Special Strategies

“Strategy” is a very powerful word. Strategy is what Bill Gates uses to hire and retain some of the best heads in the software world - by giving them stock options. Strategy is what has made every sound & informed investor rich in the current Indian bull market and strategy is the same as the shot Tendulkar has selected to play or not to play, as per the field set up, if a particular type of ball is bowled to him. It’s hard to imagine all these people without this skill of anticipating and improvising, which they use in their respective unpredictable fields.

A lot has been written and said about catching the CAT that bugs around 1,50,000 aspirants every year. From hard work to picking up questions smartly, from choosing accuracy over speed to managing time effectively & efficiently, from excelling in your strengths to ameliorating in your weak sections by persistence, from applying to the right B-school to aiming for the best & so on. But the fact is, what works for me might not work for you and the otherwise is also true. As I write this, more than a month is left till the D’day. These days CAN change your life. These days CAN create a ladder for that dream gig you always aspired for.

Thankfully, one thing that we can be really sure of is that CAT is very unpredictable. Having a strategy or a set of strategies is as important as hard work that we all put in, and opening the test and starting from 1st question is not a good one. One should always start from s’thing he/she is really good at. First know your strength / strengths and then your second strength. It makes perfect sense to give your favorite section more time and limiting to the cut-off in the others, rather than by going 50-50-50 in the 150 minutes allotted. Now there are two ways of going about it, either by giving the 45-55 minutes in one go to your favorite section or by 30-35 in first go & coming again in the last 10-15 minutes of the test.

For example, you start with Quantitative Analysis Section and give it 10 more minutes in the dying moments. Nobody can analyze the entire paper perfectly in the first two minutes, like we are all told to do. By going back to my favorite or second favorite section in the end, I end up having more knowledge about the paper thus having more chances of selecting the attemptable set of questions. Try this strategy in the mocks and see how it works for you.

Begin with a reality check. With only 45 odd days of studies, you are at a disadvantage since you will be matching your wits with those steadfastly studious fellas who have been at it for over six months, if not a year. If you have not been practising your mathematics or mugging your word list and attempting your data interpretation regularly, you have to do all that and more by way of solving timebound mock tests and devising strategies to make optimum use of your skills and speed.

Practice, practice and more practice — that’s your magic mantra & There’s no substitute for perseverance and regular learning. Fix your daily schedule, allocate a fixed number of hours for each segment and get started.

CAT is really a test about your basic fundas & it is also about your ability to apply and co-relate them. Once you get your basics clear, lateral thinking is the next step to success. So brush up on your spellings, brush up your BODMAS (Brackets, Order, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction), relearn your theorems and equations and apply them in more ways than one.The more you swot, the more you improve. Data Interpretation involves a wide volume of data and graphs. The more you study and handle them, the clearer they get. Do learn your word list for English. Look for comprehension passages that deal with subjects and issues beyond your reading preference. If you are a fiction lover, try attempting non-fiction passages on scientific discoveries, theories and philosophy.

Deepak Makhija, a counsellor from Space Online Technologies, an online counselling company for MBA aspirants, says, “I would stress on comprehension passages instead of word lists. The more you attempt the passages, the easier they get, and that added confidence minimises chances of negative marking.” Try reading the smaller editorials in the edit pages of newspapers and recalling the main points. Check your speed. You should be able to get it done in five minutes. Logic section is a grey area for many. Only repeated practice within a time limit coupled with your gut instinct can help you there.

Speed plays a key role in your overall performance. Nothing gets done without a time frame. Remember, you will not get more than 30 to 45 seconds to answer each question. So try to answer them in a single go. Don’t go back and waste precious seconds. Take a calculated risk and attempt answers to questions that you are half-sure of rather than trying to figure them out later. This works best for the Logic section, where timing and accuracy are crucial.

Move on to mock tests only after you are reasonably sure of your basic fundas and have improved your speed. Taking 25 to 30 of these tests will not help if they are not analyzed properly. What is important is not ‘how many,’ but ‘how’ you take these tests. After every test, do a thorough analysis. It is quite useless solving mock tests for hours or doing too many of them (you need to solve at least 10-15in two months) when you could use that time fruitfully to develop your core areas and increase your speed. Once you are reasonably confident, attempt them and finish them on time.

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