CAT is perhaps one of the most challenging exams conducted. This is why candidates are searching up Google, or enrolling themselves with institutes that guarantee them hacks to ace the CAT. Many misleading websites and deceiving institutes will suggest tricks like speed reading, quant shortcuts, and Vedic math, or may guarantee you to score a 99 percentile in a week or two of CAT preparation. But, when you ask a professional or a genuine CAT mentor, they’ll only clear the fact that there are absolutely no hacks to ace the CAT! The one and only way to ace the test is through rigorous efforts and constant practice. And yes, we’d also suggest that you join a genuine coaching centre, one that doesn’t bring to you the above-mentioned fake ideas of acing the test through shortcuts, but one that promises quality mentoring and apt materials for preparation. One such CAT classroom coaching in Ahmedabad is Ekoching, where you will be taught by professional mentors through complete study material, practice questions, and mock tests, and will also have access to quick doubt resolution by experts. After all, assistance is important!
Whether you take up coaching classes, or plan to self-prepare, we bring forward a few tips on better preparing yourself for the CAT. Since the exam is divided into three sections, namely verbal ability & reading comprehension, quantitative aptitude, and logical reasoning & data interpretation, we’ve also divided our preparatory strategies into three sections based on the sections of CAT.
Practicing for VARC
There is no getting away from reading when it comes to VARC, but it is also very important to read “effectively”. Read more and more of comprehensions, but remember that your job is to extract the main idea at the end. Do not simply keep reading the passages without understanding, or you’re just going to waste your time. But, at the same time, don’t get stuck up anywhere. Although you need to get an idea of what the author wants to say in every paragraph, if you do not understand a particular work or sentence, do not get stuck on it. Just move forward, and try to grab the main point of the paragraph. And, when you move towards answering the questions, if a particular question is about the parts you didn’t understand while reading, you can always go back to the specific portion, re-read it, and then attempt the question. This way, you’re not wasting any time initially, and will only spend time on the incomprehensible topic if there is a question around it; otherwise you skip it altogether. Also, practice more of para-jumbles, misfit sentence and error corrections, para-completion, and summary writing, because these are some important things focused on in the VA section of CAT.
Preparing for QA
Quantitative Aptitude is the most challenging topic of the CAT. With a vast syllabus and the huge set of formulas to remember, not forgetting about the large number of calculations required to be completed in a short duration, this section becomes difficult. But, fret not. Just begin with the basics, and slowly move forward. You can start with arithmetic, percentages, and averages, and then work your way further. once you’re familiar with the syllabus and kind of questions in QA, you need to pick up speed. After all, QA is about solving as many questions as possible within the time limit. You need to do math at a good pace to be able to quickly solve a good number of questions in a given time frame. This only comes with practice – lots of it!
Tackling the DILR section
First and foremost, you need to make peace with your fear of entities that appear huge, by getting used to a large amount of data – both text and visual. Make it a habit to read at least one data-driven article every day; even better if the article has charts or graphs included. Note down all the necessary information on a rough sheet as you read. This will help you solve questions better and quicker. Also, you can always take the help of calculators to save time and keep you from making mistakes.
Whether or not you take up CAT classroom coaching in Ahmedabad, make sure to invest a good amount of time and effort into practicing for the test, if you plan to ace the exam, and get yourself enrolled in the most reputed IIM institute in the future!
