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CAT 2007: '4 to 6 hours of study a day'

August 30, 2007 16:55 IST
CAT 2007 is right around the corner, in November. This year, nearly 2 lakhs aspirants will attempt the ultra-competitive exam -- the largest number of test-takers ever.

But less than 1% of them will earn admission to one of the highly selective Indian Institutes of Management.

Faced with such a daunting challege, how can you best use the last 90 days for CAT preparation?

How should you analyse your mock CAT scores?

How can you detect the difference between easy, medium and difficult questions?

What's the best way to maximise your percentile?

KB Sharma and Rakesh Kumar chatted with Get Ahead readers on August 24 and answered these questions and more.

For those of you who missed the chat, here's part one of the transcript:



sam asked,  hello, on an average, how many hours of study does a fairly intelligent person need to put up for CAT (excluding the mock CATs)?

kbsharma answers, It is not the hours of study, but the hours of intelligent study that matter.


BASKAR asked, how we can prepare well for CAT?

rakesh answers, Now the time is to analyse your mock cat for your improvement area and start working on that


vishasl asked, strategy for solving mock tests

kbsharma answers, Strategy 1:You must learn to segregate the time savers from time takers. Strategy 2: Dont spend all the allocated time in one go. First select the easier ques among all the three sections Str. 3: Never lose your cool


karthik_p asked, hi...my question is what should a person do to improve his percentile marks from 70?

rakesh answers, practise more the areas of weakness


kjk asked, which are the typical reasoning quetions in english?

kbsharma answers, Short passages, inference based RCs, logical reasoning


sam asked,  hello, on an average, how many hours of study does a fairly intelligent person need to put up for CAT (excluding the mock CATs)?

rakesh answers, Roughly 4-5 hrs, 2 hours for mock cat and 2-3 hrs for analysis.


slilva asked, Hello, what's the most difficult section on the CAT

rakesh answers, It varies from person to person.


asddz asked, hey, this is a follow up question to the one asked by sam. How many hours of intelligent study would suffice for a "fairly intelligent" person? if u could give some sort of figure. thanks in advance!

kbsharma answers, 4-6 hours on studies, now one hour daily on sectional (chapterwise tests), another one hour on analysis of yr test such as the time taken, what was wrong with the selected answer, how should the time have been allocated etc


Pratik asked,  sir i am very weak in some topics of Quant.....What should I do????????

rakesh answers, Important topics in CAT are number theory, geometry, P&C, and algebra. You must cover these throughly. 1-2 topics which are less important can be left.


SoumyaB asked, How can I improve upon our quants skill

rakesh answers, Clear your 10th class basics and practice more.For speed building you can refer RS aggarwal


karthik_p asked, how to go about studying for vocab and RC?

kbsharma answers, The more varied your reading the more likely to feel comfortable with RC. Varied reading also improves yr vocab. Vocab for business topics, for philo, for history, for medicine is all different.You caqn also Google vocab roots


suresh asked,  from where we can have free mock tests in next 10 weeks? REPLY please!!

rakesh answers, Register at tcyonline.com to avail free mock tests


shri asked, How much percentile does it takes to get in KJ Somaiya aur SP Jain

rakesh answers, KJ Somaiya 92-93 and Spjain 95+


karthik_p asked, hi...my question is what should a person do to improve his percentile marks from 70?

kbsharma answers, Did you analyse why yr percentile was low, what are the areas of yr weakness, what aspects to strengthen


Reddy asked,  what does tcyonline.com offer for this year CAT?

rakesh answers, Register at tcyonline.com to get free mock and sectional tests plus business GK


slilva asked, Hello, what's the most difficult section on the CAT

kbsharma answers, It all depends on yr SWOT. In verbal section, people who are not much into reading, find RC to be very difficult. Bear two things in mind. For RC what is important is not to read for detail, but for the idea. Understand the underlying idea befotre you answer.


shivani asked,  do X class marks really matter in IIM selection? i read it on ur website

rakesh answers, Yes. IIMB has revealed the selection criteria. Visit tcyonline.com for details


pushkar asked, how many mock cat are sufficient ? so far I have taken 12 mock . how many more I shoud take before CAT exam ???

rakesh answers, Roughly 15-20. Doing more is not important but analysing is the key to success


 Part II: Tomorrow

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