Can An Average Student Crack CAT? If Yes, How?

CAT i.e. Common Admission Test is an online examination conducted in order to create a platform for screening the eligible graduates to pursue post graduate courses at IIM’s and other business schools. A candidate is short-listed on the basis of Quantitative Ability (QA), Verbal Ability (VA) and Reading Comprehension (RC), Data Interpretation (DI) and Logical Reasoning (LR). A very common question that arises in the minds of students is that “Can I clear the CAT entrance test”? A student cannot be remarked as genius on the basis of scores that he procures in any examination. Once a student is out of school, the real battle starts. The struggle is all about who has the capability and ability to stand out of the line. Here, there is no point of comparison between an average student and a genius student, it all depends on how badly a student wants to tackle the examination. CAT is all about determining a student’s reasoning ability as well as analytical behaviour. All of us are good in different things and it is very important for us to figure out as to what are we good at. A person has to be self-determined to achieve his goal and then only he can deal with every difficulty that comes on his way. So any student who is well determined to crack CAT can definitely do so. One thing that always matters is whether you want it or not, if you want something then how badly do you want it.

No person is genius right from the birth. All of us are born with the same mental capability. In order to crack CAT there are quite a few things that every CAT aspirant should always keep in his mind. The first and foremost thing that has to be kept in mind is the determination of a person.

• Understanding Exam Pattern and Syllabus

Every CAT aspirant should be completely aware about the CAT exam pattern and the syllabus for the examination. Beating about the bush is a big NO, a student has to be well-versed with the syllabus. It can be done by collecting the previous year’s question papers as well as the best study material available for CAT. With the passage of time the CAT examination pattern has undergone various changes since 2014, not only the structure but the content as well. As per the recent pattern, the exam consists of 3 sections having 100 questions in total. The time limit for each section is 1 hour. In order to be short-listed for IIMs, a student has to try to secure maximum possible marks in each of the 3 sections. These sections are namely, VARC (Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension), DILR (Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning), and QA (Quantitative Ability).

• Learning all the Concepts and Practicing Questions

Once a student has understood the exam pattern and syllabus, it is then important for him to learn all the concepts of each topic from all the sections thoroughly. The students should prefer author books like Sarvesh Verma, Arun Sharma, etc…, as opposed to any coaching class material, because the coaching class material is restrictive in nature and does not meet the difficulty level of the actual CAT paper. However, there is one coaching class that trains the students from these popular author books – QDS Pro. Once you are thorough with all the concepts taught at QDS Pro (at the coaching centre or online), then there will be no need for you to refer to any other material whatsoever. After you’ve completed all the concepts, practice as many questions as possible from as much material as possible from as many sources as possible.

• Taking Mocks

Once a student is well versed with the syllabus and exam pattern and has studied all the concepts and their application, he has to proceed to check if he’s prepared well for the examination. Now, the preparation level can be checked by attempting a series of mock tests. These series of Mock Tests will help a person to understand his strength and weakness in the question paper. Once such area has been identified, the student can then start preparing for the area where his weakness lies. It is very important to take mock tests at regular intervals and devise CAT preparation strategy.