How to avoid Common traps in Quant section

CAT Exam
trap For most candidates, Quantitative Aptitude is probably the most challenging section to crack in the CAT. During your preparation, or at least during your full length test-practise stage, you would have developed an idea of what your strongest and weakest areas are (if you haven’t, do it at the earliest! It is important to know your strengths as well as your weaknesses.) The reasons why Quant can be the toughest nut to crack are varied. Most students have a sufficiently good grasp of fundamentals. But, when a challenging question presents itself, they are all at sea. Most students also have a problem with time management. Some would have lost touch with Quant basics after high school. Some don’t have the raw speed of formulation and calculation that most “math whizzes” take for granted. Whatever be your tale of woe, remember that that whole point of the CAT preparation exercise is to understand what your weakness is, and work towards improving it. So how do you avoid this trap? First of all, be aware of it when it happens. When you realise that you have spent more than reasonable time on a question and you are still nowhere close to finding an answer, it is time to consider moving on. How do you know that you are falling into this trap? Here are some indicators that might help you decide:
  • Your equations begin to get bigger and uglier
  • You have filled up half the rough-sheet and have made no real progress
  • None of the answer substitution or elimination tricks appears to work
  • You go back to reading the question several times
  • You see the clock ticking, and you realise that you still haven’t even attempted a majority of the section.
  • Most of all, you have spent five minutes on this question already and you are still where you started.
The three steps in my opinion are: Step 1 – Knowledge Step 2 – Analysis Step 3 – Improvement The first thing that you need to know as an aspirant to score more in section 1 is the structure of section 1. It consists of two broad areas:
  1. Quantitative Aptitude
  2. Data Interpretation
There are 34-Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation questions in which are further divided into the above four categories as: 20 or 21 questions are asked on Quantitative Aptitude. These are further divided into five sub categories:
  1.    Number System 2.Arithmetic 3. Algebra 4. Geometry 5. Modern Math & many more
A very common misconception that students have is that CAT focuses a lot on Number System but that is not the case. As a matter of fact, if you consider the past 2-3 years (which is hard because papers are not available) or CAT papers from 2004 to 2008 (for which the papers are available) Number System is the least important section. Not only that, more often than not – questions which are asked on Number System are harder than the questions from other sub categories. On the other hand, the CAT paper is heavily inclined in favour of sub categories like Geometry and Algebra. In Algebra, Functions form a major part of the questions. We would specially like to point out that complicated questions on ‘Remainders’ (questions which cannot be solved by basic rules and concepts of cyclicity), advanced questions on ‘Permutations & Combinations’ (questions which require usage of anything other than nCr), and questions on ‘Probability’ are almost never asked. But still a lot of students waste a huge amount of time preparing for these chapters. If you are among one of those students, we hope that after reading this post you would change your ways and utilize your time wisely. 13 / 14 questions are asked on Data Interpretation and these are also divided into 3 sets of 3, 3, and 3 / 4 questions each. More often than not two of these sets are easier than the third one. One of these sets is often calculation heavy whereas the other rely more on understanding the data given. More often than not questions in this part of the paper include tables with large amount of data. There is a reasonable chance of data being given in the form of bar charts or line diagrams. Pie charts are slightly less popular. Having said that, you should expect at least one set which would have data in a not traditional format like a spider web data representation or data given to you as a part of a triangle. Some students get shocked and surprised by this new form of data representation but from what we have seen in the past – these are the easiest questions to solve. Because in these, the key lies in understanding the data representation and once you do that – the questions are a cake walk. So, if you are lucky, you will get a set in non-traditional data representation format and that should be the first set that you should attempt. Knowing a formula is not the same as Understanding a concept A lot of students, especially in the later stages of preparation, say that they know all concepts very well, but when it comes to solving problems, they get stuck in the question interpretation or the formulation stage. For example, you “know” what the modulus of a number is. You have read and memorised all the definitions, and you even remember the textbook example well. Math problems on the CAT test more than your memory. They test how well you can adapt to situations, and apply simple concepts in complex problems. Be aware of this from an early stage in preparation. Spend more time on the basics. If you have trouble understanding a concept at first, reflect on it till it makes sense. This is more important than solving a dozen questions based just on formula application. Poor time management Another trap that most test takers fall into is lack of proper time management. Given that there are only 34 questions in a section, and more than two lakh students write the CAT, the difference between an extremely high and a low percentile could be a matter of just one question. You need to make sure that you have at least seen and attempted all the questions in each section, lest you should leave out easy questions towards the end. This calls for a lot of practise. Do as many full length practise tests as possible, and get used to the rigour of a full-length test. You need to sustain your concentration for the entire duration of the test, and you need to have the endurance to finish the test with almost the same energy and alertness as when you started. Improper reading of the question Sometimes you solve an entire question correctly only to find out that you had made a mistake in reading the question. Even though you did everything right, your answer was wrong. Such errors in reading or interpretation show a lack of focus in the early part of solution.
  • You may have to slow down while reading the question, and maybe even read it twice to understand it completely. Do not try to save time in this stage!
  • Distinct, Integer, Positive / Negative / Non-negative, At least / At most, Odds in favour / Odds against, Some / All, And / Or, Not less than / Never greater than
  • You may not always have time during the test to double-check every solution, but if you have a serious doubt, you can always exercise this option.
  • After getting the answer, read the question again because it may ask you to process the solution before arriving at the answer. For example, you may have solved an equation for y, but the question may ask you to find the value of y + 12. Re-read the question to be sure.
Silly errors This is probably the most frustrating of them all. Everything about your solution was correct, except  that you made a silly addition mistake in the final step, and you lost everything because of that. Errors in calculation or solution happen to the best of us, and it is never good when it happens. Can you improve your accuracy and reduce the number of silly mistakes? Absolutely,yes. Just slow down while solving equations, or be a bit more careful with calculations. Also, practise a lot. Learn the multiplication tables and ratio charts. Do the grind. All that is good enough preparation. But will that help you completely eliminate calculation errors? Unlikely. Here is what you can do: Find out your strongest and weakest areas. Figure out where you need improvement the most? Is it multiplication tables? Is it quadratic equation solutions? Work hard on improving your speed and accuracy in those areas. Keep working on it on a daily basis. You will definitely see an improvement in performance. Practise, Practise, Practise. On the day of the test, accept that you may still make mistakes. Allow for a margin of error, but be extra careful in areas where you know that you have a proven weakness. If possible, double-check your answers by working backwards from the answer options. Rigorous eye building Relentlessly train yourself to pick anomalies. If you did not notice, we have jumped from point 4 to point 6 on this list! Every time you let something like this pass you by, make a mental note to look or detail. Just becoming more ‘switched on’ makes a big difference and can be built with practise.

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