rather than inhaling very deeply (unless the pose itself demands otherwise). This ensures that when I have to respond to the instructor’s call to hold a pose for 30 seconds I measure it in breaths — I know that 10 seconds more is just two breaths more and my focus goes back to my breathing. It also ensures that the core is tight since you are emptying your abdomen out fully, this results in the spine being straight and this results in the most important thing — you do not slump and hit the floor at the end.

Each time you slump with a gasp, you expend more energy and more importantly, you release your focus. Each time you go down with an even breath and straight spine, you are ready for the next pose without releasing your focus, you do not give up before the end of the count.

Do you slump at the end of a section or a DI-LR set?

Is your focus as sharp and as still as the tip of Karna’s arrow,  Achilles’ spear for the entire duration of the CAT?

If you have seen the eyes of swimmers when they step out, during the period before they bend down to get on to their marks, you will know that their gaze is always elsewhere, they are not looking at anyone or anything, as if their body and mind are fused into one.

This has to be the case with all sports that require sustained unbroken energy and concentration from start to end, say sprinting, swimming or archery, unlike longer-format sports like say cricket or football where you can afford to take breathers and recoup but even in those sports, teams and players, are most likely to falter after a scoring a century or a goal, a tennis player is most susceptible in the game after he or she breaks serve, because they let the focus drop, let the breath go, let the spine slacken.

Have you seen the video of Maradona’s gaze before the start of the 86 Final (or SF or QF) as he makes the sign of the cross? Did you see how Stokes went about his innings, how he cut everything out and did not celebrate after the century? Have you seen Djokovic go into monk mode? All of these point to the same thing – focus – even breath, tight core, and straight spine, and that is why in all martial arts, they tie a cloth around the waist.

Some of you might have trouble concentrating for the entire duration of the test. Some of you might be able to easily concentrate but are leaking energy during the process. Some of you might be hitting your desired scores. I feel that no matter where you are, developing an awareness of your breath through breathing exercises (which will mean that your spine will have to be straight), and learning to manage your mental & physical energies through that awareness, will always give you a jump in scores and if the paper gets tougher you will have enough fuel left in your tank and a few more gears left in the mind.

I found that while I learnt this years ago, I have not always applied this diligently, I did it for some years at a stretch and for some, I let go, and unfortunately, I let go when my schedule was the most hectic, which was when I needed it most. All of us can work out, do yoga, and eat right when our schedules are light, it is when we manage to do the right things in the middle of a storm that the storm itself becomes manageable.

So my advice going into the last few months of the CAT Prep is that you need to focus on making your energies one-pointed; you need to add breathing exercises to the beginning and the end of your day; you need to get some form of physical exercise to get your lungs pumping at a rate higher than normal, even if it is a brisk walk, at least a couple of times a week; you need to learn to relax by taking in the right things, say reading Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse; you need to remove a few things as well such as social media apps (including the YouTUBE App), there is nothing happening on them that is more important to your life than getting into an IIM (essentially you need to get rid of all forms of sugary and fried food that you are feeding to your brain).

If you do all of these things and are conscious of the way you expend your breath and your time over the next three months, you will not slump with a gasp, the spine will be straight, and the breath will be even regardless of the depth — you always be ready for the next ball — and like Arjuna you will not see the sky, or the trees, or the bird, but see only blackness,

the blackness

in the centre

of the eye of the bird.

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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How to select the right DI-LR sets

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After the previous posts, a few of you had commented saying that you are eagerly awaiting the post on the DI-LR section. The earnestness is understandable since most of you who are facing 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 of 120 minutes of testing and will fade away in the last section. The latter was the case with most test-takers last year. Read More