CAT: The 4 Months Plan

IIM Lucknow convener to CAT 2017 may throw some different surprises which may or may not be aspirant friendly but good reading skills, fast calculation ability with short cut tricks and high level of conceptual understanding will take you through. Although CAT 2017 may prove to be the most tricky entrance examination leading to top rated IIMs and other top Management Institutes in India like FMS, MDI, IMI, IITs, NITIE among others, if you make concerted efforts in next 4 months you may hit the target of scoring 99 percentile. Candidates starting too late usually end up with low scores in CAT and prefer avoiding admission in a B school in the first attempt. However, getting geared up to crack CAT 2017 to pursue MBA from the top B school needs concerted efforts coupled with confidence to get into IIM in 2017. CAT 2017: The 4 Months Plan Common Admission Test (CAT) 2017 is going to be a different experience for admission seekers to one of the 19 IIMs. While CAT 2017 will be the first step to explore admission in the coveted PGDM programme at Indian Institute of Management, scoring a high percentile in CAT 2017 may need some different strategy to ace the exam. Besides, only high over all percentile in CAT 2017 may not be enough to cross the hurdle in securing admission offer from preferred IIMs as you will need high sectional as well as overall percentile score to get shortlisted for final admission round. On the top of it, IIMs have a different admission policy based on your profile, it is very much required that you also improve your profile along with scoring high in CAT 2017. 1:2:1 Strategy Every CAT aspirant needs to have a ready plan to follow for next 4 months. 1 month should be allotted to be familiar with basics and next 2 months should be allotted for advance level question solving and to sectional tests. This will give you a glimpse to CAT examination. Last one month is for solving mocks. Mock Tests are most important move towards scoring high in CAT. Mock tests will help you gaining confidence over the CAT. Aiming for high score Most of the candidates who tried to gain confidence by putting in great efforts to prepare for CAT 2016 in their first attempt but couldn’t score high to get the desired IIM, have already started their preparation for CAT 2017 meticulously as against those who have got their confidence shaken and stopped their preparation for CAT 2017. Before starting with any strategy, the need is to analyse where you lagged behind, overcome the weaknesses and being afresh. You must have fair understanding of the concept on which questions are based and how to crack it. In fact this is not the lack of confidence but the shadow of overconfidence and temptation to attempt more questions without understanding them that prevent you from scoring high. Still there are 4 months to prepare well for the exam and if you wish to score high, you have to begin your preparation from today. CAT has gone through perceptible changes but its charm has increased manifold and the number of CAT aspirants have also increased. The competition remains among top 30,000 candidates who fight to get the top position in CAT. If you can put yourself among top 5000 you can expect the IIM of your choice. IIMs have always been the most sought after B-schools, due to the great learning experience that you get there, the knowledge and Management skill they impart to their students and the excellent pay packages, their students get after completion of the course. Know the exam well Unless you know well about the exam you are going to appear, you may not be able to excel in it and may end up beating about the bush preparing with some wrong stuff. When you first know about forthcoming CAT 2017, you are not even aware what are its constituents, how to prepare, what to study, Can there be any well defined syllabus, where to begin and number of FAQs hover your mind. Sometimes you do not even find anyone to answer your queries.  When you begin your self-study, it appears that you have entered an unorganized thick and large forest where it is difficult to locate which way to go. CAT 2017 is supposed to have 1 day testing window divided in 2 slots. The exam structure and content could again be changed as compared to CAT 2016. Although it is expected that overall number of questions in CAT 2017 would be 100 divided in 3 sections, it is premature to anticipate the distribution of questions in each section. Last year CAT test was divided in 3 sections beginning with Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC) section comprising 34 questions; second section had 32 questions on DILR and the last section was on Quant with 34 questions. Total allotted time to complete the test was 180 minutes. The trend in CAT 2017 might be to keep 3 sections but the number of questions and question pattern may change. There may be some changes on content part in CAT 2017. You may again find questions on correction of errors, Vocabulary usage, and completion of sentences among other topics. You may also expect more RC Passages with more as well as twisted questions. Continue the concerted efforts Aspirants prefer reading and practicing those topics which they are well versed with but keep away from the unfamiliar ones. Practice may not do much good to them unless and until they are very clear about the concepts. A balancing act is required to begin the journey which is considered tough till it is complete. Make sure you have got the right lesson and have understood it well. Any misconception or misunderstanding of the same will land you in trouble. Every mistake will teach you for better. Recurring mistakes must be avoided. Understand the concepts, practice them as many times as possible.  The fundamental behind is to have more expertise. More you practice to solve the questions based on the understood concepts, more confident and accurate will be your approach. Focus your studies with the intense desire to get the utmost clarity especially on the topics, you know are the tricky. The key words are speed and accuracy.