Dear Folks!
Here are few prognosis of what CAT-2006 may look like –
1. No Change: It may actually entail no change from CAT-05, except for the time frame. As we all know that cut-off for IIM Calls was about 44-45 last year, with a huge number of IIM Call-getters between 44 & 50. This actually made CAT less relevant in second stage of selection process, as the performance in written test was not much differentiable. With increase in time frame, we can safely assume that this range of 44 to 50 would be widened to say about 50 to 65, affording more weightage to CAT performance even at second stage; as only cumulative performance is taken into consideration.
2. Change in Number of Questions: IIMs may increase the number of questions while maintaining difficulty level much the same as last year. Though, this seems less likely, if it happens, it will offer more choices to students and actually make test a bit easier. Also increased time limit would ease pressure to some extent.
3. Increase in Difficulty Level of Questions: IIMs may maintain the number of questions same as last year and increase the difficulty level of questions. More likely to happen, this would further tilt balance in favour of more logical and analytical minds. This would also bring out some new structure of questions – particularly in verbal section – requiring better comprehension, and greater reasoning ability.
4. Increase in difficulty level may extend the differential marking system to include even 3 marks questions or to making some questions compulsory. Making questions compulsory in a sense that not attempting such questions would earn greater negative marking than even getting them wrong would.
5. If we analyze the changing pattern of CAT over the years, few things become very apparent –
· Ability to deal with pressure is a key ability which is being tested more and more with every passing CAT.
· Time management and strategy have become singularly most important aspects of successful attempt at CAT.
· DI-Reasoning section has not only increased in difficulty, it now seeks organizational and decision making skills more than row calculations. Ability to deal with huge amount of obscure data, and ability to make sense out of it - is what is key to performance in this section. Remember tables with some missing values, or finding the range of value and answering maximum or minimum values…
· Verbal section too has over the years moved away from bare memorizing word-lists to more analytical and logical question types. Questions on contextual usage, on para-jumbling, on paragraph summary, on paragraph completion… don’t all these require very good understanding of language and a good deal of logical reasoning ability?
· Quants section has also scaled few notches on difficulty ladder. In good old days, knowledge of concepts and formulas was sufficient answer many questions correctly, whereas today what is required is the ability to apply this knowledge to various situations and conditions. This again requires very good analytical skills to be able to solve good number of questions in CAT.
Whatever the CAT may be like, one who would be able to bell this CAT would be the one who does not approach CAT with any preconceived notion of how it is going to be.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
My Strategy for CAT-2006 (CAT-06)
Dear Folks!
It's exactly 32 days to CAT-2006, and I am thinking of my strategy for the upcoming CAT Exam.
I have, of course, prepared a strategy for this year…
The first thing, I am continuously thinking that I can make it… I am working on my attitude… telling myself… that it’s there in me. I need to believe in myself that it’s not impossible for me… and that I was too close last year itself… Everyday I am day-dreaming of what I would feel like seeing my score-card mentioning 100 percentile… everyday I am making plans to prepare my post to this blog once I receive 100 percentile…
The next big thing that I am doing for this year’s CAT is of course working on my comprehension of difficult texts… haven’t yet been able to forget “Derrida”… I know, a very good comprehension is my key to performing not only in verbal section, but even Quants and DI sections. This year, I have read about five novels and one classic, have made it a habit to read ‘Speaking Tree’ in The Times of India, am writing some précis, reading some of the difficult texts twice or may be even thrice… - This helps me understand how big or small is the gap in my comprehension…. By the way, haven’t I been prophesying all these to my students? Then shouldn’t I too must observe a strict discipline in my pursuit of realizing my dream? Also I understand, that my ability in quants section affords me certain logical and analytical thought process. So I must identify question types in verbal section which require logical thought process… Here, I have shortlisted questions on Para-Jumble, Paragraph Completion, Contextual usage of words, and Reading Comprehension… Up goes grammar questions… and may be even multiple usage of words too… Also I have decided to give about 55 minutes to verbal section, as I have decided not to be defensive in CAT… Not to give more time to my favourite section… but to one where I can get maximum trade-off… Though Quants is my favourite section, I must target a score of at least 30 in verbal section…
For Quants too, I d have thought of some kind of strategy – that I must not be required to read any question second time. Most students waste time in multiple readings of questions in CAT, instead I would focus on complete comprehension the first time I read a question – Though this has been my style for many years, nevertheless. Secondly I would ensure that I read all the questions in allotted 50 minutes to the section. Also I have decided to fix a time limit for 1 mark questions depending upon the number of 1 mark questions. When we do not fix time limit as such, we end up spending lot of time on 1 mark questions which do not offer a good trade-off. Quants doesn’t worry me much… but still, IIMs can surprise anybody and everybody…
When it comes to DI and Reasoning questions, once again similar time division online of quants section will have to be done. But I must be choosy about the sets that I choose among two marks questions… they can make or break my dream…
Finally, I am not going to take any question or question-set as a challenge to my competency, neither am I going to mismanage my time. Though I understand that I will have to be flexible in my time allocation to various sections… that part I leave to CAT – as in I would vary time depending on how am I moving through the exam…
CAT-06 is gonna be my day...
It's exactly 32 days to CAT-2006, and I am thinking of my strategy for the upcoming CAT Exam.
I have, of course, prepared a strategy for this year…
The first thing, I am continuously thinking that I can make it… I am working on my attitude… telling myself… that it’s there in me. I need to believe in myself that it’s not impossible for me… and that I was too close last year itself… Everyday I am day-dreaming of what I would feel like seeing my score-card mentioning 100 percentile… everyday I am making plans to prepare my post to this blog once I receive 100 percentile…
The next big thing that I am doing for this year’s CAT is of course working on my comprehension of difficult texts… haven’t yet been able to forget “Derrida”… I know, a very good comprehension is my key to performing not only in verbal section, but even Quants and DI sections. This year, I have read about five novels and one classic, have made it a habit to read ‘Speaking Tree’ in The Times of India, am writing some précis, reading some of the difficult texts twice or may be even thrice… - This helps me understand how big or small is the gap in my comprehension…. By the way, haven’t I been prophesying all these to my students? Then shouldn’t I too must observe a strict discipline in my pursuit of realizing my dream? Also I understand, that my ability in quants section affords me certain logical and analytical thought process. So I must identify question types in verbal section which require logical thought process… Here, I have shortlisted questions on Para-Jumble, Paragraph Completion, Contextual usage of words, and Reading Comprehension… Up goes grammar questions… and may be even multiple usage of words too… Also I have decided to give about 55 minutes to verbal section, as I have decided not to be defensive in CAT… Not to give more time to my favourite section… but to one where I can get maximum trade-off… Though Quants is my favourite section, I must target a score of at least 30 in verbal section…
For Quants too, I d have thought of some kind of strategy – that I must not be required to read any question second time. Most students waste time in multiple readings of questions in CAT, instead I would focus on complete comprehension the first time I read a question – Though this has been my style for many years, nevertheless. Secondly I would ensure that I read all the questions in allotted 50 minutes to the section. Also I have decided to fix a time limit for 1 mark questions depending upon the number of 1 mark questions. When we do not fix time limit as such, we end up spending lot of time on 1 mark questions which do not offer a good trade-off. Quants doesn’t worry me much… but still, IIMs can surprise anybody and everybody…
When it comes to DI and Reasoning questions, once again similar time division online of quants section will have to be done. But I must be choosy about the sets that I choose among two marks questions… they can make or break my dream…
Finally, I am not going to take any question or question-set as a challenge to my competency, neither am I going to mismanage my time. Though I understand that I will have to be flexible in my time allocation to various sections… that part I leave to CAT – as in I would vary time depending on how am I moving through the exam…
CAT-06 is gonna be my day...
Monday, October 16, 2006
My Experiences with CAT-2005 (CAT-05)
Reported at 10:30, the test was to start at 11:00. This half an hour passed as an eternity since was never habituated to sit idle for so long. Nevertheless, found something that could be done - see through the cover page and identify how many questions, sections are there in the test. Could very well make out that the test had three sections of 50 marks each with 30 questions each - 10 of which should be 1 mark questions, and 20 of two marks questions. This also sent a shiver down the body as only 90 questions definitely meant a tougher test - but then the thought came - would it not make it easier for me to score 100 percentile? And the fears were cast aside. I decided that I would not give more than 12 minutes to 1 mark questions in each section, and that I must get all of them done and done right – if I were to score 100 percentile.
Still I had 15 minutes to kill, and then set out to carry out another of my pass-time activity - face reading of people around me. The girl next to me seemed average or may be good with little short on confidence. Some seemed unnecessarily very hyper active, some seemed tense. But one lady in far corner caught my attention as she seemed very certain of herself and determined. Well, the safest part of face reading in such circumstances is that you never get to verify your inferences, and so you can always feel you were right.
I set my watch to 11:00, and pulled out the key so that when the invigilater signals, I can push the key back in position and start my watch.
And the supervisor signaled the test to start. And I immediately started with Quants section as that being my forte, I could solve 9 questions in about 12 minutes, and was through with 1 mark questions in this section. But Alas! I forgot to start my watch at the signal to start the test. And I didn’t know exact time that I took for the section. This mistake was sure to cause me lot of anxiety through the test.
Then I continued with the test in sequential order till I came to the passage on “Derrida”, and yes it was this passage that cost me my dream of 100 percentile. I started reading the passage, and made the mistake of not taking pause after reading a couple of sentences. A must pause that I suggest all my students was ignored by me out of my overconfidence in comprehension. I read about one-third of the passage without understanding much and thought of leaving that passage. And I made another mistake – took it as a challenge. Another mistake that I often warn my students against. I forgot that IIMs can surprise anybody and everybody. I took that passage as a test of my comprehension, and continued reading that and answering questions. It took me about full 10 minutes to do that passage, and got 1 right and 3 wrongs in the passage. 10 minutes and ZERO marks, and up went my dream of scoring 100 percentile.
DI and reasoning section was once again cool, owing to my comprehension of language, analytical skills and calculation speed.
My reading speed is no great, say 280-300 words per minute; but it’s my comprehension that always keeps me in good stead. It is this comprehending ability that ensures that I never have to read a maths question second time. Also analyzing DI and reasoning questions becomes much easy. Good comprehension saves a lot of time in CAT.
My phenomenal calculation speed is also an ability that helps me in such exams. Though CAT is continuously moving away from sheer calculation speed towards intelligent approaches; it is this ability that makes me comfortable with numbers, and helps me deal with multitude of information mentally – without the need for writing down everything. This helped me save much time in CAT.
While these were at the core of my ability to score 100 percentile, my undoing was to rely heavily on my competency, and mismanagement of my time.
Final results were 99.97 percentile in CAT-05, with 99.98 percentile in Quants, 98.74 percentile in DI-Logic, and 98.47 percentile in Verbal. Let alone for "Derrida", my 100 percentile dream would have come true...
This year, am again going for CAT, to realize my dream of getting 100 percentile.
Yes, I would like to mention one fact here that, though I am applying for CAT, am not marking any program in the application form so that I do not get a call at the expense of a genuine applicant.
Still I had 15 minutes to kill, and then set out to carry out another of my pass-time activity - face reading of people around me. The girl next to me seemed average or may be good with little short on confidence. Some seemed unnecessarily very hyper active, some seemed tense. But one lady in far corner caught my attention as she seemed very certain of herself and determined. Well, the safest part of face reading in such circumstances is that you never get to verify your inferences, and so you can always feel you were right.
I set my watch to 11:00, and pulled out the key so that when the invigilater signals, I can push the key back in position and start my watch.
And the supervisor signaled the test to start. And I immediately started with Quants section as that being my forte, I could solve 9 questions in about 12 minutes, and was through with 1 mark questions in this section. But Alas! I forgot to start my watch at the signal to start the test. And I didn’t know exact time that I took for the section. This mistake was sure to cause me lot of anxiety through the test.
Then I continued with the test in sequential order till I came to the passage on “Derrida”, and yes it was this passage that cost me my dream of 100 percentile. I started reading the passage, and made the mistake of not taking pause after reading a couple of sentences. A must pause that I suggest all my students was ignored by me out of my overconfidence in comprehension. I read about one-third of the passage without understanding much and thought of leaving that passage. And I made another mistake – took it as a challenge. Another mistake that I often warn my students against. I forgot that IIMs can surprise anybody and everybody. I took that passage as a test of my comprehension, and continued reading that and answering questions. It took me about full 10 minutes to do that passage, and got 1 right and 3 wrongs in the passage. 10 minutes and ZERO marks, and up went my dream of scoring 100 percentile.
DI and reasoning section was once again cool, owing to my comprehension of language, analytical skills and calculation speed.
My reading speed is no great, say 280-300 words per minute; but it’s my comprehension that always keeps me in good stead. It is this comprehending ability that ensures that I never have to read a maths question second time. Also analyzing DI and reasoning questions becomes much easy. Good comprehension saves a lot of time in CAT.
My phenomenal calculation speed is also an ability that helps me in such exams. Though CAT is continuously moving away from sheer calculation speed towards intelligent approaches; it is this ability that makes me comfortable with numbers, and helps me deal with multitude of information mentally – without the need for writing down everything. This helped me save much time in CAT.
While these were at the core of my ability to score 100 percentile, my undoing was to rely heavily on my competency, and mismanagement of my time.
Final results were 99.97 percentile in CAT-05, with 99.98 percentile in Quants, 98.74 percentile in DI-Logic, and 98.47 percentile in Verbal. Let alone for "Derrida", my 100 percentile dream would have come true...
This year, am again going for CAT, to realize my dream of getting 100 percentile.
Yes, I would like to mention one fact here that, though I am applying for CAT, am not marking any program in the application form so that I do not get a call at the expense of a genuine applicant.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
