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AT: Gear up for surprises

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CAT: Gear up for surprises 

anish Malhotra | November 02, 2005 

's been five years since I took CAT. Thinking about it brings back

vid memories of how I burnt the proverbial midnight oil. Based ony experience, here are some tips for CAT aspirants.

A manager is known by the decisionshe takes

I have always maintained thatcracking CAT is more about decisionmaking, which is a crucial part of any

manager's job.

Whether it is about efficient utilisation of the resources under yourontrol, or making sales pitches, or deciding the next big strategicap for your organisation, it all comes down to effective and accurateecision making.

hat is why I think it is this aspect of your personality that CAT testso the maximum.

urprise, the essence of CAT

he organisers of CAT have an uncanny knack of springing a surprisevery year. Either the pattern of the paper is changed, or the numberf questions in a particular area are changed, or maybe a completelyew structure of questions is introduced.

his ensures that, more than anything else, it is good decision makingat will help you to sail through. Some people have the tendency to

reate a pre-planned strategy for tackling the exam, and following therategy even if the pattern of the paper changes drastically.

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eing rigid can, at times, be fraught with risk. It is important to beexible in your decision making and to take into account theossibility of changed circumstances. I have seen people break intoears in the examination hall because they could not find theuestions they were expecting!

hoose the right questions

won't be wrong to say the results in CAT are more a matter of

hoice rather than chance. There are a lot of questions that are meanto be speed-breakers. You end up spending more time reading and

nalysing these questions and this proves detrimental to your rhythmnd momentum.

on't forget, the marks you get are not for the amount of timeou spend reading and analysing a question; it is for answering themorrectly.

he art of decision making lies in identifying such questions andaving them alone; there is no way you are going to answer alle questions in the paper.

o, identify your weaknesses and play on your strengths.

ime allocation is crucial, so prioritise

nother important decision one has to make is about the time one willlocate to different kinds of questions. Broadly, there are four kinds ofuestions that are presented: Verbal Ability, Reading Comprehension,ata Interpretation and Quantitative Aptitude.

is important to decide the percentage of time of the allotted twoours that each of these should get. If you allot more time, the all

mportant 'rhythm' will get disturbed.

have deliberately stopped short of saying one should allot time for

ections', as we normally call them in CAT.

his is what I did when I was preparing for CAT and, when I got the

aper, I saw it had three sections while I had been preparing all alongor four!

hankfully, I managed to stay calm and quickly identify whichuestions belonged to which category and maintain my timelocation.

CQs: Another dimension of decision making

he fact that most questions in CAT are MCQs or Multiple Choiceuestions further highlights the importance of decision making. Youre required to decide and choose the correct answer from the four orve options given to you.

gain, what is important is choosing the right option and not the timeat you spend 'solving' the problem at hand.

alculated guesses, for some questions, can prove to be very helpfulhen it comes to scoring quickly. However clichéd it may

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AT: Gear up for surprises

ound, selection by elimination really helps to get over some of the

roblems in double quick time.

hope you are able to make all the right decisions. Good luck!

anish Malhotra, 26, passed out of the National Institute of

ndustrial Engineering in 2003 and is currently working as aroject Leader with Caritor India, Bangalore.

Share your comments 

What do you think about the story? 

Read what others have to say: Number of User Comments: 1 

Sub: The Best Strategy 

Indeed, there can be no strategy, but still its better to have a plan (viz.

spending more time in a weaker area....) than being circumspect. 

Posted by Vivekanand 

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