In an online chat with readers on November 11, ARKS Srinivas, ex-director of T.I.M.E. addressed reader queries related to cracking CAT and other b-school exams. For those who missed the live chat, here's the unedited transcript.
ARKS Srinivas says, Dear Friends, I am back again to answer further queries and address concerns. ARKS Srinivas
shamsun asked, hello sir, i appeared for CAT this year and i wasnt happy with my performance. i am planning to appear for CAT next year. how early should i start preparing? what should my strategy be?
ARKS Srinivas answers, at 2011-11-11 16:00:11Dear Shamsun, While it is entirely possible that you may actually have not done well, since this is a relative grading exam, it may well be good enough to get into a Good B School. Also, there are other exams such as XAT and even NMAT (if you are considering one) to work towards. Unless your target is only the IIMs, you should first look at what is in store this year (wasting one year is not always a good option). However, in the event you want to prepare once again, you probably should start as early as possible, say Jan itself.
dhavalcat asked, hi sir... dhaval here...i think i answered 20 correct in section 1 and 22 in section 2. how much u think i will score? will i get into a good college?
ARKS Srinivas answers, Hi Dhaval, if you can get 20 and 22 correct in both these sections, notwithstanding your mistakes your percentile would be pretty high. Infact, it should definitely be more than 99 percentile (for such scores!!!).
Sarvesh asked, sir could u pls tell me how to crack cat in 3 months? i will be appearing next year
ARKS Srinivas answers, I guess you should ask this questions 3 months before CAT. You would forget anything that is written here anyway!
HiPunit asked, I have goofed up big time. My category was wrongly mentioneed as ST but I am from General Category My Admit Card has ST Category listed. Will they allow me to appear for CAT?
ARKS Srinivas answers, They will only if you take the ST certificate with you. Even if they allow you to appear, it is unlikely that it would be useful as the category would have been frozen (fixed). Try reaching the prometric guys and ask them to change the same.
HiPunit asked, Please answer. I have my slot tomorrow morning
ARKS Srinivas answers, Try to reach their helpline (though it may be of little help). But do go to the centre and try writing. All the best.
Hi Punit asked, Thanks,may god be kind enough to allow me to write CAT
ARKS Srinivas answers, Punit, You should not appear weak. And say that it probably was not your mistake in the first place.
joshua asked, what is the right way to approach the exam? solving the easier ones first and pay attention on accuracy or answering maximum questions?
ARKS Srinivas answers, Since there would be time enough to look at almost all questions, you should ensure that every question that can be solved should be solved. Do the paper in two rounds. In the first round, allocate around 40 minutes wherein the idea should be to go through every question and answer all the ones that can be done within a minute. So easy questions can be tackled that way. And while doing that, please mark those questions which appear solvable but may take time. This will ensure that in the second round of 30 minutes, you would be able to go to the marked questions and solve all those first. And if there is time remaining, you can solve other questions which were left unsolved till then. For RC, see that you give a separate time limit within the 70 minutes of that section.
Illustration: Dominic Xavier
ARKS Srinivas says, Dear Friends, I am back again to answer further queries and address concerns. ARKS Srinivas
shamsun asked, hello sir, i appeared for CAT this year and i wasnt happy with my performance. i am planning to appear for CAT next year. how early should i start preparing? what should my strategy be?
ARKS Srinivas answers, at 2011-11-11 16:00:11Dear Shamsun, While it is entirely possible that you may actually have not done well, since this is a relative grading exam, it may well be good enough to get into a Good B School. Also, there are other exams such as XAT and even NMAT (if you are considering one) to work towards. Unless your target is only the IIMs, you should first look at what is in store this year (wasting one year is not always a good option). However, in the event you want to prepare once again, you probably should start as early as possible, say Jan itself.
dhavalcat asked, hi sir... dhaval here...i think i answered 20 correct in section 1 and 22 in section 2. how much u think i will score? will i get into a good college?
ARKS Srinivas answers, Hi Dhaval, if you can get 20 and 22 correct in both these sections, notwithstanding your mistakes your percentile would be pretty high. Infact, it should definitely be more than 99 percentile (for such scores!!!).
Sarvesh asked, sir could u pls tell me how to crack cat in 3 months? i will be appearing next year
ARKS Srinivas answers, I guess you should ask this questions 3 months before CAT. You would forget anything that is written here anyway!
HiPunit asked, I have goofed up big time. My category was wrongly mentioneed as ST but I am from General Category My Admit Card has ST Category listed. Will they allow me to appear for CAT?
ARKS Srinivas answers, They will only if you take the ST certificate with you. Even if they allow you to appear, it is unlikely that it would be useful as the category would have been frozen (fixed). Try reaching the prometric guys and ask them to change the same.
HiPunit asked, Please answer. I have my slot tomorrow morning
ARKS Srinivas answers, Try to reach their helpline (though it may be of little help). But do go to the centre and try writing. All the best.
Hi Punit asked, Thanks,may god be kind enough to allow me to write CAT
ARKS Srinivas answers, Punit, You should not appear weak. And say that it probably was not your mistake in the first place.
joshua asked, what is the right way to approach the exam? solving the easier ones first and pay attention on accuracy or answering maximum questions?
ARKS Srinivas answers, Since there would be time enough to look at almost all questions, you should ensure that every question that can be solved should be solved. Do the paper in two rounds. In the first round, allocate around 40 minutes wherein the idea should be to go through every question and answer all the ones that can be done within a minute. So easy questions can be tackled that way. And while doing that, please mark those questions which appear solvable but may take time. This will ensure that in the second round of 30 minutes, you would be able to go to the marked questions and solve all those first. And if there is time remaining, you can solve other questions which were left unsolved till then. For RC, see that you give a separate time limit within the 70 minutes of that section.
Illustration: Dominic Xavier
'Do not waste time on any question that will take time'
Suganya asked, Tomorrow is my exam. morning. i just am revising what i've prepared so far. but being ill (now i'm), should i continue revision or just take bed rest
ARKS Srinivas answers, Take rest.
Suganya asked, and how important is permutation and combination in DI / VA? That is one topic that i'm never confident in..
ARKS Srinivas answers, At this juncture trying to do P&C may not be advisable. Forget it.
crackcat asked, i want to know if i can solve VA first?
ARKS Srinivas answers, No Friend, The first section is DI and QA and the second section is VA and LR. Within each section, you can choose the order but NOT the order of the sections themselves.
Sidd asked, I have attempted 21 question in Section I and 27 in Section II....fairly confident about 17 in Sec 1 and 23 in Sec 2....what are my chances?
ARKS Srinivas answers, Dear Sidd, If the confidence pays off, then you can be very sure of getting an IIM call.
joshua asked, m slightly weak in quant. so how many questions should i solve in the first section to get a good score?
ARKS Srinivas answers, Honestly, as many as you can. To see that you get a 90%ile + score, you should attempt atleast 12 questions with at max 3 wrongs.
videsh asked, i am really worried about tomorrow's exam . what should i study now
ARKS Srinivas answers, Hi Videsh, These jitters are normal. Just relax. Go out. Speak to friends, listen to music, eat food early and sleep.
Unni asked, I always score really high in VA & LR but DI and QA i never seem to clear the cut off..taking exam on monday any last minute strategies??
ARKS Srinivas answers, Make sure that you see all questions in the section. There will be atleast 12 to 15 questions which you should be able to solve. Do not waste time on any question that will take time. Just leave that question. In that way, even if you leave 15 questions in 15 minutes, you would still have close to 50 to 55 minutes to solve 12 to 15 questions. Which means, at least 4 minutes per question. This should give you ample confidence to solve. Make sure that you solve the DI sets. Some of them are simple calculation based and giving 3 to 4 minutes per question would be enough to solve it.
Sidd asked, Since CAT has 40 different sets of question papers how is every performance compared? Is there a scale factor?
ARKS Srinivas answers, Sidd, CAT does not have 40 different sets. Infact, it could have multiple number of sets. It appears that there may be more than one set in a single slot itself.
agies asked, sir, according to your observation/experience, what do you expect would be the cutoff this time? how many questions in each section ensure an interview call?
ARKS Srinivas answers, Again, since it has multiple sets, there would be no specific number that can be given. However, as a safe bet, getting close to 50% of NET score should be good enough to get you an IIM call.
Rajib asked, Hi Arks thanks for chatting in the crucial time. while selecting which question to attempt according to the level of difficulty, should I scan the paper once and select the question which one to attempt or keep on answering the question serialwise. Another question that arises in my mind is that I feel that english portion can be answered in few time and can be scored more .Do you agree with this or not.
ARKS Srinivas answers, Hi Rajib, It may be a good idea to scan in the first 2 to 3 minutes to find out what areas are there where. Eg: how many DI sets; RC sets; LR sets etc. But, you should go serially and keep solving the easy ones and marking the ones that are either lengthy or difficult to solve so that you come to the end of the paper having solved all easy questions. In the second round (in that section), you can then start working on the questions you marked in the first round.
Chaithanya asked, i have attempted 16-17 in quant and 20-21 in verbal....in quant as far as i know 3questions are wrong...what can you say about my chances.?
ARKS Srinivas answers, Hi Chaithanya, If only 3 are wrong in Quant, you should get a decent percentile - probably even more than 90 percentile. Verbal area is very difficult to guess (as you would know). I think you should be keep your fingers crossed and prepare for other exams as well as GDPI.
Chaithanya asked, Sir, for Snap and iift im concentrating more on g.k...and im thinking 1week is enough to go through all the concepts of quant and go word lists of vocab...do you suggest anything more sir.?
ARKS Srinivas answers, I hope you have seen the previous SNAP papers. I suggest that you work on Logical Ability, Arithmetic (in Quant), Calculations and GK.
Illustration:Uttam Ghosh
Comment
article