M.S. Dhoni and CAT 2016: 3 weeks to CAT

The final 3 week run up to CAT 2016 has begun. With the limited time you have, you need to work on your D-Day strategies. A strategy for approaching the paper and the questions, a strategy for managing your time and a strategy for maximising your scores in the final exam.

You may ask “What is strategy?”. Take this case: in the DILR section, LR is your stronger than DI. So you naturally you will be tempted to attempt LR sets first. But remember, there is this 1 LR set out of 4 which may be tough and out of the 4 DI sets, 2 sets are very easy and doable. So a sound strategy to test out here is to attempt 3 LR sets first followed by 2 DI sets then the remaining LR and DI sets in a suitable order. In this final lap, test out different strategies and come up with your personal best which you would stick to in the CAT exam.

Here are a few pointers to help you structure your preparation in the final few days:

1. Give 1–2 mocks a week now. Don’t over-stress yourself. Writing many mocks is not as important as to understanding where you are going wrong. You need to analyse and reanalyse your paper and see what strategy is working for you or which areas you need to focus to be able to acheive your target %ile.
2. Be highly aware and focussed. Go through the question properly and understand what is being asked. Pay attention to the options and try to avoid as many silly mistakes as possible.
3. Do not start any new topic right now. Focus on improving your weak areas in Quant and solve 2–3 sets of RC, DI and LR each daily.
4. Work on your accuracy. Your number of attempts is important but you need a high accuracy to compliment it. Improve your focus while solving questions to avoid silly mistakes.
5. If you don’t know a question, mark it for review or leave it. Do not give into ego. Yes, you would’ve solved such a question previously. But remember that time is of the essence in this exam and you cannot risk your performance to just that one question. Lose the battle, yet win the war. Move on.

Be extremely focussed and fearless. But keep cool too. Don’t melt under pressure. Picture Dhoni when you feel stressed. Think what would he do if he were giving CAT 2016. Happy prepping and all the best!