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Updated on 07th August, 2023 , 8 min read
The CAT exam, which is held by one of the IIMs on a rotating basis, is extremely competitive. Thousands of recent graduates and seasoned professionals from a variety of professions sit for the exam each year. Always develop a methodical plan, and get the aid of knowledgeable academics to help you to know for in-depth preparation.
Pre-Preparation Checks for the CAT: How to Get Started?
The following preparation tips can help you ace the CAT:
Without familiarizing yourself with the rules and guidelines, you cannot take part in the CAT race. The CAT Exam Pattern and CAT Exam Syllabus will be used here to disguise the norms and restrictions.
This would be the starting point for your preparation because it provides a general sense of topic-wise weighting and assesses the general intellectual capacity and degree of knowledge among applicants.
Ignoring these two characteristics of the CAT exam will make your preparation for it insufficient and difficult. Do not forget that the CAT exam combines accuracy and aptitude.
Knowing where to begin your CAT preparations requires an awareness of your current knowledge level. By completing the CAT Readiness Test, you can find out how proficient you are in the CAT's three test areas (verbal ability and reading comprehension, quantitative aptitude, and data interpretation and logical reasoning).
The most important information to know right away is whether or not you need CAT coaching, which can be easily determined by the results of this exam.
If you intend to enroll in CAT lessons, take into account all the variables, such as budget, location, and time availability. Additionally, make sure you enroll in a course that will help you prepare for the CAT in the appropriate way and offer ongoing support.
Speed and accuracy are the two most important factors in achieving a high CAT score. Without having a solid conceptual base, neither of those can be achieved.
Strengthening your concepts is the next phase, therefore. By practicing and reviewing, you can develop solid fundamentals. Try out a few questions from the topics you have studied, all with differing degrees of difficulty.
Every weekend, go over the material you studied. You can improve your conceptual understanding and give your CAT preparation some pace by doing this.
Approximately 2 million applicants take the CAT exam each year. What will enable you to outperform your rivals? Successful Preparation!
Practice CAT-level questions, use practice exams that are as similar to the real thing as possible, and finish CAT question papers from past years. Your performance in a CAT-level mock exam will show you how well-prepared you are for the examination as well as how you rank among other test-takers.
The CAT question paper is divided into 3 parts:
VARC Section
DILR Section
QA Section
VARC Section: Out of the three sections, the VARC portion is the first one that applicants see on the CAT 2022 exam. Candidates are asked to choose passages carefully and provide accurate answers for the VARC section. MCQs and TITA Questions make up the majority of the questions in the VARC portion. As of right now, 10 verbal ability questions are asked each year, while the remaining questions are from the reading comprehension section.
DILR Section: Due to the lack of a set syllabus, the Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR) component of the CAT exam is challenging once more. This portion evaluates the candidate's reaction time, decision-making skills, and data interpretation abilities. The DILR component of the CAT exam is renowned for being the most difficult.
QA Section: The quantitative ability test evaluates a candidate's capacity to manage numerical data and resolve numerical issues. It is one of those CAT Exam portions that can be successful if the applicant has strong mathematical abilities and a knack for numbers.
How to Prepare for The VARC Section?
Reading comprehension makes for around 67 percent of the VARC (Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension) component and is therefore heavily weighted.
The verbal portion of the exam emphasizes a candidate's untapped areas, such as basic academy grammar and sophisticated vocabulary, in addition to reasoning.
Understanding Vocabulary: Synonyms, Antonyms, Analogies, Spellings, Odd Words, Words Often Confused, Sentence Completion, and Cloze Tests are some of the vocabulary-based problems.
You need to have a strong command of vocabulary, reading comprehension, and critical thinking to answer these questions. Knowing a word's definition is only one aspect of vocabulary knowledge; another is recognizing the circumstances in which it can be used.
It will become simple once you start recognizing a word's usage in its context. Try to comprehend a term by learning its etymological meanings. Understanding the meaning of a Latin root-like "loqui" will help you comprehend phrases like "grandiloquent," "magniloquent," "soliloquy," "ventriloquize," and "circumlocution." You have a lot of influence over your vocabulary after you learn the definitions of prefixes, suffixes, and roots.
Grammar: Based questions: There are two ways to approach grammar-based questions: either you follow the rules and learn about the different parts of speech, how to use them, and the applicable rules or you practice the questions that are asked and adopt an approach to learning the types of errors that lead to questions based on error detection or sentence correction. A lot of practice will help you cross the finish line after you are familiar with the different error types.
Reading role: By developing the habit of reading over time, one can combat reading comprehension. start reading newspapers, blogs, and fiction books. Depending on the text's level, aim for a reading speed of no less than 300 words per minute. Also, read widely. Pick subjects to read about that are outside your comfort zone.
Some topics that you can practice for The VARC section:
Pronouns with exercises
Prepositions with exercises
Types of clauses
Parts of Speech
Subject-Verb Agreement
Phrases Modifiers
Errors in Tenses
Para jumbles with exercises
Exam pattern and Syllabus for The VARC Section:
According to the CAT 2021 exam's paper structure, the VARC part consists of 24 questions out of a total of 66. Reading comprehension and verbal ability are the two further divisions of these questions. Compared to verbal ability, reading comprehension is given greater weight and is asked about more frequently. In this portion, the candidate should concentrate on reading quickly and accurately.
The provisional exam schedule and curriculum for the CAT 2022's VARC component are provided below.
Section | Detail |
Total number of question in VARC section | 24 |
MCQ'S | 19 |
Type In The Answer Questions (TITA) |
5 |
Question Divisions
|
Four passages, each with four questions, total eight VA questions three parajumbles, two odd sentence parajumbles, and three parasummaries, A total of 16 Questions |
Marking Scheme | No negative marking for TITA -1 for a wrong answer +3 for a right answer |
Top MBA entrance exams include VARC weighting:
Entrance Exams | No. of Questions |
CAT | 24 |
MAT CMAT | 40 25 |
XAT | 26 |
IIFT | 35 |
ATMA | 60 |
MAH-CET | 50 |
SNAP | 15 |
It's important to remember that while the Verbal Ability section of the CAT has fewer questions than the Reading Comprehension section, this is not always the case for other competitive MBA entry tests. You may have also heard numerous candidates claim that the CAT's English section is more difficult than other portions of the test.
Books which you can go through while doing the VARC section preparation:
(Norman Lewis) Word Power made easy.
(Arun Sharma and Meenakshi Upadhyay) How to Prepare for Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension for the CAT.
How to Prepare for The DILR Section?
Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DILR) has roughly the same weight in a CAT test as the other two portions of the paper. This portion of CAT 2022 took a fair amount of time.
Being that DILR is not mathematics and has no formula, it is challenging. It's a talent that must be learned rather than a body of information that must be stored in memory.
Here, mental computation is crucial. Use your head instead of the calculator to deepen your grasp of DILR. Learn the Tables from 1 to 20 as well as the fractions from 1/1, 1/2, 1/3 to 1/20 and the basics of calculating.
Examine the question: Candidates should concentrate on choosing the best strategy for presenting the provided information to respond to the question. Candidates must not make any assumptions about data that are not supported by the data. As a result, you should concentrate on answering the question based on the available information.
Direct your Syllabus: Candidates should thoroughly research the topic because the majority of the logical reasoning questions will be about arrangements.
Practice with cases, bar graphs, other charts (line, pie, radar), and data interpretation sets based on tables is another part. Learn about priority-based clockwise and counterclockwise directions, priority-based clockwise and counterclockwise directions, and cardinality laws.
Practice LR material on topics including blood relations, route planning, and game and tournament schedule.
Examine the Difficulty level: The applicant must recognize the easiest collection of questions and the hardest set of questions within the first few minutes after getting the section. The candidate will save time and increase the accuracy of their attempts if they set aside these few minutes to attempt simpler questions first. As a result, when practicing, you must use this technique to swiftly determine the question order.
Speed and accuracy: Candidates must work swiftly during this section while also answering the questions quickly. Therefore, the candidate should concentrate on continuously increasing their speed and accuracy while practicing. Setting timers for practice sets and gradually reducing the time will help you achieve this.
Exam Pattern and Syllabus for The DILR Section:
There are several broad categories in the CAT 2022 DILR Syllabus, including Data Caselets, Seating Arrangement, Blood Relation, Graphs, Tables, and Word and Letter Puzzles.
Section | Detail |
Number of Data Interpretation Questions | 10 |
Number of Logical Reasoning Questions: | 10 |
Total number of Questions | 20 |
Types of Questions | MCQs and TITA |
Top MBA entrance exams include DILR weighage:
Some of the major MBA entry tests are listed below, along with the weight assigned to their Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning sections.
Entrance Exams | No. of Questions |
CAT | 20 |
MAT | 40 |
CMAT | 25 |
XAT | 27 |
IIFT | 30 |
ATMA | 60 |
MAH-CET | 25 |
SNAP | 35 |
Books which you can go through while doing DILR preparation:
(Nishit Sinha) Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation for CAT.
(Arun Sharma/McGraw Hill) How to Prepare for Logical Reasoning for the CAT.
(Gautam Puri) CAT Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning
(Pearson) Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning
How to prepare for The QA section:
The "make or break" portion of the CAT exam is the quantitative ability section. The majority of the CAT QA questions are application-focused assessments of your understanding of algebraic, arithmetical, geometrical, and occasionally a mix of ideas.
Learning Formulas: The QA part will assess a candidate's aptitude for quickly resolving mathematical problems. You will be able to sail through this portion more easily if you get a firm grasp on the most fundamental equations of subjects like geometry, menstruation, and profit & loss.
Examine the questions: A question may frequently include two or more concepts while also appearing to be complex or technical. To tackle the question, you must be able to recognize these subjects and their correlations with lightning speed. After mastering the fundamental ideas, this will be accomplished.
Practice: Take a look at some books that cover the math curriculum for schools and start answering the problems. You'll be able to do this to improve your comprehension of numerous ideas and formulas. Your accuracy and speed will both improve as a result.
Sample or Mock Test: Although you must practice the mock tests for each part, they do assist you to have a better grasp of the difficulty of the QA segment and your preparation. You can determine where you are right now and where you need to be when you start your CAT preparation.
Exam Pattern and Syllabus for The QA Section:
Every year, the distribution of questions on these subjects fluctuates. The table below shows a rough marks distribution for quantitative topics.
Section | Detail |
Number of TITA Question | 10-12 |
Number of Arithmetic Questions | 10-14 |
Total number of Questions | 26 |
Top MBA entrance exams include QA weightage:
Some of the major MBA entry tests are listed below, along with the weight assigned to their Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning sections.
Entrance Exams | No. of Questions |
CAT | 26 |
MAT | 40 |
CMAT | 25 |
XAT | 28 |
IIFT | 25 |
ATMA | 30 |
MAH-CET | 50 |
SNAP | 20 |
Books which you can go through while preparing for The QA section:
Quantitative Aptitude for the CAT – By Nishit K. Sinha
Quantitative Aptitude Quantum CAT – By Sarvesh K Verma
Your CAT preparation will remain on track if you concentrate on the key ideas presented in this article. Utilize your time wisely, utilize all of the tools at your disposal, and maintain your motivation throughout the process.
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