How to Salvage CAT 2019 with 40 days to go!

Salvage CAT prep for CAT 2019

If you are looking to salvage CAT prep for CAT 2019, read this article in full. Quite a few students at this juncture would think of their CAT Prep as gone case. There would be a huge drop in number of people who are attempting this exam seriously from this point in time. The race is still on for those who are persistent. The race is ultimately with a small group of about 10000 very serious and well practiced candidates.

How to figure out where you stand?

You can aim to reach the stars. But you need to know where you stand to be able to do that. Get a clear view of where you stand right now, in terms of your CAT Prep. Know your areas of strength, weaknesses.

Best way to get there is by taking an Actual representative Mock and analysing your performance in the same.

Forget about the gaps that you cannot fix

Now is the time to dump topics left and right. Focus on only one thing. Focus on your strengths. Forget the topics that you are not strong at. As a rule of thumb, fix arithmetic and some bits and pieces of geometry to start with your CAT Quant prep.

What could happen?

If you are about to give up, don’t. There is enough time to buckle up, scramble through a bunch of basic topics in Quants, do fifty plus high quality puzzles, and top it up with some high quality reading. This can technically enable one to be able to attempt about 60+ questions in the Actual CAT Exam. This could reasonably translate to a score north of 120.

Those who are already attempting more than 70 questions but scoring less than 100, fix your accuracy pronto. There is no other cure.

Course of Action

You could continue worrying about the 17 different topics that you are not strong at, and let this CAT 2019 attempt go to waste. You could also gear yourself up for the 5 topics that you know well, and give it a good go, and see what score you end up getting.

Take about 15+ mocks, analyse them to death. Fix gaps that you find through mock analysis. Tried and tested methods tells us that there are two types of gaps possible. One is gap in basic understanding, another is gap in practice. Find what type of gap keeps pulling you down, and then fix it.

Lot of candidates slow down in the last round intentionally for the fear of dealing with reality. Do not die wondering. Do not die without knowing “What could have happened if you had given your best”?

Worry about Hypotheticals?

There are multiple posts claiming a pattern change in CAT. If there is a change, it is going to be a surprise to every aspirant writing CAT 19, unless IIM Kozhikode gives out a notification on the same. Do not keep wondering about ability to submit the sections beforehand, quant section having 38 questions or not. All of them are hypothetical situations. There is no one right answer. The right answer is to prepare well, practice well, execute well, without worrying about Bird’s eye view and all.

Give CAT 2019 your Best Shot!