let me briefly outline how one should go about preparing for each section:
Quantitative Ability:
This is the section where engineering students tend to do quite well. What matters the most in this section is solving a particular problem in the least possible time. With a good background in mathematics and maybe with a lot of practice to build up good speed, it is always possible to solve problems fast just from basic principles, but knowing some tricks really helps. A common pitfall is learning the tricks without understanding them, and I would recommend deriving them yourself from the basic principles to gain a thorough understanding.
Preparation for this section should begin with refreshing all the basic concepts and solving various problems on these topics. Understand the formulae well rather than just remembering them. In the initial phase, make sure that you are able to solve all the questions no matter how much time it takes. While checking your answers, go through the model solution for all the questions- even the ones where you got your answer right, as there is always the chance of coming across a better method.
Once you are done with all the concepts, the next phase is improving the speed. This comes with a lot of practice and always analyzing solutions. In areas like Combinatorics and Work-Time, your speed increases considerably with practice. It is also important to note that if you are not able to solve a problem or if you make conceptual mistakes in this phase, go over a concept again in detail. With this approach, you will improve your speed and accuracy leading to a high percentile in this section.
Data Interpretation:
Preparing for this section is solving as many problems of all the different types as you can to improve speed and accuracy. It is important to keep in mind the following points:
First thing is mastering the art to transfer data on screen to the rough sheet smartly while reading the question set, which saves a lot of time. Identify the question sets which you can solve in the least amount of time per question, and solve them first. To do that, looking at all the question sets quickly before solving any of them is important.
Often large parts of the data provided are not useful in answering the questions. So develop the ability to identify the useful data by going through the question. For the problems based on numerical data involving tedious calculations, learn to quickly get approximate answers by rounding off to two decimals and match them with the correct option.
There is one last thing I would like to mention. I already discussed it for quant, but works better for this section: Always go through the model answers for a question set no matter whether you get it right or wrong for the same reasons as in quant: a better method for processing data and solving the problem is always useful.
Verbal Ability:
The two most important requirements for doing well in this section are good vocabulary and a good reading speed. So in the next couple of months, start reading up articles on a variety of topics like science, philosophy, arts, languages etc. from various magazines and newspapers. This will help you improve your reading speed and grasping the important concepts in short articles similar to the ones in the CAT exam paper. Make sure that you always note down the new words that you come across and their meaning. This will build up your vocabulary as well thus setting up good foundation for getting a good percentile in VA and RC.
For improving vocabulary, I have found word lists useful in the past myself, but they should be finished by the end of April. For grammar, go through all the basic rules and the common mistakes. Looking at options also helps in figuring out the correct set of sentences in grammar questions. Summarizing a paragraph and arranging sentences requires a lot of practice, and always go through the reasoning given in the sample answers. Since the number types of questions that can be asked is limited, try to solve as many questions of each type as you can. Amongst all the three sections, I think practice helps the most in VA-RC.
For RC, there are two approaches that people take. First is reading the whole passage before answering any question and second is going through questions first before reading the passage. I would recommend trying out both the approaches and picking up the one you feel the most comfortable with. When the number of questions is very high, you need to smartly leave out the RCs which take up more time and where accuracy could be low. This ability comes with practice.
There are two last comments I want to make about this section. First, this is the section where you do not need to make any calculations, so speed is the highest. Thus, it could be finished in less time as compared to the other two. Keep this in mind when you start giving tests and pace yourself accordingly. The last tip is that often you will come across questions in RC/Summary/Ordering where two answers are very close. Identifying the correct one comes from identifying the one which is not correct, as one answer is slightly wrong. The ability to figure this out comes from practice and analyzing the solutions.
Overall, practice well for all three sections. Initial phase is building up concepts which should be the next couple of months followed by extensive practice, revision and mock tests. Try out various exam strategies in the practice tests and then adopt the one which you feel suits your abilities the best. And if you work diligently towards your goal, a great CAT score in all three sections is waiting for you come this time next year!
shashank.samant
About me:
I did my B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay in 2009. I am currently working with Morgan Stanley in the Quantiitative Finance domain. I am a big football fan, and also love to travel round the world to see different places and meet new people.
Quantitative Ability:
This is the section where engineering students tend to do quite well. What matters the most in this section is solving a particular problem in the least possible time. With a good background in mathematics and maybe with a lot of practice to build up good speed, it is always possible to solve problems fast just from basic principles, but knowing some tricks really helps. A common pitfall is learning the tricks without understanding them, and I would recommend deriving them yourself from the basic principles to gain a thorough understanding.
Preparation for this section should begin with refreshing all the basic concepts and solving various problems on these topics. Understand the formulae well rather than just remembering them. In the initial phase, make sure that you are able to solve all the questions no matter how much time it takes. While checking your answers, go through the model solution for all the questions- even the ones where you got your answer right, as there is always the chance of coming across a better method.
Once you are done with all the concepts, the next phase is improving the speed. This comes with a lot of practice and always analyzing solutions. In areas like Combinatorics and Work-Time, your speed increases considerably with practice. It is also important to note that if you are not able to solve a problem or if you make conceptual mistakes in this phase, go over a concept again in detail. With this approach, you will improve your speed and accuracy leading to a high percentile in this section.
Data Interpretation:
Preparing for this section is solving as many problems of all the different types as you can to improve speed and accuracy. It is important to keep in mind the following points:
First thing is mastering the art to transfer data on screen to the rough sheet smartly while reading the question set, which saves a lot of time. Identify the question sets which you can solve in the least amount of time per question, and solve them first. To do that, looking at all the question sets quickly before solving any of them is important.
Often large parts of the data provided are not useful in answering the questions. So develop the ability to identify the useful data by going through the question. For the problems based on numerical data involving tedious calculations, learn to quickly get approximate answers by rounding off to two decimals and match them with the correct option.
There is one last thing I would like to mention. I already discussed it for quant, but works better for this section: Always go through the model answers for a question set no matter whether you get it right or wrong for the same reasons as in quant: a better method for processing data and solving the problem is always useful.
Verbal Ability:
The two most important requirements for doing well in this section are good vocabulary and a good reading speed. So in the next couple of months, start reading up articles on a variety of topics like science, philosophy, arts, languages etc. from various magazines and newspapers. This will help you improve your reading speed and grasping the important concepts in short articles similar to the ones in the CAT exam paper. Make sure that you always note down the new words that you come across and their meaning. This will build up your vocabulary as well thus setting up good foundation for getting a good percentile in VA and RC.
For improving vocabulary, I have found word lists useful in the past myself, but they should be finished by the end of April. For grammar, go through all the basic rules and the common mistakes. Looking at options also helps in figuring out the correct set of sentences in grammar questions. Summarizing a paragraph and arranging sentences requires a lot of practice, and always go through the reasoning given in the sample answers. Since the number types of questions that can be asked is limited, try to solve as many questions of each type as you can. Amongst all the three sections, I think practice helps the most in VA-RC.
For RC, there are two approaches that people take. First is reading the whole passage before answering any question and second is going through questions first before reading the passage. I would recommend trying out both the approaches and picking up the one you feel the most comfortable with. When the number of questions is very high, you need to smartly leave out the RCs which take up more time and where accuracy could be low. This ability comes with practice.
There are two last comments I want to make about this section. First, this is the section where you do not need to make any calculations, so speed is the highest. Thus, it could be finished in less time as compared to the other two. Keep this in mind when you start giving tests and pace yourself accordingly. The last tip is that often you will come across questions in RC/Summary/Ordering where two answers are very close. Identifying the correct one comes from identifying the one which is not correct, as one answer is slightly wrong. The ability to figure this out comes from practice and analyzing the solutions.
Overall, practice well for all three sections. Initial phase is building up concepts which should be the next couple of months followed by extensive practice, revision and mock tests. Try out various exam strategies in the practice tests and then adopt the one which you feel suits your abilities the best. And if you work diligently towards your goal, a great CAT score in all three sections is waiting for you come this time next year!
shashank.samant
About me:
I did my B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay in 2009. I am currently working with Morgan Stanley in the Quantiitative Finance domain. I am a big football fan, and also love to travel round the world to see different places and meet new people.
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