CAT 2012 Preparation steps: How to analyze one’s performance in a mock test?

As we know practice leads to perfection, taking mock tests will help you practice and perform well. The mock tests are meant to be taken to understand your weakness and rectify your errors. While you take practice tests, you come to know that which are the areas which you have committed the mistake and the reason behind that. The more you know about your weak areas the more you will work on those areas. You need to identify if the error you’re making is once or consistent.

Thus, mock tests are no doubt very important and should be analyzed to understand one’s mistakes and to check whether weaknesses are being ironed out.

Important Facts:

• Mock tests are “MOCK” tests or practice tests that are taken in a “simulated” environment.
• Practice tests/mock tests tell you your level of preparation. That is why; if they point out to a certain weak link it should be taken care of immediately.
• Mock Tests are neither easy nor tough than the actual exam. They are simply unpredictable like the actual test.
• Do analyze your mistakes through mock tests but don’t take them to your heart and lose confidence or become over confident.
• Confidence is not dependent upon your performance in the final exam but it is rather a state of mind that is dependent on your attitude and perception.

Do practice with mock tests and achieve mission CAT 2012.

Author: MBARENDEZVOUS.COM

CAT 2012 : 5 Ways to prepare for Logical Reasoning

If you logically prepare for this part of the Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning section, scoring good percentile in CAT 2012 will not be that big an issue for you.

• To start with, go to the previous years’ CAT papers and try to understand the logic behind logical reasoning problems.
• Apart from solving previous year question papers, you should also solve as much mock CAT tests as possible.
• You should solve them regularly to get a good grip of it as ample practice should be there.
• At this stage, when there is only few months left for the real CAT Test, you should solve around 10 sets of logical reasoning questions every day.
• One more interesting way to prepare for this section is by regularly solving crossword puzzles, Sudoku, riddles etc. For this, you can pick out the leisure section of the daily newspaper and can also solve case lets from various books and puzzle sites on the internet.

Practice and prepare well to achieve mission CAT 2012

Author: MBARENDEZVOUS.COM

CAT 2012 : Plan your answering strategy

These are few points you must plan out before taking the CAT - 

• Which section, whether it is English, Quantitative Ability or Data Interpretation, you are going to attempt in the beginning, followed by which section and which in the end. Within these sections, what will be your order of attempting the various types of questions? For example, within the English section, will you do Reading Comprehension first or begin with the Verbal Ability part?
• What is your time allocation strategy? How much time do you plan to spend on each of the sections? In particular, do you plan to devote equal time to each section or slightly more time to the section that you are the strongest at?
• How will you respond to a differential marking scheme if that is specified? For example, if there are 2 mark and 1 mark questions, do you plan to attempt the 2 mark questions first? (You never know, when the CAT pattern is changed without any notification!)
• Do you plan to spend some time at the completion of the exam, cross-checking or verifying some of the answers, especially of those questions that you are not really sure of and have just estimated or guessed the answer?

Think Positive and act accordingly

You must understand that CAT is not impossible to crack. People have done it before and will continue to do it, so why not you? You just need to continue systematic preparation and CAT could be probably one of the easiest tests to crack. 

More than 150 B-Schools take CAT as a standard written test. Your idea of getting into a good B-School starts with CAT and such exams, and the route to the same is not as difficult as it is made out to be.

Timelines are the key

CAT is all about Time management. The most important part of any competitive exam is the strategy that you adopt. Given enough time, you will realize that you can solve almost all the problems in the mock test. The fact that the same has to be done within a fixed time and that too by making as few mistakes as possible is what makes the task challenging on the final CAT day.

Author: MBARENDEZVOUS.COM

CAT 2012: What are the eligibility criteria?

The eligibility criteria for appearing in CAT 2012 are as follows:

Minimum Eligibility:

Bachelor’s Degree, with at least 50% marks or equivalent CGPA [45% in case of the candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Differently Abled (DA) (It may also referred to as Persons with Disability (PWD) category)], awarded by any of the Universities incorporated by an act of the central or state legislature in India or other educational institutions established by an act of Parliament or declared to be deemed as a University under Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956, or possess an equivalent qualification recognized by the Ministry of HRD, Government of India.

Special Eligibility:

As per the Government of India requirements, 15% of the seats are reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) and 7½% for Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates.  27% of seats are reserved for Other Backward Classes (OBC) candidates belonging to the “non-creamy” layer.

Stay tuned to MBA Rendezvous and get latest updates with rich content on CAT 2012

Author: MBARENDEZVOUS.COM

CAT 2012: Preparation pattern

The next few months are very crucial time for those who are appearing for CAT 2012. Most of you would have spent the last few months ensuring that you are well-prepared for what is rightfully considered as one of the toughest and most competitive entrance exams in India. However, there are also many needless apprehensions that students sometimes fall victim to, like what if this year, the format changes and create confusion for many of us.

However, IIMs have always made sure to announce any type of change in the exam pattern well in advance to avoid havoc and confusion. Also, a careful study of the examination reveals that students have no real reason to worry. If you’ve prepared well, you really shouldn’t have any trouble coping with the any sort of pattern change.

The latest drastic change in the CAT pattern occurred in the year 2011 when the question paper came divided in two sections instead of 3.

CAT 2011 was separated into two different sections:

Section I – Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation.

Section II – Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning.

Out of the total examination time of 140 minutes, examinees were given 70 minutes to solve 30 questions within each section. Once the 70 minutes were over, test-takers were not able to go back and attempt the questions that they were not able to complete in the given time.

Get prepared an achieve mission CAT 2012.

Author: MBARENDEZVOUS.COM

CAT 2012 Preparation countdown

The countdown of CAT 2012 has already started for those candidates who have made CAT their ultimate destination. Although the registrations for CAT 2012 is yet to start but candidates have already started giving mock tests to get an idea of their level of preparation.

With few months left for CAT2012, it is high time to start taking your preparation to the next level. By now you must have completed at least the basic preparation. Now, the next step is to check your areas of concern and to identify your strength to chalk out a plan accordingly for the D-Day. The best technique to do so is obviously by taking mock tests. 

Many out there believe that mocks tests are mimic of the actual test as they are similar in the pattern and presentation but to be very true, the mock tests never mimic the actual test; rather they try to mimic its unpredictability more closely and that makes you confident enough of facing anything and everything on the D-Day. 

Go for mock tests and achieve mission CAT 2012.

Author: MBARENDEZVOUS.COM

CAT 2012: Tips and Tricks - Verbal Ability

The new computer-based testing format of CAT has created quite a vacuum for strategies to tackle the verbal section, especially in handling the often boring and jargon-rich reading comprehension (RC) passages. Even strong performers are bound to find it hard to strategies time management on RC-based questions. 

An RC passage on the computer poses some real challenges. Some of them are:

• There's no way to underline the keywords in the questions as well as in the passage.
• One has to scroll down the passage using a 'scroller' as the complete passage is not visible at a time.
• You can read only one question (and NOT all the questions in one go as is possible with the paper-based CAT) at a time.
• It is expected that a lot of time will be wasted when a student has to re-read the passage every time a new question appears.
• Moreover, it is easier to spot the right place to get an answer to a particular question on paper rather than on a computer screen.
• Result: Time taken per question is bound to rise and the accuracy is adversely affected if the test is attempted in rush.

Hence, the way to attempt an RC-based question on the computer screen should be tweaked in order to minimize possible wastage. 

Practice & practice and achieve mission CAT 2012.

Author: MBARENDEZVOUS.COM