CAT 2017: What type of Mocks you should take in next 30 days? Advice from IIM toppers & experts

Which are the best mocks I should attempt to crack CAT 2017 with high score? How to analyse them to improve further? These are a few of the key queries hovering the minds of CAT 2017 aspirants?
Responding to such queries as how you can best utilise the Mocks, what type of CAT Mocks you should take, the past CAT toppers and students at IIM Ahmedabad, Indore, FMS Delhi suggest the ways and means to use the Mocks to your best in your preparation for CAT 2017 in next 30 days. These candidates have not only scored high in CAT exam but have also converted their call to coveted B-schools.
Important links:

• CAT 2017 success mantra by IIM Ahmedabad CAT 100 percentiler, Gyayak Jain Mix match various type of problems
• CAT 2017 Syllabus out for preparation: Plan your CAT preparation for next 45 days
• AICTE-CMAT 2018 Exam date announced: Online test on January 21, registration begins October 20

Be consistent in practice
It is not necessary that you join any CAT coaching, but it is important that you should be consistent in your preparation. IIM Ahmedabad student and one of the CAT toppers in 2016 with 99.73 percentile, Akhil Garg did not go to any offline coaching centre and preferred to adhere to self-preparation strategy. He says, My main preparation strategy was regular practice. I regularly solved questions of each section with time limit.
No use of Mocks, unless analysed
According to Akhil, IIM Ahmedabad student and CAT topper, Mocks are not useful until you thoroughly analyse your performance afterwards, understanding where and why you went wrong so that you know which areas to work upon. Identify your weak areas, plan your strategies and monitor your improvement through future mocks.

Pick out the best strategy to solve Mock
CAT topper with 100 percentile and FMS Student, Mukesh Goyal suggests, One can try different types of strategies in mocks and accordingly see what kind of strategy suits him/her better. All the mock questions incorrect, correct and un-attempted should be analysed properly. Through proper analysis, one can know about his/her weak and strong areas and can work accordingly.

IIMs official CAT Mock: Best way to understand CAT exam pattern
The best Mock is the one which is officially published by IIMs before CAT exam. For the last 2-3 years, IIMs have started publishing the full length official CAT Mock. It will also help you assess your preparation level. The official CAT mock contains only those type of questions which are expected in the CAT exam. The level of difficulty of the questions in official CAT Mock is also very close to the actual CAT exam.

Take official CAT Mock with questions and answers. The Mock is published by IIMs
Overcome your weakness through CAT Mock
Priya Sahni, IIM Indore student for PGP 2017-19 and CAT topper with 96 percentile advises the CAT aspirants to understand well the nature of CAT exam through the Mocks. She is of the view that CAT is a qualitative exam and not a quantitative exam. CAT tests your aptitude so it is very important to be very thorough with the concepts and enhance your analytical skills. Every person is good at one section and has another section as a weakness. It is very important to identify both of them and plan your strategy accordingly.

On the importance of Mocks before actual CAT exam, she suggests, I feel that just taking a mock test is not enough. Go for a thorough analysis. I gave 3 hours for the mock test and almost the same amount of time for its analysis. Analyse each question that you did wrong or left. Try to find out which questions were easy and you couldnt do. Try to improve on those questions.

Best to Join Mock Test series of top coaching
Chanchal Gupta, PGP 2017-19 student at IIM Ahmedabad and CAT topper with 99.79 percentile appeared for multiple mock tests in the last 3 months leading up to CAT. Instead of trying to attempt all the questions, she focussed on improving my accuracy in the questions that she solved.

Chanchal did self preparation for CAT last year but joined Mock test series of coaching. She also advises the CAT 2017 aspirants to join Mock test series of a good coaching and says I joined only the test series. Coaching centre helps in maintaining regularity and provides a competitive environment. In her view the best way to use mock tests is to analyse the Mocks afterwards. The mistakes should be identified and worked upon.

Take different LoD Mocks & test papers
In next 30 days you should take Mocks with different difficulty level. CAT toppers appeared for multiple mock tests in the last 2-3 months before CAT exam day. Besides, the Previous Test Papers are also the key source of preparation.
All the CAT toppers agree that you should solve more previous test papers and analyse your weak areas. The previous year CAT papers will help you to know the correct CAT exam pattern, CAT syllabus topics on which questions are based in CAT exam and give you a good practice opportunity. Solve CAT previous test papers
Almost all the CAT toppers who scored 99+ and converted the call to IIMs and FMS Delhi agree that there is no substitute to self preparation.

Please remember each of the 3 sections in CAT 2017 is important and you need to clear the cut offs to get shortlisted by IIMs. Candidates need to overcome their weakness in the particular section of CAT.
Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more updates on CAT 2017