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.
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. 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.
With the mountain called the CAT now in sight, most working professionals will be wondering how to mount another challenge to get into the old IIMs. The biggest obstacle in front working professionals will be juggling a job and prepping for CAT at the same time. Some of you in this situation will have decided to quit your job, hopefully only after having read my post on the same and having understood the implications of quitting.
In the previous two posts, we discussed the mindset and the tools that you would need for a successful retake. In this post, we will take a look at the specific things you need to do for each section and area.
In the previous post, we discussed the mindset with which one should approach a CAT retake; in this post, we shall look at a few more aspects with respect to a successful CAT retake. Since each one of you readers will have a different back story with respect to your first attempt, and there will also be some non-IMS students among you as well, the focus of this post will be a bit wider.
Most of the institutes have given out their calls (or at least most of you know your chances), and many of you might be planning to retake the CAT. For some of you, it might be a case of almost getting there but missing out because of one poor section or just missing out on the overall percentile. For others, the CAT-day might have been a bad day at the office, and you knew straight away that nothing much was going to happen. On my first attempt, I fell into the latter group — I knew I was out of my depth when I saw the Quant paper; there was no way I was going to clear the cut-offs. This was despite consistently doing very well in the Sims leading up to the test. I decided to take another shot since I was very clear that it was not out of my league. This post, in three parts, is for all those re-takers who are NOT hoping to get lucky next time around but want to ensure …
This is a question that I get asked often by students and a very important one at that — how do I build my profile? So before we get on to the answer, let us evaluate what elements of a profile are.
The CAT Writer blog is now a book — Bell the CAT: Your Bell the CAT: Your Friend, Philosopher and Guide for CAT Preparation! For close to a decade, aspirants have been reading this blog every year for guidance beyond just Quant, Verbal, and DI-LR. How different is it from the blog? It has a few extra articles at the beginning and the end to make it more rounded. But the main advantage of the book is that the content is organised in the order it is supposed to be read so that your CAT and MBA campaign is set up to succeed and that you can easily find the content you want to go over. The Table of Contents below will give you all the details. We will be giving away three signed copies through a small quiz. https://tinyurl.com/Bell-the-CAT-Quiz We will choose the best answers to the same and communicate the same to the winners.
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 …
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