10 things to know before you go for CAT 2017

10 things to know about CAT 2017 on the basis of last year paper.. learnings from last year paper.these are the 10 things which were in news before and after the CAT paper and its very important to learn from what happened last year. 10. Calculator allowed At number 10 we have calculator. This was the biggest news of CAT 2015 – 16 which was welcomed by all. However the news didn’t live up the hype as there were hardly any questions in CAT paper which requires calculator. Cetking suggests that do work on your shortcuts but don’t worry about your speed in calculations as they might not tested by CAT 2017. 9. Sectional timings Earlier CAT never had sectional timings so I could allocate my time according to my strength and weakness. But this time it was fixed. Verbal 60 minutes than DILR 60 minutes than Quant 60 minutes This created problem for many students as they couldn’t maximise their score. According to Cetking it’s always good to have sectional timing as you will be able to dedicate equal time and complete all sections for CAT 2017. otherwise most the student’s wont have reached quant section because of the high level of DILR and lengthy verbal section. 8. Quant section easy For the 3rd year in the row CAT Quant section level is easy as compared to what you have solved in the mocks. 3 main areas dominated the paper – Arithmetic Geometry and modern maths. These 3 areas combined was almost 75% of the CAT paper. So dont ignore but focus on these areas mainly. Level of Quant is reduced to encourage more people to give cat exam especially non engineers. So dont get scared by too difficult mocks by your coaching classes CAT 2017 quant wont be that difficult. 7. Order of the sections The order was fixed first solve verbal 1 hour than DILR for one hour and end with quant for last one year. You might don’t feel the problem reading this but many students were exhausted when they reached the quant section which made them falter in quantity. Cetking recommends solving at least 20 mocks to get used to the pattern and solving quant in the end for CAT 2017. 6. Verbal ability is all about reading Grammar and vocab is out of cat for last 3 years now. CAT verbal is all about RCs, Paragraphs baaed questions and Critical reasoning. Verbal section in CAT is all about reading as each of 34 questions was more than 300 words in length. So read as much as u can newspapers novels and try to read them online on laptop or mobile. 5. Speed – Shortcuts and tricks Average attempt in last year CAT was around 50 our of 100. Solving 100 questions is not that easy in limited time frame and with ideal attempts of around 80 out of 100 it’s time to go beyond formulae and lengthy steps to solve questions. At Cetking we recommends working on shortcuts if you want to see your attempts go high. 4. Technical glitches There is something called bad luck. many students faced technical glitches like computer shut down or screen hang which make them loose 5 – 10 minutes time. But more than time lost, its the panic button which is pressed in the mind. Motivation goes off and its very difficult to get into the paper solving mode again. So Cetking can only say one thing, expect the best but be prepared for the worst – so keep in mind in that kind of event during the exam dont loose calm and move on. S**t happens! 3. Subjective questions Almost 30% of the paper was subjective (10 questions out of 34 in verbal section). Subjective questions are one which do not include options you have to type in the answer directly into the blank box given. This definately won’t affect your preparation or but you will face uncertainty before filling in values. Some questions can be solved using options but it won’t work here. 2. Level of difficulty of DI & LR section. Indians are famous for our logical reasoning skills and CAT will put that to test. Out of 16 questions maximum junta couldn’t cross 8 attempt. Cetking recommends students to start with easy arrangement and blood relationship based puzzles but quickly move to advance level puzzles. Most of the students and classes focus on calculation based DI while CAT has moved up the value chain and focuses on logic based DI with very little calculations. It’s all about understanding the data and solving questions. You won’t know if it’s logical or DI. Cetking recommends going through all logic based DI sets like games tournaments, investments etc… 1. 24/34 Reading Comprehension questions Students were not prepared for too many RC questions. Cetking recommend to start early with your reading skills as focus on doing as many RC as possible. After reading an editorial in newspaper you could be able to make questions out of that. Fortunately level of RC is not very high 50% inference based and 50% fact based questions which made it very much solvable. It not the level of difficulty but the sheer number of questions which made us put RC as your number 1 enemy in CAT 2016. Hope these 10 learning will help you do better in this year CAT 2017. All the best. Rav Singh