Saturday, June 29, 2013

Last-minute exam tips for CAT

About 10,000 students will be taking the CAT 2009 once again on Saturday and Sunday! If you are amongst these students, then following advice may be of help!

First of all, while it is natural to be unhappy about this unfortunate development, you should follow the dictum let bygones be bygones. Most of you would have taken many mock tests, some on paper and some that were computer-based. Take the re-test with this mindset that the cancelled CAT was the last mock CAT test taken by you. Since the objective of taking mock tests is to understand one's strengths and weaknesses and fine-tune the time distribution and sequencing of sections, the cancelled CAT would also help each of you to further understand dos and don'ts. Further, you will do well to keep on reminding yourself that your chances of selection have not gone down due to re-test and you can do better in this one!

Think positive! This is the lesson number one! So, what inferences can be drawn from the details known about the CAT test papers held in 20+ slots earlier? In each slot, the difficulty level of the paper was not the same. Chances are that you will get a paper with 20-20-20 distribution but if you get a different pattern, don't get devastated! Don't go with a pre-conceived notion about the difficulty level of any section or paper as a whole that creates any minimum number of attempts as a target for the re-test.

Keep an open mindQuite a few students got distracted by the noise/disturbance last time. Hopefully, your test should go through smoothly this time. Another issue that bothered a lot of students is that the paper wasn't that difficult provided you saw all the questions properly and did not get stuck on any questions.

See all questionsEnsure that you see all the questions properly and don't leave any questions unseen. A test is like a one-day match. If something went wrong last time, it may not happen again. Similarly, if something went well last time, it may not recur. Treat CAT re-test as another test where your performance does not depend upon what happened in the last test. It is another opportunity to score well hit a century!

Finally, for most of the students taking the re-test, wishing that it should have been a pencil-and-paper test is of no use. CAT is being held in a CBT format and you should believe that you are fully geared up to tackle it. The last lesson is: Believe in yourself till the last of the 135 minutes!  

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