• done all the hard work over the past 10-12 months
• have burnt the midnight oil and left no stone unturned in your efforts
• have taken the toughest Mock Series in the country and have prepared for all eventualities

Let us now look at a few dos and don’ts for the D-Day.

Tools for the battle: Like any seasoned veteran you must by now know that the tools for this battle are

• 4-5 sharpened HB pencils (no wasting time trying to unsheathe weapons)
• Good quality eraser
• Sharpener
• A big dial analog watch (gives the illusion of having more time)
• A ball point pen

Strength for the battle: The key to victory on the battlefield is stamina, strength and alertness, both mental and physical. Have a nice light breakfast – one that will give you the strength and energy to help you last 3 grueling hours. Fruits like bananas contain a lot of fast burning carbohydrates and are ideal for this scenario. However please ensure that you do not overeat and feel drowsy during the examination- to this effect avoid heavy South Indian breakfast items like vada, masala dosa etc.

Know your battlefield: In ancient days generals used to do a recce (reconnaissance) of the battlefield to gain an advantage over the enemy. Ditto with CAT. Plan to reach the place half an hour before the reporting time mentioned on the Hall Ticket. Every year I see students being detained outside the venue for having turned up a couple of minutes late! Surely you do not want to have a year’s effort going down the drain this way. Ensure that you have a parent, brother or relative to drive you to the venue so as to avoid any unforeseen problems such as a vehicle breaking down etc.

Size up the enemy: Ensure that you read all the directions given on the test booklet thoroughly before the start of the test. Watch out for any surprises in the number of questions, number of choices, the marking scheme etc. and adjust your plan accordingly. Make sure that you fill in all the details asked for in the OMR sheet and see to it that the OMR sheet is not torn or crumpled and that there are no stray marks on it; as such sheets are not scanned by the OMR machine. If you get an OMR sheet that is torn or crumpled, promptly get it replaced by the invigilator.

Be prepared for the ambush: The one consistent quality with regards to CAT has been its tendency to spring a surprise every year and thereby ambush the students. Like any good general anticipate the surprise and when you see one, make plans to overcome it. Thus, it is very likely that there will be something unexpected in the paper. It could be in the structure of the paper, organization of questions, break up of sections, time limits assigned, marks per question and so on. Do not get unnerved. Remember, everyone is just as shocked as you are!

Manage your TIME: Don’t start answering the paper as soon as you open it. After opening the seal spend around 2-3 minutes studying the paper. Scan through and check the broad contents of each section and how they are organized. Do not distribute the entire 150 minutes among the three sections of the paper. To start with, distribute only about 120-130 minutes out of the 150 available and keep the remaining 20-30 minutes as a buffer to be devoted to different sections - either to maximize the overall score or to salvage a section that you feel you might not cross the cutoff in. Irrespective of how difficult a section may appear, remember that there will be enough number of easy questions in each section. A significant number of students are not able to score well in CAT not because they attempted the difficult questions but because they left out the easy questions. Focus on the easy questions in each section, and you will be able to score well in the paper.

Don’t focus on the Kills! : In CAT2005 a score of 44 would have fetched an IIM call however in CAT2006 the requirement for the same was 98 marks! This would have required getting only 24-25 questions right! And assuming that you get one in every three questions wrong, then you would need to attempt only about 35 – 40 questions! Therefore, remember that you should never have a target for the number of questions that you should attempt (read kills) in the exam. You should focus on answering whatever easy questions you find in the paper.

Transfer your answers at once: This is the most important piece of advice of this article. Ensure that you mark the correct answer for any question on the OMR sheet as soon as you finish answering the question. Do not leave the task of transferring the answers onto the OMR sheet to the fag end of the exam. It has been our experience that some over enthusiastic invigilator decides to call it time, 5 minutes before the scheduled end and snatches away your OMR sheet! If you do not want to be at the mercy of such an invigilator ensure that the transfer of the answer is done immediately or alternatively at the end of every tranche of 10 questions.

Battlefield Strategies

• Do not worry about the cut-off marks for each section
• Make sure that you do not spend too much or too little time on any one section as you might miss out on easy questions in the paper
• A lot of B-Schools that take CAT scores do not have a sectional cut-off (however ensure that you have atleast a positive score)
• In the B-Schools that have sectional cut-offs (including the IIMs), you will be able to comfortably cross the cut-offs if you just focus on the easy questions. This is the key to success!

We will post a comprehensive review and analysis of the CAT on www.time4education.com on the evening of 18^th November. Wish you all the best!

The Article has been written by Sai Kumar Swamy, an IIM-B alumnus and the Course Director at Triumphant Institute of Management Education (T.I.M.E.). He can be reached at sai@time4education.com

Sai Kumar,
PGPM–IIM Bangalore
Course Director, T.I.M.E