How to Crack CAT : 2 cents from CAT students toppers!!
Based on survey and interviews conducted on CETking students who got admission into IIMs. We asked them what were the most important things required during their CAT preparation.
Top tips – things to do for CAT – by CAT toppers
Overall preparation tips
• I think the key to belling CAT would be keeping your basic fundas in its right place and right time-allocation in the test, these two things will ensure decent percentile.
• I think it is very important to formulate an exam strategy. Predetermining(on the basis of your mocks and stuff, but not very rigidly) things like, which questions to mark, how much time to leave for reviewing your answers/entire paper, etc. does help.
• There are no golden rules to crack CAT, there surely are some to break it!!:
a. Unnecessary attempts, losing accuracy
b. Not preparing very tough caselets, solve difficult mocks
c. Ignoring the basic funda and key numbers (Geometry formulas, Special numbers, key percentage ratios)
• Percentage of Geometry and number based questions change every year so Don’t have a prefixed notion about an area having a fixed weightage. Be open minded, and u will rock it.
• Don’t divide your time equally among sections. Keep sufficient time for tough section, every year there was one tough section this year it was DI.
DI / LR tips
• Don’t get stuck in difficult caselets which is kind of “speed breaker” questions. Being an engineer I used to spend infinite time to solve difficult sets but last year DI & LR was unusually lengthy so it will be a good idea to choose questions wisely
• Keep sufficient time for tough section, every year there was one tough section this year it was DI.
• My Suggestions: try to master calculations; this will save you tonnes of time.
• For DI… only one thing helps Speed & Fast Calculations.. Either work on this or allocate more time to the DI. Here also CAT 1999-2002 papers will be helpful.
• Quick calculations definitely help but quite a few problems could be done with the options itself rather than complete solving.
• Give up the ego, don’t spend time solving every DI question esp. the difficult ones. Use your time in solving more easy questions.
• DI -practice hard and some option were wrong so check for that, if there is a wrong option then don’t waste your time on that question move on!! I have heard from friends that they wasted 5 mins for each of wrong question. Remember if it’s wrong for you then it’s wrong for everyone!!
• In DS, 1,2 3,4 have different meaning than we commonly see, for my set, 1 meant cannot be answered with both A &B together, which is normally option 4 in most books, so make sure u read the instructions properly.
Quant
• Staying calm and cool would help you a lot during the exam. One thing that i noticed was, the questions are very logical and a clear understanding of basics is required for cracking it. No flashy formulas, no special preparation, just a solid foundation is the key to the exam. But that’s just my 2cents, more like 2paise
• Solve CAT 1999-2002 papers for quant and you will crack IIMs cutoffs
• You can ignore your mock CATs. Plz ignore higher maths like Euler Theorem and all
• For Quant, revise all formulae from your coaching institute’s basic material or Arun Sharma or whatever for all topics mentioned therein. It will really help. Get your basic concepts in place urgently – Important Topics should be Number System, Sets, Geometry, basic Logarithm etc.
Verbal
• For VA, solving the past CAT papers would be enough. The length of RCs is around the same. But expect a bit more tricky questions
• RC was a bit ambiguous, so do not answer VA sequentially. Finish grammar and then come back to RC.
Compiled by CETking Team
Based on survey and interviews conducted on CETking students who got admission into IIMs. We asked them what were the most important things required during their CAT preparation.
Top tips – things to do for CAT – by CAT toppers
Overall preparation tips
• I think the key to belling CAT would be keeping your basic fundas in its right place and right time-allocation in the test, these two things will ensure decent percentile.
• I think it is very important to formulate an exam strategy. Predetermining(on the basis of your mocks and stuff, but not very rigidly) things like, which questions to mark, how much time to leave for reviewing your answers/entire paper, etc. does help.
• There are no golden rules to crack CAT, there surely are some to break it!!:
a. Unnecessary attempts, losing accuracy
b. Not preparing very tough caselets, solve difficult mocks
c. Ignoring the basic funda and key numbers (Geometry formulas, Special numbers, key percentage ratios)
• Percentage of Geometry and number based questions change every year so Don’t have a prefixed notion about an area having a fixed weightage. Be open minded, and u will rock it.
• Don’t divide your time equally among sections. Keep sufficient time for tough section, every year there was one tough section this year it was DI.
DI / LR tips
• Don’t get stuck in difficult caselets which is kind of “speed breaker” questions. Being an engineer I used to spend infinite time to solve difficult sets but last year DI & LR was unusually lengthy so it will be a good idea to choose questions wisely
• Keep sufficient time for tough section, every year there was one tough section this year it was DI.
• My Suggestions: try to master calculations; this will save you tonnes of time.
• For DI… only one thing helps Speed & Fast Calculations.. Either work on this or allocate more time to the DI. Here also CAT 1999-2002 papers will be helpful.
• Quick calculations definitely help but quite a few problems could be done with the options itself rather than complete solving.
• Give up the ego, don’t spend time solving every DI question esp. the difficult ones. Use your time in solving more easy questions.
• DI -practice hard and some option were wrong so check for that, if there is a wrong option then don’t waste your time on that question move on!! I have heard from friends that they wasted 5 mins for each of wrong question. Remember if it’s wrong for you then it’s wrong for everyone!!
• In DS, 1,2 3,4 have different meaning than we commonly see, for my set, 1 meant cannot be answered with both A &B together, which is normally option 4 in most books, so make sure u read the instructions properly.
Quant
• Staying calm and cool would help you a lot during the exam. One thing that i noticed was, the questions are very logical and a clear understanding of basics is required for cracking it. No flashy formulas, no special preparation, just a solid foundation is the key to the exam. But that’s just my 2cents, more like 2paise
• Solve CAT 1999-2002 papers for quant and you will crack IIMs cutoffs
• You can ignore your mock CATs. Plz ignore higher maths like Euler Theorem and all
• For Quant, revise all formulae from your coaching institute’s basic material or Arun Sharma or whatever for all topics mentioned therein. It will really help. Get your basic concepts in place urgently – Important Topics should be Number System, Sets, Geometry, basic Logarithm etc.
Verbal
• For VA, solving the past CAT papers would be enough. The length of RCs is around the same. But expect a bit more tricky questions
• RC was a bit ambiguous, so do not answer VA sequentially. Finish grammar and then come back to RC.
Compiled by CETking Team