Deciding to take the CAT is akin to committing to running a marathon. The process is very similar – you start from scratch, spend months preparing, put in your blood, toil and tears and finally give your best performance on the big day. Contrary to what you may believe when you begin the journey, acing the CAT is less about whether you can solve the most difficult questions and more about how well you perform in a timed, high-pressure test.
What it takes an engineer to crack CAT is what will it take a non-engineer to crack CAT. Mettle! A simple answer to this question is to develop the mettle not just for CAT but for life in general.
CAT doesn’t have three sections in it, it has actually 5 sections in it
Mental Composure And Test Preparedness are the Two ‘Additional Sections’ In CAT
Over and above the 3 sections of the exam, another 2 are tested – your mental composure and test preparedness. There are a few things you can do to be fully prepared for these two ‘additional sections’
- Even before you study your first concepts, you need to truly believe in your abilities. There will be days when you doubt yourself, your mock scores dip and you want to give up. Self-belief is the only thing that will keep you going. Tell yourself every day that you can ‘bell the CAT’, and you will.
- You need to have sufficient practice writing different kinds of mocks – enroll in different mock series so that you get accustomed to varying difficulty levels of each section.
- Before each mock, prepare a mental strategy of how you will handle the pressure if the sections are more difficult than you expect. Repeatedly bracing your mind for different challenging scenarios will help you on the final day.
- Before each mock, prepare a mental strategy of how you will handle the pressure if the sections are more difficult than your expectation. Repeatedly bracing your mind for different challenging scenarios will help you on the final day.
- Enjoy the process! Honing your aptitude will help you in your professional life regardless of which path you take.
The quintessential questions – why, what and how ?
Why is the most neglected question a future MBA aspirant should focus his energy on?
This comes to haunt him in his interview stage and even during his career if one is approaching the career superficially. “Why MBA?” – The aspirant will have to find his answer or at least understand what the degree opens doors to.
This is a continuous research habit one should develop. This will involve reading business magazines to be more aware of the business environment and Who’s Who.
It shall also involve understanding b-school courses, start-ups, and outlier achievers. An answer to this question is not essential. But understanding what value B-School will add is imperative if one is taking it as a stepping stone for a successful satisfying career rather than a higher paycheque in 2025.
What entails the “mettle” which is being tested through a B-school entrance process in India?
The B-schools via their exams essentially test you on Quantitative Ability, Language Ability, Logical Reasoning Ability in an intense format with multiple simultaneous objectives to be achieved in a timed environment. With a decision to be taken every minute, the ability to perform under pressure and make decisions is the expected norm. Awareness level vis a vis environment as well as concerning self is further evaluated in the interview process.
“How” is the simplest question to answer but requires real determination and drive to emulate:
Students from Non-engineering backgrounds need to first identify their strong areas where they can prepare hard and take it to a level where they can answer every question from those topics. And then they should focus on their weak areas. The students should make a calendar and a schedule at the start of their preparation itself.
Phase 1 – Fix the fundas – February to May
- Start with taking a past year paper (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, or 2021) as a mock. You may feel nervous or want to avoid it because you have no preparation yet, but it is important to view this mock as a 100m run to gauge how you will prepare for the marathon. You will only get better from here.
- After the mock, you will get a sense of which section you’re more comfortable with versus which ones you are a little jittery about. This will decide how you divide your preparation time, and which section you allot more time to.
- Practice a lot of questions from each question type. This is the phase where you should be attacking questions with high intensity. By the end of this phase you should have seen different questions types – easy or difficult – which can be asked in the examination.
Phase 2 – Get game ready – June to August
If the first 4 months were spent learning how to drive in 1st and 2nd gear, this is the time to go full throttle in the 5th. With your basics in place, this is the time to shape up the most important aspect – your test-taking strategy. This is done by taking mocks, aggressively analysing them, identifying gaps and plugging these by either refreshing concepts or more practice.
- Segregate mocks into ‘experimental’ and ‘performative’. Experimental mocks are those where you try different strategies to see which one works best for you. Here the score is secondary, and your aim is to craft the best strategy. Performative mocks are those where your aim is to maximise your score.
- Till July, aim to take one mock a week. These will be more experimental in nature as you get accustomed and try out new tactics.
- From August, you need to take at least two mocks a week. This can even go up to three a week if you have the time.
- While analysing the mocks, pay special attention to accuracy. You should prioritise accuracy over attempts as an incorrect answer only deducts from your total score.
- Don’t take mock percentiles to heart. The percentile you scored in your last mock count for pish – tosh!
- The number of mocks you take is very subjective and shouldn’t be based on how many someone else is writing. What is important is to have sufficient time between each mock so that you can analyze your performance – which your strong areas are, where you are taking more time and which concepts you need to refresh.
- Once you have recognized which area you need to work on, spend at least a day or two practicing questions from there.
Phase 3 – The last mile – September to November
Now that the basics and test taking abilities are in place, you need to polish everything up and give your best on the big day. Avoid learning new concepts, focus on refreshing the things you already know. Do not write any mocks in the week leading up to CAT, no matter how the last one goes. As mentioned earlier, at this stage the only preparation that you can do is in your mind. Go for the exam with gusto!
| Duration | Target |
| Feb to May -fix the fundas | Start with taking a past year paper (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, or 2021) as a mock. Identifying strong and weak areas. Exposure to various question types |
| June to August – Get game ready | Take mocks aggressively. Analyze the mocks to death. Fill gaps by practicing CAT level questions |
| September to November – the last mile | Polish everything up. Revise aggressively. Prepare yourself mentally for the d-day! |
How to prepare for each section in the CAT exam
How To Prepare For The Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension Section
Skill to build – Better comprehension skills.
How to build – The only way to get better at comprehension is to READ. The more you read, the better you get. However, you will only notice improvement after some time so it is important not to give up. So read away from the glory.
Tips – Follow Bharath’s Curated Reading list to get a fabulous VARC score.
How To Prepare For The Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning Section
Skill to build – Problem solving skills
How to build – Solve sudoku every day. Make puzzle solving a hobby. If you see a puzzle, you should jump in and solve the puzzle
Tips – Pick the DILR sets from past year papers and solve them without a timer. Do not resort to checking the solutions quickly, spend sufficient time probing the questions and trying to come up with alternate approaches. It is important to develop an understanding of what the question wants and how that can be extracted from the information present.
How To Prepare For The Quantitative Aptitude Section
Skill to build – Strong conceptual clarity.
How to build – Get an understanding of the different topics tested and their weightages in CAT. For the past few years, the maximum number of questions have been from arithmetic, followed by algebra and geometry.
Tips – Practice 25-30 questions from a good CAT level question bank, once you’re done with your basics.
The mantra to crack CAT lies in relentless dedication and assiduous effort. Do not let a random buzzword fade away your dream of getting into a good b-school. If you can prepare for 400 hours, take around 25 mocks and read away from the glory, I can bet my bottom dollar that you can have a great shot at CAT 2022, irrespective of your educational background.
At the end of the day, doing well in CAT is just about crafting a strategy which works for you, refining it repeatedly and then implementing it. Remember that this is a marathon where you may stumble, falter and fall. No matter what happens, the one thing you cannot do is give up. All the best for CAT 2022!
If you’re still not sure how can you nail the hail out of CAT, watch this video where Rajesh talks about how can a non engineer overcome his/her fear and conquer CAT 2022.
Best Wishes for CAT 2022!
Abhishek Mukherjee works for 2IIM. Apart from solving interesting math questions he likes to eat biriyani and watch movies.
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