With just a few days / hours to the CAT exam, the anxiety levels of students may just be going up. Here are a few tips that can help you focus on the task at hand and therefore help you calm down.
Read all questions:
This is the Golden Rule for cracking CAT. Students miss out on sitters because they don’t read all questions. This is even truer not just for Quant, but also for LR or DI sets. Just because a set appears difficult does not mean the
questions are also difficult. Also, even if the first two questions of a set are lengthy or difficult, the last two may be easy. Hence, strategy for the exam should ensure that you read all questions! Depending on whether they are easy or not, you can decide to solve or skip!
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Have a clearly defined strategy:
A proper, well-tested plan is critical to CAT success. When you walk into the exam, you need to be clear how you are going to attempt each section. Questions such as “Do I handle the RC first or the VA?” are to be predecided. More importantly, stick to
the basic plan!
Plan time-utilisation:
Divide each section into smaller time intervals as appropriate. Within each such interval, plan to cover a specific section of the paper. For instance, the 60 minutes for the 3 QA section may be divided as 4 slots of 15 minutes, in each of which you
could plan to read 8 to 9 questions and attempt whichever ones you find easy or solvable and skip the difficulty or lengthy ones. Similarly for RC sets or DI/LR sets, make sure that you decide on the time you would giveto each set.
Give a minimum time to each question:
It is not possible to know how difficult a question is unless put pen to paper. That means you need to give every question a certain minimum time. The quantum could vary depending on the type of question. A quant question may require a minimum of a 30 seconds while a reasoning set of 4 questions may require even 3 minutes of time for you to even comprehend the question and decide whether to answer. RC will require you to commit time to read the passage as well as attempt the questions.
Also Read: New IIMs CAT Cut Offs
Have a cut-off time for each question:
No question is extra-special or more important than others. The more time you invest in specific questions, the lesser the time you have for the other questions. Further, questions that take a lot of time are probably among the toughest in the paper and answering them does not confer any advantage upon you. So, it is important not to spend more than a certain cut-off time on any question. This too could vary depending on the type of question. The outer limit for a QA question may be 2-½ min while for a VA question, it could be 1½ min.
Use the answer choices intelligently:
Some questions are better addressed by looking at the answer choices and get the correct one though elimination. Remember that your job is to mark the most appropriate answer choice, not to find the correct answer!
Know your strengths and weaknesses:
You have written so many Mocks. By now you should have come to a conclusion as to which areas/topics within a section are your strengths and which ones are your weaknesses. Accordingly, distribute your time and attempt!
Do not press the panic button:
You have no way of knowing if you are messing up the paper or the paper is very
difficult. The safest bet is to assume the latter and work through the paper calmly on the assumption that if you are finding the going tough, then the same may be true for everyone else as well.
Stop preparing:
This is not a degree exam where you would cram up all that you have to on the last day and use it for the next day. CAT is an aptitude exam, which also tests your mental strength. Hence do not bother about how much you do not know OR did not do. Focus on what you have already done! You need to be really relaxed. Do something that takes your mind off the CAT for a day.
Enjoy the EXAM:
There is no better way to perform in any exam than by enjoying writing the exam.
Wish you Best of Luck!
