Cat Prep - Mocks are everything

First of all, I would like you to answer my questions that, Why cricket players have
a practice session in the nets before the actual match? Why the car driving
instructor sits beside you and let you to drive the entire city? The reason is
simple; practice. Before facing the actual situation, a similar situation is given to a
person, so that it is analyzed that how the person responds in that situation. This
is helpful in analyzing the errors and mistakes made in that situation and hence
rectifying them so that these should not be repeated in the actual problem.
Mocks are similar to net practice before giving the actual CAT exam.
In the CAT exam preparation, Mocks play an important role as these helps the
aspirants to rectify their mistakes, work on the weaker areas and improve on the
stronger areas. Mocks helps the candidates to determine the best strategy which
should be applied in the CAT exam based on various strategies applied earlier in
mocks. I would suggest that before the CAT exam, give plenty of mock tests and
take them as seriously as possible i.e. mimic the exam settings.
Mocks helps a candidate in selecting the number of questions to be done
according to their difficulty level and managing time. More focus should be given
on building intensity by reducing your concentration lapses while giving mocks.
The candidate must take the mock with the same intensity of giving the actual
CAT exam so that the actual performance can be compared with the standards set
and hence deviations can be noted. The sole aim of the candidate is to improve
with every mock exam and hence boosting up the confidence.
The next important factor while doing mocks is to analyze them critically. When I
used to analyze mocks I do it in the following way:
1. How many errors are from guesses, how many from 'silly errors' and how
many from being confused by the question? More importantly, how many
errors were due to fatigue?
2. What are my 'strong' topics/question types? Why I am making mistakes in
these questions?
3. Identify 3 questions in each section on which you have spent maximum time
and improve question selection.
4. Am I selecting the right questions?
5. How many questions that have been 'skipped' were do-able?
 6. Maintain a chart/table on the basis of these categories so that next time you
are able to identify each question type and make the strategy accordingly.
The mock CAT exam is also a best way to find a pattern that works for you. Since
the exam is online, going sequentially is the best strategy to approach. But still the
candidate needs to know when to do RC, LR and DI within the two sections. Have
a broader outline (like early in the paper or late in the paper), and consider one or
two other patterns also. With the latest change in the pattern, CAT allows students
to switch between the two sections. This is good as well as bad. Good because it
gives a lot more freedom to students to plan their sequence of attempts, and bad
because it can distract students from preparing, and hence they end up spending
more time in strategizing.
The next important thing is that do not take the percentile scores seriously or to the
heart as mocks are only the measures for improvement. This holds true for both the
cases, even if you are scoring good or bad. The percentiles are one of the most
misleading statistic around. Very often students fall into a comfort zone if the
percentiles are going in the right direction. There is no single test series provider in
the country who has managed to mimic CAT well. So, if you are doing better and
better in a test series, dont keep on doing that, rather mix it up and try other
providers mocks. The number of students who consistently score 99 percentile in a
test series and find themselves in no man's land when actual CAT exam happens is
quite high. Also the mocks should be given with a free state of mind and when no
one is around. This will help the candidate to improve focus and hence develop a
habit of sitting for longer hours during an exam. One of the best mock series
providers which I have encountered is, MBAP Education. The mocks provided by
the institute is able to mimic CAT exam to a large extent in terms of the pattern
and the level of difficulty.
So if you have not started yet, its the time to raise the bar and start giving mocks
as these are one of the crucial factors in the CAT exam preparation.
Happy reading