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CAT Tips: Practice different question types

Last updated on: October 13, 2011 08:03 IST

In an online chat with readers on October 11, Aziz Manva, IIM-Lucknow alumnus and head of Testfunda.com addressed queries related to cracking CAT, XAT and other b-school entrance exams.

While the CAT 2011 is scheduled between October 22 and November 18, 2011, the XAT is scheduled on January 8, 2012. For those who missed the live chat, here's the unedited transcript.

crackcat asked, hello sir, can you tell me some last minute tips to crack CAT

Aziz Manva answers, at 2011-10-11 15:54:22Focus on improving chapters where you are either slow but accurate or fast bur inaccurate. Do not waste too much time on chapters where you take a lot of time and still get the questions wrong. Work on more practice and analysis at this stage rather than only theory.

RahulGupta asked, I am a working professional with 4 years of expierence and made 3 attempts to CAT. I still have a desire to crack CAT or go for any top 15 prestigious college. This year I didn't put much effort for preparation and studied in bit and pieces.Kindly suggest in these few days what best I can do to crack it definitely.

Aziz Manva answers, You will need to try and solve atleast 6-8 full length mock CATs in the next few days. Also, based on your analysis of these mock CATs, work on the important chapters after checking whether you need to improve your score or your accuracy in those chapters.

mindovermatters asked, is the CAT a general test for all MBA courses in the city? what are the other entrance test i should prepare for?

Aziz Manva answers, Some of the other major MBA tests that you can prepare for are XAT (for XLRI), IIFT (for IIFT), SNAP (for all Symbiosis colleges), NMAT (for NMIMS), TISS (for Tata Institute of Social Studies), IRMA (for IRMA) and MHCET (for JBIMS).

victor asked, Sir, i am very weak in Verbal section. I have not done mush preparation. any simple strategy to improve on this??

Aziz Manva answers, You will have to focus on 1) Reading Comprehension 2) Fill in the blanks 3) Jumbled Sentences 4) Paragraph Completion and Paragraph Summary 5) Word Usage 6) Errors in Usage Also, please remember that CAT will also have LR in the verbal section as well. So, in case you are good at LR, you can score marks there as well.

jeecracker asked, do you also train for IIT-JEE and GATE? which is the best IIT in India?

Aziz Manva answers, Not yet. As far as the management programmes of the IITs are concerned, IIT Mumbai is the best closely followed by IIT Delhi and IIT Kanpur. However, as far as the technical courses are concerned, I may not be the right person to comment on this.

auro asked, where can i download formulae for CAT? how can i improve speed and performance? how many hours should i practice now?

Aziz Manva answers, You can get a list of important formulae from the free resources section on our website www.testfunda.com. Alternatively, you could also read the "Tip of the Day" freely available on our website everyday. At this stage, you should practice atleast 4-6 hours daily.

RahulGupta asked, thank you so much sir. also please tell me which are the good colleges i should apply to? how can i prepare for GD an PI?

Aziz Manva answers, Apart from the IIMs, some of the good colleges that you can target are FMS, XLRI, JBIMS, IIFT, NITIE, MDI, SPJAIN, NMIMS,Shailesh Mehta SoM (IIT Mumbai), Symbiosis. These are some of the best institutes in India. Also, it is too early to start preparing for the GDPI. Right now, focus only on the CAT exam. What you can do is keep yourself updated on current affairs from India and the world. That will complete 20-30% of your GDPI preparation.

aakanksha asked, how to prepare for LRDI section..??

Aziz Manva answers, The best way to prepare for the DILR section is by practising different question types and then analysing the detailed solution to identify how the problem could have been solved more efficiently. For DI questions, having good calculation skills is also useful. For LR questions, it is useful to visualise the problem and represent it in terms of a figure or diagram.

Dabangg asked, Sir, wherefrom can I practise DI in the remaining 20 days?

Aziz Manva answers, Any good material should be fine. You could also practice questions either from our DILR module which is independently available or from our Rank Booster which is a huge database of CAT and CAT level questions.

Achin asked, I am good in quanta but could not score in verbal section. How to go about it?

Aziz Manva answers, Work on the following topics for Verbal: 1) Reading Comprehension 2) Critical Reasoning 3) Verbal Reasoning including Fill in the blanks and Jumbled Sentences 4) Paragraph Completion and Summary 5) Word Usage 6) Errors in sentences Also, if you are good at LR, try and maximise your score in the LR section using the LR questions.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier

'IIMs look for analytical and logical skills'

AlwaysonFB asked, What sort of changes can be expected this year, with the number of questions decreased and the duration increased?

Aziz Manva answers, The difficulty level may go up marginally. The Verbal section may have a slightly greater emphasis on Critical Reasoning. Other than that, things are not expected to change very drastically. Importantly, you will have to be good at both sections now as you won't be able to allocate extra time based on your strengths and weaknesses.

victor asked, Sir, what according to you can be the cut off in the two sections. What shall be the ideal attempt and hit rate to attain this?

Aziz Manva answers, While the exact cut-off cannot be predicted, try to attempt atleast 22-24 questions per section and aim for an accuracy level of around 85% per section.

AlwaysonFB asked, How different is the FPM programme of IIMs from the regular PGDIM courses? Is it mandatory to spend 4 years for FPM courses?

Aziz Manva answers, The FPM programme is equivalent to a PhD from other Indian Universities. The first year of this programme is the same as that of the PGDM course after which you move on to the core FPM. But yes, this is a full time programme and you will have to spend 4-5 years on campus for this.

victor asked, Sir, any good books/ideas you recommend to prepare for the DI and Quant section?

Aziz Manva answers, Any material that you currently have should be fine as long as you systematically solve the questions and then analyse where you went wrong and how the solutions could have been improved. Also work on the thought process of solving a question rather than just solving more and more questions.

Achin asked, What is the score needed to get into jbims? And in addition to mhcet score, do our educational background and percentage also matter? In last attempt i got 88 percentile in mhcet. Can i crack dis tym?

Aziz Manva answers, Yes, you can crack JBIMS. Roughly try to target around 150-155 in the written test. Also, 2 marks each (6 marks in all) are assigned to your 10th, 12th marks and work experience

AlwaysonFB asked, A Basic question that I always had in mind, there can be many people on the same score, especially because the number of questions comes down to 60. How is the percentile arrived at for these different people? what is given priority in deciding who gets the better percentile?

Aziz Manva answers, I believe that while a number of people may have the same "raw" score i.e. same number of correct and incorrect questions, the final score will be arrived at by assigning different weightage to different questions. Based on this normalisation, your final score gets calculated and so does your percentile.

siddd asked, What score in XAT/GMAT will be required to get an admission in XLRI?

Aziz Manva answers, You will probably need to get 98 or 99 plus percentile in XAT to get a call from XLRI. While doing so, you will need to ensure that you clear the sectional cut-offs as well. Also, XLRI will look at your essay while giving you a call for the interview. After this, whether you get into XLRI will depend on how you do in the GDPI rounds

Achin asked, Can you give me some tips to crack jbims in mhcet? Currently i am working and wil complete a year in march. Is it very tough for students from out of maharashtra?

Aziz Manva answers, No, it is not very difficult. The only issue is that the number of seats available in JBIMS for students from outside Maharashtra are limited. Also, if you have prepared for CAT, then 60-70% of your preparation is done. What you then need to work on is specific question types that are peculiar to MHCET. You can get a hang of those only by solving more mock MHCET papers.

AlwaysonFB asked, Okay, so after applying this theory if there are 2 people on the same score - lets say 350/450 do they get the same percentile??

Aziz Manva answers, Yes...but there is still no clarity as to how the normalisation is done..So it is also possible that two people with slightly different scores also get the same percentile

ak asked, Dear sir, I work in Engineering company from 2010 onwards.but i am very much interested in managemant field. I will wirte CAT this year. My qn is will my work ex in technical field ne any negative for me???

Aziz Manva answers, No, not at all. In fact if you are working in a core sector...then you have a good chance simply because your profile becomes different from the large number of people with a software background.

Achin asked, What about the best institutes for executive mba? How many years of experience i required for that? Do all IIMs provide this course?

Aziz Manva answers, As far as I know, all IIMs provide this, but it is best if you individually check each IIM. This will also proide you all the eligibility details.

AlwaysonFB asked, In the wake of Mr NRN's comments that coaching institutes have degraded the quality of people joining the IIT's do you believe the same applies to IIM's as well. There could be people who have mugged the formulaes, shortcuts & extensively prepared similar format of questions & cleared the exam & decently covered the GD/PI areas while a real intellectual talent can get a raw deal in the exam itself. Is there a need for change in the IIM's entry procedure?

Aziz Manva answers, While what you say is possible, the process does look at analytical and logical skills which is what the management institutes are currently looking for. So, in that sense, difficult to change the process. when the B-schools shift their benchmark in terms of skills required, you may need an alternate entry process

NeveronFB asked, what can be the expected cut-off percentile for each IIT?

Aziz Manva answers, It is impossible to predict this right now...but the cut-off for IIT Mumbai should be closer to MDI Gurgaon and that of IIT Delhi would be closer to IMT Ghaziabad. The rest could be lower.

AlwaysonFB asked, Can expect the the waiting list to be bigger for both IITs and IIMs this year considering both use CAT this year. What could be your final tips for the last 4 weeks apart from taking Mock CATS & practising questions?

Aziz Manva answers, This year, the movement rather than the size of the waiting list may be more critical. Because of the increase in number of good institutes under CAT, all waiting lists may move faster. Also, apart from taking mock CATs and practising questions, look to improve 2 categories of chapters: 1) Chapters where you are accurate but slow 2) Chapters where you are quick but go wrong These two areas will give you greatest scope of improving your scores

Aziz Manva says, Thanks for participating in this chat. These are all the questions that I will currently be able to take. See you again in the next chat. All the Best!

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh