How to prepare for CAT 2008?

Although I found some of the answers to this riddle last year, the answers were not complete. Maybe they will never be. But if you are preparing for CAT you would still like to have a concrete way to go about it. While finding answer to this question, I spoke with many trainers in the MBA coaching industry. All the answers that I got were on the same line, number system ke liye 20 hr rakh lo, commercial math 15 hr mein ho jayegi, geometry ke liye 20 hr chahiye and so on. The answers were so general that they left me more confused. And every instructor had a different answer or study-time-frame suggestion for CAT 2008 preparation. Not only that, there was no method to break down study plan for students starting their preparations at different points of time. It made no sense that a student starting his preparation in May should be given the same advice as that given to the students starting in March. I realized that none of the instructors had a concrete idea about how to prepare for CAT in the best possible way. If I was a student, these answers would have left me completely befuddled. Then I decided to go about it the Total Gadha way. I decided to let numbers tell me what to do. If it was common admission test I was preparing for, I should seek guidance from CAT papers themselves. I decided to find the numbers. When you have numbers on your side, you are unbeatable. I collected last 7 CAT papers and classified every question according to the topic. Then I summed up the marks for questions in every topic and found the percentage occurrence of marks for each topic. The result for CAT Quant is shown below:

There! You have it. Algebra- 37.6% by marks, Geometry- 22.8% by marks, Number system- 21.6% by marks and ratio and proportion- 11.2% by marks. Enlightenment provided by past 8 CAT papers! I did the same exercise for the verbal section and the results are summarized below.

Notice that RC again takes 50% of the whole verbal section. Then come grammar and usage, fill in the blanks, and jumbled paragraphs. I left the DI section as there is fundamental prescribed category for logical questions. Though, I am sure that I can find some sort of classification in the DI section also. The answer to CAT preparation came in a flash, and it was perfectly logical and full of common sense. Here it is folks- the Total Gadha Way of CAT Preparation: TIME TABLE Count the duration, in days, from the time you start your CAT preparation to August 31 st . After August, you will be busy in taking those mock CATs and you will hardly have any time for studies. Therefore, if you are starting your CAT preparation on 1 st of May, you have roughly 120 days of study time. Assume that you will get 75% of these days for studies. The rest 25% will be lost in sleeping, watching movies or just staring at that nice girl living in the nearby building. you have roughly 90 days of study time. Therefore, from May 1st to August 31 st

Assume that you will study 4 hours everyday. These 4 hours are separate from the time spent in reading newspapers or attending any CAT coaching. Also, if you study more, do the calculations in your own way. From those 4 hours, devote 2 hours to quant, 1 hour to Verbal, and 1 hour to DI. Therefore, given 90 days of study time, you have 180 hours to study quant, 90 hours for Verbal, and 90 hours for DI. Break down those study hours according to percentage breakup of the various topics given in the table above. For example, from 180 hours of quant you should have 22% devoted to Number system. Therefore, you need to devote roughly 40 hours to Number system. Once you have number of hours, planning becomes simpler. Just start from the highest occurring topic and move to the lowest occurring topic. The beauty of this method is that you would have covered the most important topic at the beginning of your preparations and even if you are not able to cover the least important ones because of lack of time, it would not hurt you so much! For those who are attending any CAT coaching, if the topics covered in the coaching are different from the ones you are studying according to your plan, then you need to study hard during your coaching classes. Do the class exercises there itself. Pay attention the instructor and study as much as you can in the class itself. To practice RC passages, download 1000 RC file from the Download section of TotalGadha and do 3 RC everyday. Practice the RC techniques I discussed in the RC strategy article. To practice DI, solve one or two DI sets everyday from the recent CAT papers. You can also follow the material given in your coaching or solve the problems posted on TotalGadha. STUDY MATERIAL Besides the material given in your coaching, you can also follow these to enhance your preparations: Number System- Lessons and Quizzes on Total Gadha. I am unashamed to say this; the lessons and problems on Total Gadha are one of the best. While I was teaching at a premier CAT coaching institute, my

lessons on Number System were unofficially given to Math faculties to help them prepare for their classes. And I keep adding new material whenever I find something interesting. Geometry- NCERT books VIII, IX and X, and Total Gadha. When it comes to geometry, the NCERT books are matchless. You dont need to look any further. It is surprising but geometry questions in CAT are still below NCERT level. For higher level questions, refer to Total Gadha. Algebra- Hall and Knight higher Algebra- The following chapters are a must do from this gem of a book: ratio and proportion, arithmetic progression, geometric progression, logarithms, permutation and combination, quadratic equation, probability and theory of equations. There is also a very good chapter on Number theory for those who want to read more. General Math- Quantitative Aptitude for CAT by Pradeep Pandey. A good quant book. Data Interpretation- Those who have never encountered logical reasoning question should certainly finish these: Puzzles and logical reasoning test on Total Gadha Puzzles and Teasers- by George Summers Tricky Logic Puzzles- Norman D Willis. Past 5 years CAT Papers. Grammar- Wren and Martin. Yes I know, most of you have seen this book thousand times in your school. Trust me, do this book 2- 3 times and you will not have to worry about the grammar section in CAT. Usage- Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs- Collins Cobuild. Read it regularly if you have time. The dictionary gives you different phrasal verbs that can be formed with the same verb. For example, the verb fall can give rise to phrasal verbs like fall about, fall apart, fall away, fall back, fall back on, fall behind, fall down, fall for, fall in, fall into, fall in with, fall off, fall on, fall out, fall over, fall through, fall to, and fall under. (Whew!) There are a lot of questions in CAT on usage of phrasal verbs. Newspaper- The Hindu. There is not a single newspaper that can match the quality of The Hindu. The English is perfect (no puns or slangs), the editorials are very thought-provoking, and the news coverage is done in way that the paper does not take any sides. The paper lets its readers form their own opinions about the news. (My personal favorite is the The Hindu Crossword which Ive been solving for the last 7 years). Books to read- Pick up the book list from here. Magazine- The Economist. It is an expensive weekly American magazine but very indispensable if you want to get used to good English. Buy it and see for yourself. Websites- www. epw .org.in , www.sciam.com , www. guardian .co.uk . There are numerous others, but these three will do given the time that you have. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Do I study all three sections everyday or only one or two? Answer- All three. It takes some discipline to do this mind you. When I cracked my IIT- JEE paper I disciplined myself to study Math, Physics and Chemistry every day. To prepare for my CAT, I followed the same pattern. Most of us have a natural inclination to do sections that we enjoy or the sections we are good at. This makes us ignore the other section. Studying all three sections will ensure that no section is left behind. Do I spend more time on topics I am weak in or the topics I am strong in? Answer- Spend more time on the topics you are strong in. There are some topics that you cannot avoid. For example, you cannot avoid number system, geometry, RC, or logical reasoning. But other than those topics, spend time on topics you are strong in. Remember that your strengths will carry you through CAT and not your weaknesses. The direct result of performing better at your strong topics is that you will save time in solving those questions and will be left with more time to attempt other questions. Let me give you an exampleIn mock cats my fellow cat aspirants used to start with question number 1 in quant and proceed forward, struggling throughout the section. I just used to hunt for number system and geometry questions (they are easy to spot), crack them quickly, and move on. The difference was that I knew what I was doing and I felt very good about myself at the start of the paper itself (think how good you will feel if you crack 5 problems in a row). How do I make weekly or monthly time table? Answer- DONT. Weekly or monthly time tables are rarely adhered to (although they make you feel good that you have made a time table). My tried-and-tested method is this- keep a small spiral diary and note down the next days agenda (to the smallest detail mind you) every night when you go to sleep. Stick to that schedule.

Thats it for now folks. I am fairly certain that this will streamline your preparation to a great extent. I am also sure that you will still have many doubts regarding your CAT preparation. Do not hesitate to ask them. In my next article on CAT preparation, I will cover test-taking techniques and post test analysis.