Time management, key to crack CAT exam

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New Delhi: Common Admission Test 2006 is around the corner. Institute of Management Studies Product Head Gejo Srinivasan says time management is an important aspect of the preparation strategy for cracking the CAT paper. Giving equal time to each of the sections, reading questions before attempting and allotting equal time to each sections are key areas to focus on.

What strategy should one adopt to prepare for the CAT exam? Are the questions going to be different this time around?

Ans: Not really. If you have looked at the recent CATs, the last two years CATs in particular, there were more number of questions, which required your reasoning ability to tackle them. If you have more number of those questions, I am sure, you would like to give more time to the students to solve those questions. That’s why even the number of questions is reducing.

I took CAT last year, but I was not able to clear the Quant cut off. Instead of the Quant section, should I spend more time on English and verbal interpretation? What are the top 20 institutes – except the IIMs – which don’t look at the sectional cutoff and the overall marks?

Ans: Most of the time, people are not able to handle the Quant section due to the way in which they select a question. If I am good in geometry, I want to attack geometry first. If you are not confident about permutation-combination, don’t even read permutation combination.

Read the paper and select questions after thorough reading. My suggestion to the students is don’t give up on Quant if you want to aim for the IIMs. You still have 10 days left. If you make minor adjustments in the way you attempt the questions, I am sure you will be able to clear the Quant cut off.

As regards the second question, there are institutes that look at an overall cutoff or may not have sectional cutoff as such, but they still have some kind of cutoff for each section. The safest thing is to spend equal time on each section and work on the Quant in the last five-ten days.

I have just learnt that CAT is going to change again. It was a two-and-a-half-hour test. Now, it has become a three-hour test. How do I prepare at this point of time? What is the significance of those extra 30 minutes? (John Fernandes, Mumbai)

Ans: There is not much of a significance. Because it’s going to be an extra half-an-hour for you, it’s going to be an extra half-an-hour for all.

Secondly, the reason why the IIM is giving this extra half-an-hour has probably got to do with the type of questions that might come in the test. I believe the questions are going to be a little more reasoning-intensive, taking a little more time to solve.

I am sure about my verbal part, but I am still not very sure about my DI (Data Interpretation). Is there any last-minute strategy that I can follow? (Vijay Rathode, Mumbai)

Ans: The problem that students face with Data Interpretation is that they look at sets. They believe if a set is easy, then the questions are going to be easy too and if the set is difficult, then the questions are going to be difficult.

This is a wrong assumption. You need to focus on the questions, then on the sets. Once you read a set, do all the questions that you can do and then move on to the next set to attempt the other questions. Focus on the question and don’t go with a predetermined mindset.