Customising CAT

Roy E Charles, Chief Knowledge Expert, T.I.M.E., helps create a test strategy just for you.

Is there a single strategy that will work for everybody in CAT? Is there a single method of preparation that will work for everybody? Obviously, there isn’t. Then how does one prepare a customised method of study, and a customised CAT strategy, for individual needs?

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First of all, check which of these categories you fall into: (1) Strong in Quant, Average in Data Interpretation, Weak in Language (the engineer syndrome) (2) Strong in Language(VA), Weak in both QA and DI (the urban arts graduate?) (3) Strong in DI, average in Quant, average/weak in Language (the puzzle addict) (4) Equally weak/strong in all areas.

Category 1
Do not ignore QA. It is your strength, and therefore will fetch you a high aggregate score. Spend half an hour everyday on one chapter, say numbers one day, geometry the second etc. If your QA is good, there is absolutely no reason to do badly in DI. All you need is more acquaintance with the different types of DI sets. Once you recognise the pattern, DI sets are actually fun to do. For this, collect similar DI sets and do them together. For example, do all the tournament based sets together, all the hand-shake sets together etc. There are many sources of puzzles. You can get them from the materials of a good training institute or online from puzzle sites.

For Language, at this stage, I wouldn’t advise spending much time on vocabulary. The number of words you can pick up now will be too few to make a difference. Spend time on grammar and reading comprehension, both of which will be most productive in terms of time spent. Grammar in CAT has generally been pretty basic, and if you get acquainted with primary rules, that should be enough. However, read as much as you can, not just because of RC, but also because your acquaintance with usages will certainly help with grammar questions. Make sure that you practise hard for jumbled paragraphs, paragraph completion and critical reasoning.

Looking at a few types of Critical Reasoning questions may help. These are available in study material as well as on GMAT sites online. For RC, it is a bit too late to read a lot of books; so work with essays.
As for exam strategy, you will need to fine tune it according to your confidence level in each area. But, broadly speaking, you should allocate about 50 minutes for QA, in order to maximize your score, 50 minutes for Language in order to make the cutoffs of different institutes, and 40 minutes for DI. The remaining ten minutes are buffer. In case a particular section has gone badly, you can use those ten minutes to make the cutoff. If all has gone as expected, use the buffer for QA, to increase your aggregate further. If the VA section is very difficult, as it has been in the past couple of years, you must maximize your attempts.

Category 2
Since VA/RC is your strength, browsing through grammar rules and vocabulary lists for a few minutes a day is useful. You will not waste too much time on common words, and the few uncommon words that you now pick up from those lists may come in handy, if you get direct vocabulary-based questions. Similarly, a grammar rule that you were not aware of will strike you immediately while browsing.

Practise jumbling paragraphs to understand the links that are reliable. Reading essays on subjects that seem difficult to you will raise your comfort level and will let you think logically when faced with conceptual essays in CAT. Remember that the number of ambiguous questions in CAT are just a small percentage. You can confidently answer the rest, if you prepare in this manner. For DI, collect 3 or 4 similar sets at a time, say 4 sets based on venn diagrams, and solve them together.

Category 3
It is a complete myth that you can be good at DI and bad at math. I can only call it phobia, laziness, or bad memories with bad math teachers in school. If your DI is strong, it is definitely possible for you to get the basics of the QA chapters. Trust me. Just ensure that you have worked on all the chapters to get the basics clear. Don't use school-style’steps.’ There are no ‘step-marks’ in CAT. Use basic logic.

Category 4
If you are strong in all areas, why are you reading this? Go get a drink for now, write a mock CAT every Sunday, and hope all the investment bankers don't close down: Those one-crore jobs are waiting for you!