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CAT is approaching fast. You must be anxious of Quantitative Section at this time. We shall deal with Quantitative Section only here. The general approach to the remaining sections would be more or less similar. Here are a few tips to make your preparation more productive in building and fine tuning your Quantitative skills.

1). There is no clear syllabus for CAT. Solving CAT papers gives you a reasonable idea of the scope of the test. There is a huge feeling built on CAT as one of the toughest tests. It definitely is. It is the time pressure and the mix of tough and easy that makes CAT a challenging set, not because it has conceptually tough questions. Moreover, the balance of the three sections gives it the overwhelming reputation.

So no preparation is complete without looking at the past papers. These papers are available in the public domain. If you have already gone thru some amount of preparation, August mid is the right time to spend on the CAT questions. If you are just starting, there is no better way to start than to kick it off with the CAT papers.

2). Look for these specific things: A). Scope and depth of the questions in various topics. You would realize that depth is never an issue in CAT. Maybe, that would give you the confidence.  B). There are some concepts that appear very often. You must be fairly good at these topics. C). How a concept evolves into a variety of problems over time. The effort would give you a very good return on the investment of your time. You will learn to utilise your time more efficiently, and not focus on unwanted stuff.

3). If you look at Geometry of CAT, the biggest chunk of questions would be from Triangles and Circles. If I go one step deeper, the concepts of similarity and Congruency in truancy is often repeated. So to ensure that you are prepared for this topic, you must go back to your material and pick all the good questions of this topic and revise or review them. Do a topic at a stretch. It helps build the connections better.

You may be worried about Probability. But do you know that there has hardly been any question in the past 10 years. Of course, it is one of the favourites of XLRI. These are some of the questions that would be answered by this exercise.

4). For many, test taking may just be taking Mock Tests, and feeling dejected. Of course, you would. You are no Sachin to be able to walk into a test match and perform well. Anyway, that is not what he does. Even after 20 years, he does not skip his nets. Maybe you need to learn from him. Mock tests must be aptly supported by regular testing at home. Else, your performances will not improve.  Time your tests. Start with topic Tests. Keep deadlines to finish your material. Then move to Section tests. This process must continue alongside 135 min tests.

5). When you look at quant questions make sure you do these 4 things. A). Find the fault that you did in the question.  It is possible that the solution provided also tells you about why other choices are incorrect, and what mistakes could lead to the other choices. It is essential to know this to make sure that you do not commit an error in future that you are not conscious about now.  B). Think if there is a way of solving the question through choices. C). Try to find out alternate methods.  D). Solve the questions that you possibly will not or did not. Skip only if you are sure you would not like to do the topic. For example:

Q. How many even integers n, where n ranges from 100 to 200, are divisible neither by seven nor by nine?
a. 40         b. 37         c. 39         d. 38

What are the mistakes that can be induced in such a question?

1) Ignoring Even numbers. Doing it for all numbers
2) Counting from Even numbers from 100 to 200 as 50 and not 51
3) Mistake in counting the number of even multiples of  9 as 5 instead of 6 You would see that atleast 2 choices are designed for these mistakes. So when you do analysis of any question, identify if it is possible, the reasons for arriving at the other choices. That is the learning that you can derive from analysis of any section.

CAT quantitative section often scares a CAT aspirant. It is deemed to be tough and difficult to crack. So there is a considerable amount of time that one spends on mastering the subject. The truth however is that it is often based on very fundamental concepts in the areas of Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry. The challenge in quant section is mostly one of maximizing attempts. Though the key to that is ‘decisiveness’ in attempting or not attempting a question, smart methods can add their value too.

Here are a few approaches that one could employ to boost the scores in quantitative ability section. These are questions that have appeared in Old CATs.

1. Use of choices: In any MCQ type of a test, if you are not using the choices, you may be wasting an excellent resource. Mastering this approach could lead to saving time, thus enabling more attempts. Here are two examples.

Example 1 : The owner of an art shop every once in a while he raises his prices by X%, then a while later he reduces all the new prices by X%. After one such updown cycle, the price of a painting decreased by Rs. 441. After a second up-down cycle the painting was sold for Rs. 1,944.81. What was the original price of the painting?

a. Rs. 2,756.25
b. Rs. 2,256.25
c. Rs. 2,500
d. Rs. 2,000

The conventional method would be to find X and so the original price. We shall use only choices here.
B and D cannot be the answers. In the first updown cycle the price reduced by Rs 441. So the final price should have gone below Rs 1944.81. So it has to be either A or C. It is easier checking with C, since 2500 is an easier number to work with. If it was Rs 2500, a drop of Rs. 441 is a drop of almost 17.5 % . So another drop of 17.5 % below (2500 – 441) would take the value below Rs 1944.81. So it cannot be the answer. Hence A has to be the answer. Please don’t waste your time checking A as well. All this can happen in a span of 45 s, if one is good at mental calculations.

Example 2 : Three runners A, B and C run a race, with runner A finishing 12 m ahead of runner B and 18 m ahead of runner C, while runner B finishes 8 m ahead of runner C. Each runner travels the entire distance at a constant speed. What was the length of the race?
a. 36 m
b. 48 m
c. 60 m
d. 72 m

I will start by assuming the race is 60 m long. I have chosen 60 since it is one of the two “middle“ choices. I could have started with 48 as well.

So when A runs 60 m, B runs 48 m and C runs 42 m.
So when B runs 60 m, C would run 52.5 m. B should have defeated C by 7.5 m. But it is given as 8m. So the race could not have been of 60 m.
But which choice do I choose next ? 72 m or 48 m.
Here there is some logic that is useful. Since 12 m, which is the distance that A has to still run to complete the race, is a smaller fraction of 72 than it is of 60. So the lead if the race was 72 m that B gives C would be lesser than 7.5m. Hence we must choose a smaller value than 60.

Check it out for 48m. You would find that this is the appropriate choice. Someone who is used to fast mental calculations and picking choices to solve questions would do this in less than a minute.

2. Short Cuts : This may actually be a misnomer. Some of the most efficient methods need great fundamentals. So a search for a better method when you anslyse the tests will get you to understand concepts better.

Let us take the Example 2 , from the previous case. We will do it by a faster method. You could call this a shortcut !!

When A has a lead of 12 m on B, B has a lead of 6m on C. This 6m finally becomes 8m, which is 4/3 times 6. This would be valid with the distance covered by B too. So the 12m that B has yet to cover is 1/3 of the distance that he has already covered. This means B must have covered 36 m, when A finishes the race. So the length of the race is 48m.

You cannot use these methods arbitrarily. The “decision” making must take as little time as possible. You would develop this skill only after a certain threshold level of practice. So do not ignore the ‘perspiration” behind these methods. And believe me each one of you would able to apply them wisely.

There is a caution though. While you are testing, if you cannot hit of any of the approaches within the first 30 s, do not feel bad about using the conventional time tested methods.