CAT Exam 2023 Preparation | 100 days of Smartwork for CAT

September 4, 2023 / 05:09 PM IST

CAT 2023 Preparation | With just about 3 months to go for the CAT exam, it is imperative that those serious about making it through to the IIMs change gears on their preparation. Some students would be wondering if they really have it in them to make it through the CAT exam, after the initial set of mocks that they have taken. But, if one can identify the weak areas and put in focused effort to improve upon them, the CAT will be a much tamer animal than it would appear to be otherwise.. Let us look at each of the areas in CAT and discuss how one can improve on them in the coming one month.

Verbal Ability

Reading Comprehension: CAT has trad itionally been an RC centric paper, for English. 5 passages have been appearing in the recent CATs with 4-5 questions per passage. A few critical factors in RC preparation.
Reading on diverse topics
Target all direct questions followed by partially inferential questions.
During the Test : Ideally not more than 10 mins are to be spent per passage and it is to be ensured that all passages are looked at
Verbal Ability: This includes Para formation and Para summary questions Following are a few approaches to answer these questions.
Identify the introductory statement (this statement would tell us what the paragraph is all about)
Then identify links that would connect the two sentences. These are called connectives. These connectives can be conjunctions (but, and) or can be content connectives like cause–effect, generic to specific etc.
Remember that there are no short cuts to learning a language. Practice is the key to success in this section. Spend at least an hour daily on regular reading and another 30 mins reading passages from various online sources.

Quantitative Ability

List out the areas/topics to focus on: As the sections are timed individually, selective preparation is very risky, as one may end up getting questions from the areas that he/she has left out of preparation. There fore, till the last 3-4 weeks running up to the exam, the students should focus on getting better on all the topics in Quant. Then the focus should be shifted to concentrating on specific areas which would give them the maximum return for their time. A two pronged approach needs to be adopted for this
1. Mock-CAT Performance Analysis: Students should have a clear understanding of their comfort level in all Quant topics. Mock-CAT performa nces should be analyzed at a topic level. The areas where the students have been scoring below par consistently and the areas where the scores have been fluctuating should be the areas of focus.
2. Previous CAT paper analysis: The areas which have been consistently contributing to the CAT exam over the years should be identified and attention should be given to them.

Follow these simple steps while preparing

Understand the basics concepts of the selected topic thoroughly
Write down all the formulae and concepts related to the topic on a chart to use as a ready reckoner
Ensure that you know when a particular formula is to be used
Solve at least 30-40 questions (CAT level) from the topic

Logical Ability

The questions in Logic can be broadly said to come from three areas viz. Puzzles, Venn Diagrams & Cubes, Deductions & Logical Connectives.
Of these the Questions on puzzles have been most common followed by Venn Diagrams. Other question types have not been appearing of late. Working out problems from the Study Material Booklets is often the best way to prepare for the different varieties of Questions that appear in CAT. Puzzle books like those by Shakuntala Devi, George Summers etc. provide exposure to high level logic puzzles and the approaches to tackle them.
The oft repeated word “Practice” is the key to crack the questions based on logic & reasoning. The students should put in as much time as possible in practicing questions of different types, both online and on paper.

Data Interpretation

The skills required to crack questions in DI are
1. Ability to analyse and understand difficult / complicated data

This is a skill which one can acquire through regular practice. The practice needs to involve questions of various difficulty levels and types. One approach would be to start solving all the DI sets from your study material. Once this is done, it is time to move online using ‘Online Practice Tests’.
2. Ability to do calculations quickly
Speed of calculations is where the students should focus on, along with practicing different sets. Acquiring this skill is often easier said than done as it is difficult to get over the old habits of scribbling numbers on a paper even for simple additions.
The point to be kept in mind when students practice sets as mentioned above is that, they should not only focus on the approach but should also work out the answers. This should be done in timed manner. The advantage of solving questions under time constraint would be that the students would be forced to increase their speed of calculations.