Honing a Unique Strategy
With just 55 days* left for the CAT – the countdown has already begun. Are you ready with a befitting line of attack as yet?

By Jyoti K. Singh
Managing human resources in the present corporate environment is quite a Herculean task. But the very question of managing the resources comes up only if the selection is quite up-to-the mark. With a cutting edge competition spreading its wings to every sector, each and every organisation, irrespective of its controlling authority - government, semi-government, private, or proprietorship – tends to select knowledgeable individuals possessing the most suitable skill set so that they can befit the requirement quite aptly. Hence, to facilitate this selection, competitive exams are conducted in order to evaluate an applicant on required skills, clarity of basic concepts, mental serration and subject knowledge.

Thus, when it comes to select the future managers of the country – the key test namely the Computer Adaptive Test or the CAT has no exception. The procedure rather turns out to be tougher than the general ones. Due to these complexities, the IIMs hold a general CAT for all the individuals aspiring to become business managers. Now, like every other faculty member at your test preparation college, I would not give you the GYAN on why should a CAT aspirant do what – I would rather help you ‘Bell the CAT’ smartly for smartness is the only key to win this game.

“The CAT is not something to be scared of. It is just like any other test given that you know your basics and are a good time manager,” says Abhishek Gupta, product manager – National MBA Test Prep at a leading education corporate.

Now, what describes a good time manager is one who can distinguish the ‘Idle Time’ from ‘Unproductive Time’ during the test. To simplify this further, idle time is a phrase that denotes the time that was wasted on questions, which you could not attempt. Now, this can be labeled as good or bad, depending upon whether you deployed this time in assessing questions to be termed difficult or wasted it over the ones you knew were beyond your level. The Unproductive Time however stands for the duration spent over questions that went wrong. This is termed unproductive because despite the effort, the end result was negative marks, which tarnished your positive score as well. While going through the section wise analysis of his online CAT, a Delhi based student, who did not wish to be named, found that:

‘Out of the total 31 questions that I attempted 9 went wrong thereby causing me to lament over 22.6% and 24.4% of Idle and Unproductive time. In total, I was able to score 57 points only in a total time span of 135 minutes whereas the topper scored an 86 in 135 minutes.’

Thus, the total wasted effort here amounts to 57% of the total time, which reduces the productive time to 43% only. However, had he managed time in a better manner, the chances of success would have been manifold. “When it comes to CAT – the choice of doable questions over the ‘not my type’ ones acts as a major determinant of success,” adds Gupta.

Needless to say, effective time management is the thumb rule for cracking the online CAT. While interacting with lots of faculty members at various test prep schools about decoding the CAT, some suggestions were found to be quite oft repeated, which can serve as guidelines for proper management of your time during the test.

Allocation of marks
It is quintessential for you to keep in mind the marks allocated to a particular question before allotting a certain amount of time to it. Fish out the ones that have more worth than others and spend time accordingly over them. For example, while attempting the DI section, you must select your data set wisely. Select the sets that involve lesser calculations because if you select a set and attempt only two questions from it, the time wasted in reading and re-reading the set for making your interpretations would amount to idle time. On the contrary, if you select three sets only and attempt all the four sections, you gain 12 marks without wasting any time.

Pass on the Difficulties
While attempting the CAT, if you feel a dilemma over any question, just move on to the next one. Spending more time than allocated to any question of any worth may prove fatal although you can always come back to these leftovers in case you have time later. Moreover, struggling with a difficult question may also quite adversely affect your rhythm.

Start with the BEST
‘Well begun is half done’ holds true for Cat as well. Always set one section as your default one. This should be a section you have total expertise over. Start the paper with this only. But in a worst case, if the default section is too tough to be beyond your limits – switch over to the next one. “If you ask me about managing time during CAT, I would implore that do your R & D before the exam and not during it. One must spend 10 seconds per question reading it to analyse its level of difficulty. This way, you would end up spending 900 seconds amounting to 15 minutes that would help you decide where to start from and what to do next,” says Rajeev Ranjan, faculty, Indus World School of
Business.

Clear the Cut-Offs
Every section of the test relates to another in terms of difficulty. In the last few years, the verbal section has been relatively tougher hence the sectional cut-off remained quite low. Therefore, rather than breaking your head on verbal section – just do enough to clear the cutoff and spend some extra time over other sections to gain a better over-all score.

Taking Breathers
Take an RC breather during the test, that is, do not attempt more than one Reading Comprehension at a time for the toughness causes your concentration levels to dip resulting in careless errors. Hence, keep doing grammar between the passages so that your mind remains as fresh as at the beginning. Same stands true for the ‘quantitative aptitude’ section as well for doing this for an elongated time can also cause a sudden concentration dip. So, mix verbal and QA equally for better focus.

Stay Calm
Last, but not the least important is maintaining a certain amount of self-control leaving no scope for panic. But, this is easier said than done. One requires lots of practice to avoid feeling those butterflies in the stomach but if you have taken enough mocks, you would definitely come out in flying colors as you are quite used to a ‘CAT situation.’

What experts feel
R. Shiva Kumar, director, Career Launcher India Pvt. Ltd. says, "Last year the key element in CAT was the new Interface of Testing. All the focus was spent on ensuring that one gets comfortable with this format. CAT also went in with fewer questions ...60 Questions in 2 hours 15 minutes. This was a reduction of 20% questions, with a 10% reduction in the testing time.

Given the fact that there were fewer questions in CAT ...These were the responses from test takers-

• Many found it fairly comfortable attempting more than 45 Qs in the paper. A good amount also attempted more than 50 out of the 60 Qs.
• The paper was fairly easy. That meant the pressure of time that normally is attributed to CAT was not so relevant. There were not many who came out and said they were short of time.
• The DI section was found to be a little lengthy...In other words it needed more time than what was allocated for it.

All these observations of the past make me recommend the following to the students:
• CAT is not likely to be very different compared to last year. Both in terms of Level of difficulty as well as in Number of questions.
• Plan a test for 2 hours...Allocate the "15 min" extra towards the appropriate section at the end.
• Decide your time allocations based on what you are seeing in the "horizon"...Whether it is the IIMs or "the non IIMs"...
Your Time management if it is the case of the Non IIMs must be focused more towards maximizing than just the cutoffs...
I have seen a lot of people who are not in the "Zone: to crack the IIMs but have good prospects for the top Non IIM colleges tend to spoil their chances by poor time management...which comes from the need to spend more time on weaker sections to clear the cutoffs...
• One critical element in time management is the how to choose questions first ...If we go by the last year's Interface...One good option is to click through the entire paper...parallel to keeping a note of whether you want to do the question or not ...come back to them from the review page...The review button needs to be optimally used to maximise attempts... The rest is like a normal test...Target at least 45 attempts to be in the race ...for a call from the IIM.

Epilogue
In terms of clearing the test, what holds immense value is the degree of accuracy versus questions attempted. What matters the most in a CAT is not whether you did the paper or not but how ‘Correctly you attempted it within the GIVEN time.’

Over the past few years, the total number of questions at CAT has progressively been reduced from around 150 questions in 2003 to 60 questions in 2009. This has lead to a common belief that managing time is not that important any more. However, whereas the focus on “speed vs accuracy” has been transformed to “accuracy vs speed”, it is worthwhile to examine why managing time is still important in your preparation for CAT." He further adds, In the context of online CAT, one of the major deterrents in managing time effectively is the ability to read from the computer screen, especially for reading comprehension and data interpretation questions. In fact, this has been one of the major hurdles being faced by test-takers at CAT 2009. Imagine being faced with the data interpretation questions as the first 20 questions in CAT. For most, except those whose strength includes attempting data interpretation questions, it has the potential to jeopardise the time plan to spend approximately equal amounts of time in each section. Having spent more time on the data interpretation questions, you may find yourself running out of time for some of the easy questions in the verbal ability or the quantitative ability areas. Managing time well includes the discipline of sticking to a plan of leaving a question and moving on, if you tend to get stuck with it for more than 3 minutes, in the current context of CAT. The other major challenge in managing time in the online format is, for a question, how much work you do on the screen and how much you do on paper and pencil. It is important to note that the less you do on the paper, the more time you save in doing the same question. However, since accuracy is quite critical, reducing time should not be achieved at the cost of accuracy. You may want to discover your line-of-balance while you write the practice Proc Mock tests. Quite a few of us have a habit of marking or underlining words while reading a passage for reading comprehension. It is difficult to do so, on the computer screen. Hence, it may be useful for you to practice reading without marking. At best, in the initial period of habit transition, you may want to write the critical comprehension points on the paper. However, do not get addicted to writing down the entire passage back on the paper. The same may be done with the data interpretation questions as well as lengthy quantitative questions (if there are any). Let me share a few do’s and don’ts in the context of time management. Do’s: • Keep an eye on the clock at the top of the screen to check how much time is remaining. • Do check the number of questions attempted (meaning you have marked an answer choice) every 15 minutes - you must have attempted 4 to 5 questions every 15 minutes. • You must practice reading the daily newspaper on the computer screen – it enhances your ability to read and comprehend from the computer screen. • Do plan in such a way that you get enough time to go through all the questions at least 15 minutes before the scheduled close of test – allows you to go back and finish a couple of “half-attempted” questions. Don’ts • Do not panic when you have taken more time in solving a question; make sure you do not repeat the mistake. • Do not “fall in love’ with a question – skip it and move on after 2-3 minutes, if you feel you are not going anywhere. • Do not use more than one sheet of paper while writing a practice test – you are writing too much on paper, otherwise. • Do not get involved in jumping back and forth on questions, it increases time taken – do it in a row. Arindam Lahiri, Executive Director Indus World School of Business

I normally advise to all my students is to ‘Follow the law of Three.’ I always implore them to solve each question 3 times at least during their preparatory stage. Out of these three – the first solving of the question is counted as their attempt, the second stands for the solution and the third and the final one solves the purpose of analysis of the problem along with understanding its degree of difficulty. And this principle results in helping them mastering the concept, leaving no scope for doubt. Pawan Sharma, Head - Content Creation, MBA Test Prep – A leading education Corporate