The CAT 2015 has turned out to be one of the most nerve wracking exams in recent years on account of the large number of changes carried out in the format. CAT 2015 will see a record 2 Lac plus aspirants taking the test and these numbers are enough to daunt any aspirant and cause some amount of nervousness. However not all is gloom since there are quite a few things that one can do in terms of preparation for the D-Day.

Many aspirants have an erroneous notion that one has to be a ‘genius’ or have a high IQ to do well. Nothing can be further from the truth – each year the test setters have devised an exam that can be ‘cracked’ by someone who has common sense, is alert, smart and remembers the basics that he/she had learnt while in school. The syllabus of the exam in the Quantitative section is roughly equivalent to the 10th standard level mathematics and can therefore be cracked by anyone who is strong with the basic.

The key here is to use the last few days to revise the concepts across all test areas. This requires perseverance and planning and it will certainly help if one is able to draw up a time table for revision and stick to it in a disciplined manner. Along with this one should take 2-3 Mock tests – this ensures that you are in the ‘test taking mode’ and also have an exposure to ‘CAT level questions’. However, taking countless ‘Mocks’ without following it up with a thorough analysis of the exam is futile. To be able to gain most from such Mocks one has to analyse each and every question especially those that were not attempted and ones where mistakes were made. To do this one needs to spend atleast 8-10 hours on each Mock – 3 hours to take the Mock test and a further 5-7 hours analysing it. At the end of this one should be able to clearly identify the strong and weak areas so that necessary steps can be taken to work on the weak areas.

The other major advantage of taking Mocks is that it helps one estimate the difficulty level of the section while taking the test and accordingly modify the number of attempts. Part 2 – Last Minute Tips for the D-Day.

The ones who have cracked this exam in the past have done so using some simple but effective tips. CAT2015 will have three separately timed sections which means that taking CAT this year is equivalent to writing three mini tests of one hour each. The implication of this is that one cannot ‘save’ time in their stronger section and allocate it to their weaker section/s. Hence one needs to go all out in each section to maximise their score.

The best way to do this is to understand that the exam will have some easy, some moderate and some very tough questions – those who wish to ace the exam must learn to spot the easy ones and avoid the tough ones. Therefore, an approach where one goes through the Qs in a sequential manner and leaves out questions at the end is fraught with danger. A ‘scan the section first’ approach is required to identify the sitters – it is quite possible that many of the sitters may be bunched together at the end of the section. This year each section has 30 plus questions and just one hour to answer them therefore the constraint will be the time and not the number of questions – What does this mean??

It means that no one will be able to attempt all questions in the given time and therefore the best approach is to focus on accuracy rather than on the number of questions to be attempted. In this scenario the key to cracking the CAT is the ‘selection’ of the right question to attempt. Selection of questions must be done based on parameters like familiarity of test area, length of the question, level of complexity of the question and your own proficiency in solving those kind of questions.

This year the IIMs have introduced non-multiple choice questions in the CAT which have no negative marking. This might tempt many of you to attempt such questions. The caveat for these questions is that one should attempt them ‘ONLY’ if you one is sure of the approach and reasonably certain of the answer.

Aspirants are advised to avoid guesswork. And last but not the least ensure that you pace yourself during the exam. Do not lose excessive time over any question – the golden rule is that if you are no closer to solving a Qs even after 2-3 minutes then it is wise to abandon that Qs and move on to other more promising questions. It is a given that there would be more than enough ‘doable’ questions in each of the sections and do remember that if it is tough for you it must be tough for all the others taking the test.

Sai Kumar Swamy

The author is the Director of TIME