By Atul Prashar and Munish Kumar
September 05, 2007

Each and every CAT aspirant has to cover various stages of the CAT preparation and all stages offer some challenges and opportunities for the test aspirant. The winning sprinter is one who knows these challenges well and utilises the available opportunities in the most comprehensive and efficient manner. The process of a complete CAT preparation can be summarised in the form of a table as follows:

And we can easily infer from the above table that Phase I and II of your CAT preparation are already through. Moreover, as most of us do not have much clarity on when Phase III ends and Phase IV begins, there is always a sense of confusion amongst the CAT aspirants in these months. Ideally Phase IV will begin in mid-October and you are at the concluding stages of Phase III. Hence the challenges and opportunities in front of us can be elaborated further as follows:

Challenges (Problems)

The first challenge for any CAT aspirant at this stage is to optimise his speed and accuracy and most of us prefer quantity over analysis. That is, we feel that taking more and more mock CATs will automatically help elevate the score. What we do not understand is that the challenge at this stage is not to increase the number of attempts but rather to balance your existing attempt with a decent level of accuracy. This un-planned focus on attempts results in a fluctuating graph of your performances in the, say, last 10 mock papers and such a fluctuating output adds to the confusion and stress you may face by the end of this month. So what's the solution?

Opportunities/ Tools (Solutions)

The solution to the above problem (and resulting blunders) is a regular and thorough postmortem of each mock CAT before trying to attempt the next one. A thorough analysis must be undertaken (either by yourself or with the guidance of your trainer) of the following parameters:

~ Attempt pattern: This will help you divide the total test time amongst:
(a) An overall view of the test
(b) Defining a criterion to select the questions for round 1 (time-savers) of your attempt
(c) Define the maximum time that you will spend on a question (this time will vary from section to section) in order to avoid sticking with one time-taker.

~ Sectional Count: It is very important to keep a count of the distribution of questions from various topics in each section. Most of us do it or rather, get it done at the training institute itself, but the success lies in the appropriate use of this vital piece of information. It is a sheer waste of time and energy if we keep records as to which topics are important and which are not. If that's the purpose ,prepare such records of the actual previous year CATs rather than your mock tests. You may see such a statistical distribution in CAT 2007 -- A ten-week study strategy.

The actual purpose of the above exercise is to discover your strong and weak areas with regards to your attempts and accuracy in them.

~ The ABC of your attempt: It is better to know and accept your accelerators, speed breakers and carry-home questions. Accelerators are one liners in Verbal and Quant, single graph questions in DI and the ones that take you minimal time to solve while still giving you a decent accuracy count. Speed breakers are the ones with close choices, where approximations and closer meanings fail. And carry-home questions are ones which are never meant to be attempted, but to be carried home.

~ EMD count: You must measure your EMD count in each and every mock CAT. The EMD count stands for your total attempt and accuracy in the easy, medium and difficult questions of each test. This helps you choose the most effective order of attempting the question. It is also recommended to match the questions that were difficult for you with the opinion of your trainer. This comparison reveals questions which, if attempted in a different way, may have been time savers. You will learn to use an appropriate approach to solve those questions.

~ Time wasted: It is also important to recall how much time was killed in:
(a) Solving questions that eventually went wrong
(b) Solving the questions that you thought were easier
(c) Solving questions which were from your not-very-strong topics

This total time that we waste during a mock can be reduced, which will automatically increase your attempt in the subsequent mock test. If combined with your consistent accuracy count, this exercise can help you increase your score with each and every attempt.

~ Micro-motions: We fail to realise that looking time and again at your wrist watch, erasing the wrong answer from the question booklet, sharpening a pencil and taking out your handkerchief (also your admit card in the final CAT) not only consume your time during the test, but also break your concentration. Practice countering these habits in the mocks by looking back and noting down the time wasted by these in each mock.

The above parameters if measured, maintained and worked upon will make sure that you are moving smartly towards your goal and your score in the subsequent mocks will prove this fact. Moreover, mere reading of such a piece of text will not necessarily help you improve your score in the mock CATs unless it is illustrative. Hence, we recommend you attempt a TCY Mock CAT exam online and come back to rediff.com to learn how you can make the best of your previous experiences.

Part II: Analysis of a mock CAT paper