How to prepare for CAT

1. CAT Strategy for Beginners Live One-to-One Online CAT Classes by IIM Alumni www.spanedea.com

2. CAT Preparation • Preparation is an important component of the key that unlocks the door to a seat in a good management institute - IIMs • CAT Preparation requires hard work, meticulous planning and systematic implementation • A correct mix of theory and concepts, practice, simulated testing and detailed analysis www.spanedea.com

3. Analyze, Understand & Plan the preparation • Preparing for the exam • 3 levels of preparation required to crack the CAT. • Knowledge • Exam Strategy • Confidence and Performance under pressure • 3 Steps to ACE CAT • Step-1 Learn all about CAT • Step-2 Do Self Analysis for CAT • Step-3 Execution: Mastering your strengths and improving on your Weaknesses  • Study Plan • Never Prioritize topics – study all • What is prepared & what needs to be learned • Time Management   • Set accomplishable goals • Stick to your plan  www.spanedea.com

4. 8 important steps for CAT Prep • Identify where you stand • Build the Foundation - build the basics | Revise the fundamentals • Study Plan and Time Management • Sectional Tests and Exercises • Start acing mocks • Evaluation and analysis • Know your strengths, work on your weaknesses • Accuracy and speed: the perfect mixture • Shortcuts and strategies www.spanedea.com

5. Identify where you stand • Where to start? • The ideal way to start preparing for any exam is by taking a diagnostic test • Diagnostic test should ideally be of similar type as the previous CAT exam. • You may take the test online/offline. • Detailed analysis on the results www.spanedea.com

6. Build the Foundation - Revise the fundamentals • Understand and Develop basic concepts tested in the CAT • Understand different types of questions asked in each section • Gauge your understanding by solving questions for each Concept • Attempt extra practice problems on each concept to go to Pro Level. • Finally, move on to actual past CAT questions – to develop the CAT mindset www.spanedea.com

7. Study Plan and Time Management • Time is precious, while everyone has the same amount of time, only those who manage it well crack the CAT. • Budget your time – Create a study plan to manage the time effectively and efficiently. • Give plenty of time for each task and concept • Use a calendar to set specific deadlines. • Don’t get nervous over deadlines; stay calm and keep on track. www.spanedea.com

8. Sectional Tests and exercises • Start taking sectional tests and time based exercises. • At least 2-3 concept or sectional tests a week • See where you stand and measure improvement.  • Analyze the tests in detail to check: • Where have you gone wrong? • Why have you gone wrong? • Solutions to questions that you did not attempt to identify the ones that you could have attempted. • Analyze your performance after every test you take. www.spanedea.com

9. Start acing mocks • Start taking mocks once every week to frame a full proof strategy. • Gauge your performance – weakness and strengths • Mock scores will also help you identify your aim and strategy for the last few months before CAT • Start your mocks even if you have not completed the chapters www.spanedea.com

10. Evaluation and analysis • All the tests taken must be evaluated properly and analysed. • Have a record on a spreadsheet of all the tests that you take • Track your performance section wise and concept wise • Create a flowchart which will help you know where you stand and how much improvement you need in every section.  • Analysis should include your attempted, non-attempted questions.  Silly mistakes and guess work attempts. • Such analysis will shed light on your strengths and weaknesses. • Concentrate on where you need to improve www.spanedea.com

11. Know your strengths, work on your weaknesses • Discover the areas, where you are strong and where there is a room for improvement • Capitalize on your strengths and get rid of your weaknesses. • Challenge yourself by re-practicing problems in weak areas • Make stronger area into the strongest and work towards improving the weaker sections. • Always keep yourself motivated; do not stress yourself, by studying all the time. • Over dosage often, as they say – kills. • How to find your strength & weaknesses – Simply pickup a past years CAT exam papers • Attempt as many questions as you can without putting the time limit in one • Attempt which ever you are confident of, don't make any blind guess for any of the questions and make calculated guess • Check your answers and attempts. • Write down your overall score, along with sectional score • Repeat step 1-4 for 4 more past year CAT paper www.spanedea.com

12. Accuracy and speed: the perfect mixture • CAT is not about solving 60 questions in 140 minutes. • It is about solving 40 to 45 questions with 85 to 90 percent accuracy. • Attempting all the questions is not the mark of your achievement in CAT • Accuracy is a distinguishing factor among 99+ percentile • Focusing on accuracy may lead to spending more than average time on the questions • Spending more time on one problem could cause panic towards the end of the exam. • An optimum mix of both accuracy and speed is desired. www.spanedea.com

13. Shortcuts and strategies • Try to find strategies and shortcuts for different sections and concepts. • Increase your speed, improve your accuracy and reduce time per question. • Collective studies with your friends and exchange ideas and shortcuts with each other. • A common pitfall is learning the tricks without understanding them. • Best solution is to derive and develop tricks yourself from the basic principles. www.spanedea.com

14. Section Wise Preparation www.spanedea.com

15. Crack CAT • Cracking CAT is all about time management and accuracy • No need to answer all the questions • Crack the maximum questions in what your are confident about • Crack the minimum required in your weak sections to clear cutoffs • Division of time so as to get the maximum out of the paper • Initial phase is building up concepts followed by extensive practice, revision and mock tests • Work diligently towards your goal, a great CAT score • Prepare through small, well-planned steps. Accomplish each step; build upon them. • Try out various exam strategies in the practice tests and then adopt the one which you feel suits your abilities the best www.spanedea.com

16. Quantitative Ability • Solving a particular problem accurately in the least possible time matters the most • Lot of practice to build up good speed, • Solve problems fast from basic principles and tricks • Understand the formulae well rather than just remembering them. • Check for model answers; there is always a better method to solve problems. • Go over a concept again in detail, if you are making conceptual mistakes in this phase. • Improve your speed and accuracy leading to a high percentile in this section. www.spanedea.com

17. Logical Reasoning & Data Interpretation •  Solve as many problems of all the different types as you can to improve speed and accuracy. • Master the art to transfer data on screen to the rough sheet smartly while reading the question set • Understanding which data is useful - large parts of the data provided are NOT useful and redundant • Learn to quickly get approximate answers by rounding off to two decimals and match them with the correct option  • Check for model answers always; there is always a better method for processing data and solving the problem. www.spanedea.com

18. Verbal Ability: • Good vocabulary and a good reading speed is most important. • Start reading up articles on a variety of topics like science, philosophy, arts, languages etc. From various magazines and newspapers online. • Improve your reading speed and grasping the important concepts in short articles • Always note down the new words and their meaning to build up your vocabulary • For grammar, go through all the basic rules and the common mistakes. • Summarizing a paragraph and arranging sentences requires a lot of practice, and always go through the reasoning given in the sample answers. • For RC, there are two approaches • First is reading the whole passage before answering any question and • Second is going through questions first before reading the passage. • Try out both the approaches and picking up the one you feel the most comfortable with. • Many 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. www.spanedea.com

19. Create  a Study Plan • Develop a realistic plan according to your needs and schedule, and supports the way you learn. • Study plan allows you to learn at your own pace • Create a plan to help you study effectively and minimize stress during last month of preparation • The first step is to figure out how much time and effort you must dedicate to studying for the exam by asking the following questions: • How much material do you need to cover? • How difficult is the material? • How much time is available? • Do you have any other priorities during the study period? • What is the format of the exam? • How important is the exam? • What is your performance target for the exam? www.spanedea.com

20. Work life balance • Keep yourselves distressed • Balance your work/study with preparation. • Be genuine to yourself and spend time every day regularly in a systematic manner • Take it slow and do not garble all the information. • Work your way through different types of problems and keep track of your performance in every possible area • It’s about ‘You’ and you know better about yourself; device a strategy that works for you • Keep fine tuning the strategy, until you get better results www.spanedea.com

21. Special advice – final year students • Preparing for CAT & other MBA exams • Graduation marks plays a major role in selection process and also in whole career • Don’t be complacent about graduation studies due to the CAT preparation • Graduation performance reflects a candidate’s sincerity, dedication & hard work towards their career • Getting a low score after spending 4 years is considered as immature and not serious towards career • Complete graduation with the good zeal www.spanedea.com

22. Final Words • CAT is a tough exam and you need to train your brain for it. • The key to success is training your mind to think differently. • Get acquainted with both the content and the length of the test. • CAT is not rocket science; it just requires a lot of discipline. • CAT is a very logical exam and if you are good with logic you should be able to do reasonably well. • The challenge is not to master all concepts, or to do all problems rightly; the challenge is to maximize the score • You don’t need to reinvent the wheel; all you have to do is follow a plan which the high CAT scorers use and customize it to suit your needs. • NGUFO = (Never Give Up - Fight On) www.spanedea.com

23. About SPANEDEA “Every learner is unique, and so is every learning situation!” • SPANEDEA is an interactive learning platform through live video and audio and a virtual blackboard • Founded in 2011 by IIM Bangalore 1998 batch alumni – Sanjay Bhadra, NitinBansal • Based in Mumbai, India Get more information at: http://www.spanedea.com/CAT www.spanedea.com

24. Why Learn Online • Customized learning from the convenience of their location. • Sessions/course customized to particular students need • Convenience - Convenient timing • Comfort - At comfort of your place, Spend less time on traveling and more time to learn • Teacher’s personalized teaching -1on1 live teaching through internet, • Modular course content – ebooks, interactive and customized content/ courses • Quality – best quality teachers • Availability – qualified teacher available all the time www.spanedea.com

25. Benefits to students • Choice – chose teachers, select courses, • Precision – exactly what is required, instead of needless 'full' • Personalization – my weaknesses at my pace, customize your own course • Doubt clearing – interactive discussion required for doubt clearing • Tutor provides comfort – provides the invaluable hand-holding • Sufficient practice – pre and post session quizzes, full exams • More focus on concepts – concept building www.spanedea.com

26. SPANEDEA, Openedex India Pvt. Ltd., 703, C-Wing, Mangalya, Andheri (E), Mumbai-400059, India Thank You ! www.spanedea.com For more information on CAT - http://www.spanedea.com/CAT www.spanedea.com