CAT 2015 results were out yesterday and once they were released the anxiety about how you performed has been replaced by the anxiety about what calls you will get.
So we decided to compile the percentiles at which you can expect a cut-off from the premier b-schools in the country. Read More
It is a different world altogether when one moves from a CBT with sectional time-limits such as the CAT to a PBT with no sectional time-limits such as the XAT. While on the face of it both with test concepts (not necessarily the same) at a fundamental level they end up testing something very different.
A test with sectional time-limits is primarily a test of competence — how many questions can you answer in 60 minutes? It does not matter if can you solve the section under the given time-limit or if given 10 minutes more you can clear the cut-offs.
The moment it becomes a PBT test-takers have to perform more like managers — maximise the return they get from their resources. Many test-takers prefer sectional time-limits since they feel the stress of time and resource management goes out of the window. But the really good ones would know that a PBT with no sectional time-limits gives them more control of the test.
For example, on the CAT this year I could finish the Verbal Ability section in 45 minutes at a leisurely pace and was twiddling my thumbs, re-checking my answers. If the same paper was given without sectional time-limits I would have pushed the pedal on Verbal, solved one more set on DI-LR and another 5 questions on Quant. I am sure many of you would have also gladly taken 5 mins each from Verbal and Quant and given it to DI-LR to ensure that you clear the cut-off.
What is biggest apprehension that most test-takers have as they await the CAT 2015 results? Have I done enough to clear the DI-LR cut-off?
So what you know by now is that the test can throw up a few surprises in terms of level of difficulty that you need to handle and ensure that you do well enough to clear all sectional cut-offs.
The XAT, especially the Verbal section of the test, has always thrown up novel question types. Also Decision Making can be unpredictable as there are only broad patterns into which the cases fall.
Your first goal on a PBT is to ensure that you clear all the sectional cut-offs.
You should allocate your time in such a way that you have the flexibility to deal with any unpredictability and not let it jeopardise your ability to clear the sectional cut-offs.
We always do well when we have limited resources because we then maximise every penny. And on the XAT, as on any other test, the most important resource is time.
So does it make sense to divide your 170 minutes into three big blocks, one for each section? Most test-takers would be looking at a 50-50-70 division for each of the three sections VA-RC, DM and QA-DI respectively.
I don’t think it is a great idea to go with one block of time for each section. It is better to break down your test into smaller time units and build in scope for flexibility into system.
I would suggest the a division 45 minutes for each section and a buffer of 35 minutes — 45-45-45-35
To ensure that you clear the sectional cut-offs for each section you should aim to score at least 12 marks on marks. This would mean an attempt of around 15-16 questions in each section with high accuracy.
So your task in the first 45 minutes is to pick out the easiest 15-16 questions so that you clear the sectional cut-offs. Use the A-B-C before solving any question — Now, Later or Never.
Remember the paper can be easy, so do not stop the moment you reach 15 questions; maximise the number of questions you can solve in 45 minutes.
Incase you find that you have not done enough to clear the cut-offs you know that you can come back and do a few more since you have budgeted some buffer-time.
How many times have you gone back home and analysed a SimCAT only to find that there was an easy set or question that you could have done but did not since you did not really read it. This division ensures that you take a look at all areas and pick out easy questions from them.
If you use this strategy in all your SimXATs, come test-day you will be able to gauge the difficulty level of the section-based on the number of attempts at the end of the defined time-limit.
It is quite common for test-takers to realise towards the end of a test that their performance on a section was below par. This is not because they performed poorly towards the end of the test but because they did not keep track of the deficits that were building up during the course of the test.
By measuring yourself over smaller time slots with specific targets, you will be able to clearly know how your test is progressing and formulate your strategy in stages depending on your performance in the previous time-slot.
Firstly, the buffer is to help you deal with test-day uncertainty. Anything can happen on test-day, for some reason an LR Set you might have otherwise done might pose a stubborn problem, something that you would have faced on the CAT.
Quant might throw up more questions that usual from your least favourite area, Geometry or P & C. How do you deal with this? Can you allow these minor setbacks to jeopardise your entire test?
If you have ensured that in the regular time of 135 minutes you have done enough to clear sectional cut-offs, then the buffer will help you really make a run for the overall cutoff.
A score of 40+ on the XAT usually nets you a percentile in excess of 99 and a call from XLRI. This year the number might be slightly higher because of the extra 30 minutes.
An overall score of 45+ should thus get you into the 99 percentile range.
Suppose you have ensured that you will score at least 12 in each of the 3 sections then you know that in the last 35 minutes you need get another 9-10 questions from all B category questions left unsolved.
Since you would have gone through all three sections you would have a clear idea as to where you can get those marks from.
Incase your performance is lopsided — you do well in 2 sections but not on the third one — you can use the buffer time first to ensure that you clear the cut-off in the section that did not go well and then to go after the overall cut-off.
It is that safety net at the end of 135 minutes that helps you ensure that to you clear sectional and overall cut-offs despite any setbacks during the 140 minutes.
You can customise the plan by changing the time-limits here and there by 5-10 minutes but you should not let your buffer time go below 20 minutes. More importantly you should stick to the plan.
As long as you stick to the time-limits any order should suffice. But this works best when you have almost equal ability on all three sections.
But if your ability across the three sections is varied then one of the two orders below is advisable:
What is crucial is that you do not end up spending more time on your strongest section and thus end up not having enough time to clear the cut-offs on the other sections.
The year I cleared the CAT, we had 150 questions, 120 minutes with 50 questions from same three sections as there were in CAT 2015.
I started with Verbal, my strongest section and stopped at the end of 30 minutes having solved around 30 questions. I then ensured that I spent enough time to clear the QA and DI-LR cut-offs. If I spent another 10 minutes on Verbal I could have solved another 10-15 questions but at that point I had cleared the first hurdle — clearing the sectional-cutoff.
In the end I had another 5-10 minutes left and I came around and knocked off the easy VA questions that remained (I did the RCs in the first round).
Take the 7 SimXATs with the same focus that you would have on test-day. Execute the timing strategy till you get a proper hang of; it will not fall into place with one Sim.
Do browse through the SimXATs to just check out XAT questions. To do that look a previous years’ XAT papers. If you don’t take the SimXAT seriously, you are not serious about taking the XAT.
As discussed keep benchmarks of 12 of sectional scores and 45 for overall score to measure your performance.
I will do two more posts one on DM and one on things to watch out for on XAT-day.
And yeah, do not bother about the -.05 for every unanswered question beyond the 13 questions you can leave. You need to skip 33 questions to earn a negative of -1 ,making it inconsequential. So take the test as if this rule does not exist.
It is almost as if they cannot rest till they tweak something or the other!
Well, once you were done with school you would have never imagined having to write an essay ever again. But here you are a few weeks away from the WAT-GD-PI rounds and are not exactly looking forward to writing essays on topics that vary from the political, social, ecological to the outright esoteric. Read More
Now that the CAT scorecard is out, the time to start preparing for WAT-GD-PI has come. But how does one go about it? It all seems like a vast sea with no beginning and no end. A single post covering all the three — WAT, GD & PI — will be unwieldy to say the least, so I will do a series of posts that will help you kick-start your prep for the second-stage.
Back online after the floods here in Chennai! Am not sure how many of my students here are back online. Some of you would have rightly left the city. Hope all of you are safe.
Power is back since last night in some areas, while there is still no network. Hopefully things will be back to normal soon and we should be able to start the sessions by next weekend. Read More
A lot of students have now rightly trained their sights on XAT and are looking for a prep plan for the same.
So let’s take the first step by knowing the test inside out.
It’s finally done and I am sure many of you would agree that it was pretty much smooth sailing for the better part of the test. In fact compared to the workout you would have had in the SimCATs, CAT 2015 like CAT 2014 would have been a jog in the park. I know, I know, DI-LR was tough but if even that was easy then we should not call it CAT! Read More
It has been a while since the new CAT 2015 software was put up on the IIM-CAT site (I have to admit I have always found the name a bit cheesy :)). I wanted to wait a while to see how test-takers react to the new pattern in the SimCATs before doling out any sort of advice.
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[title text=”Running out of steam by the Quant section”]
Most of the students I have met have said that by the time they reach the Quant section they are mentally tired. The same would have applied to the Verbal section in the earlier pattern but the Quant section demands more mental energy since you are not entirely choosing between answer options as is the case on Verbal. The best indicators are of course the cut-offs — the Quant cut-off has dropped (marginally) whereas the VA-RC and DI-LR cut-offs have not changed.
It is only going to get tougher on test-day. On test day you will need to report an hour or so before your test starts and since most test centres are not within city-limits you will have to start a good hour in advance to reach the test-centre on time. So in effect you will be spending a total of 4 hours before you hit the Quant section!
How do we deal with this situation? Let’s say the two hours involved in travel and waiting can be equated to 30-minutes of test-taking. Even so it still means an additional 30 minutes worth of mental energy.
On D-day the only thing you want to do is to perform to the best of your abilities — you do not want to under-perform due to lack of stamina or nerves. Unlike for the GMAT, for the CAT you have to wait for a whole year before you can have another crack at it.
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[title text=”Building test-taking stamina to go the distance”]
Sometimes there is nothing better than stories to frame a point of view or argument.
Reasonably keen followers of cricket will be very much aware that the Australian cricket season and summer both start in December and the strength of the sunlight there is very severe. It goes without saying that batting for a whole day or at least three sessions, which by the way is the goal that way top test batsmen set themselves, is as much a test of the body as it is of cricketing skill. In the lead up to the season opening series, Mathew Hayden used to build his stamina by putting weights around his ankles and going running up and down mountains!
Thankfully the task before us is of a different nature — building mental stamina
.
On every practice test that you will take from now on, do not stop at the end of 180 minutes. Add another 30 minutes by doing a QA-DI-LR section test.
At least once try to take two tests back-to-back just to see how far you can go (you can stand up, stretch and take a deep breath in between tests :-)).
It might seem like a challenge but it is something you should be able to do. Just keep telling yourself — what is half an hour more compared to a year!
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[title text=”The Scientific Calculator”]
The scientific calculator seems to be a welcome addition to the test. One of the bog goals that the IIMs have set for themselves is to increase diversity.
I think the scientific calculator is one of the ways of making it easier for non-engineering graduates to perform well on the test. If they have the requisite conceptual knowledge and logical ability, calculation skills should not be the reason for them not making the cut.
It goes without saying that not just the DI-LR section but also the QA section will become easier with the addition of the scientific calculator.
But before that you need to answer a question — is calculation & approximation your forte?
If your answer is YES, then you do not need to make any changes, you will know when to use the calculator and you will not need all the features.
If your answer is NO and you want to rely on the calculator then you need to have a clear idea as to how each of the functions on the calculator works. If you really want to make the most of it you need to ensure that you now how to use all the features it has. For example, how to use MC, MR, MS, M+ and M?
The one thing you should not be doing is using the calculator as well as paper — multiplying two numbers, writing down the value on paper, multiplying another two numbers and then adding this number to that.
Remember that one method is not superior to another, whatever path you choose you should maximize its potential.
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[title text=”Will CAT 2015 follow the same pattern as the Mock Test?”]
The big questions on test-takers’ minds after seeing the Mock Test are:
No one has expressed any doubts about the other two sections!
Most of you would have recognised the RC passages on the Mock Test from old paper-based CATs. Apart from the RCs had only three question types Summary, Jumbled Paragraph and Odd-One Out. I somehow have a feeling that they just wanted to somehow fill in 34 questions! So there will be fewer passages, my guess is 4 passages and about 16-18 questions.
If there is one thing that has been consistent about the CAT over the years, it is the fact that there is always an element of surprise. So do not be surprised if you encounter Grammar and Vocab-based questions on the test.
The best thing you can do to prepare for this eventuality is to revise all Grammar and Vocab-based questions from this year’s proctored SimCATs.
Over the course of the next two weeks I will do separate posts on how to maximize your scores on VA-RC, DI-LR and QA respectively. For this I will be using the sections from the CAT Mock Test. So I want all of you to take the test as a full-length test by Friday. Mark your answers separately on a paper just in case.
Will analyse and give the key to the VA-RC section on Saturday.
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[title text=”Planning for the next phase”]
The first thing to do post-CAT is to analyse how your test went and you know that everything depends on how everyone else did. On CAT Day I will start a thread on Twitter with the # of attempts as soon as I step out of my centre (Dhanalakshmi Engineering College, Morning Slot), all of you can reply with your attempts so that we can get a clear idea of how difficult or easy the test was.
Post-CAT WAT-GD-PI prep will start immediately after CAT. I will be tweeting links to the most relevant articles for the WAT-GD-PI Round. This is important as results will be announced Jan second week and you can have your first interview as early as 2-Feb, IIFT will be earlier.
FB has its limitations since working professionals do not want colleagues to know about their MBA plans. Given the amount of information on FB it is tough to always be sure that the message is getting across to all everyone. It is a bit painful to send messages to so many What’s App groups. In the mean time open an account on Twitter and follow @tonyxavierims. So do this at the earliest.
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In the meantime, if you find the idea of doing two back-to-back tests daunting then read this in-depth article on how Djokovic went from being physically unable to compete beyond the semi-finals of tournaments to becoming possibly the fittest sportsman on the planet — http://espn.go.com/tennis/story/_/id/8132800/has-novak-djokovic-become-fittest-athlete-ever-espn-magazine
Post any queries you might have about a post in the comments section, I will quickly get back to you.
Keep Prepping,
All the best!
One of the things that weighs constantly on CAT test-takers is how they can increase their speed and accuracy. More often than not test-takers discover the right way to solve a problem mid-way through the problem – after they have spent about 2 minutes following one approach. So what is the best way to increase speed and accuracy?
Identify the right way to approach a problem before you start solving it.
Let us examine how to do this by taking an old SimCAT problem.
Given that f(x) = sec x – tan x. If f(x) = k, then what is the value of cosec x?
Rule # 1: Do not leave this problem thinking — “It is Functions + Trigonometry!“
As we discussed in a previous post, CAT problems are deliberately designed to be seemingly tough or unapproachable! This problem has nothing to do with functions, it is just a fancy way of saying if sec x – tan x = k then cosec x = ?
Rule # 2: Do not starting to solving the problem hoping something would happen.
Usually those who are not scared by Trigonometry and are know their way around the formulae involved, start by simplifying it into sin and cos. Now once they do this they get (1 – sin x)/cos x (if you are doing this you should do this part done without putting pen on paper!).
They then think about what they CAN do — say multiply and divide numerator and denominator by (1 + sin x) and go ahead and do it. Now as far as the approach goes, there has been no effort to concretely connect it to arriving at the solution or linking it to what is required, cosec x. The steps are carried out more with hope — may be things will get cancelled in the end — rather than with conviction. In short they keep trying what they CAN do and not what they SHOULD do!
You should start taking a particular line of solving only after you have examined where it will lead you.
A better way of thinking/talking your way through the problem is to ask yourself:
The answer to the last question is obviously not to turn to the next question — you have answer options, remember?
Once you take a look at them you see that 3 out of 4 options revolve around k2. So it makes sense to first see what k2 will turn out to be.
Even for this step do not write the value of k, draw brackets around it and write a 2 in superscript! Straight away expand it in your head and write down the final expansion.
Now see what happens when you do 1 + k2 and when you do 1 – k2. Simplify both of these expressions with your end goal and answer options in view:
Once you do this you will get 1 + k2 = 2 – 2 sin x and 1 – k2 = 2 sin x – 2 sin2 x = sin x (2 – 2 sin x).
From this you can see that to get cosec x, which is 1/sin x, you have to divide the 1 + k2 by 1 – k2. Hence option (2).
To improve speed & accuracy not only should you connect not only your approach but also your solving process to what you need calculate or what the question is asking for. This will ensure that you are optimizing you solving process at every stage to reach the answer in the shortest possible time.
Remember solving a CAT problem is not just about using logic to figure out how to solve it but using logic to optimize the solving process as well.
One of the reasons why the CAT seems tough to test-takers is that the questions are deceptively framed. Test-takers tend to expect questions to be neatly classified — areas, topics, concepts — so that the moment they see the problem they know what to do. But the objective of the test is to not to make things so obvious, not to make a question a matter of plugging numbers into to formulas. There are many questions that on the face of it seem to belong to one area but on closer inspection reveal their origins to be in a different area. Read More
