CAT 2016: Aspirants Insight-I messed up Quant in the exam; vow to get top IIM this year

CAT 2016 the gateway to 20 IIMs and other top B-schools is hardly 100 days away and the candidates who appeared in CAT last year but could not make it to their dream B-school due to the mistakes they made during preparation and in the testing room now are hell bent not to repeat them again. They are preparing again to hit a high overall as well as high sectional scores with a vow to get their dream IIM in 2017.

One of such aspirants who appeared in CAT last year shares the insight how he messed with Quant questions which was the last section in CAT and lost the opportunity of getting shortlisted by any of the IIMs due severe dip in sectional score.

It is the story of an aspirant who prepared hard but lost the way and made mistakes in CAT. Let us have his 1st person account that may guide and motivate other aspirants to avoid these mistakes and crack CAT 2016 with high score.

I am Abhilash (Name changed to protect the identity). I prepared well for Common Admission Test (CAT) conducted by IIMs for admission to their PGP 2016-18 courses. I believed in a combination of self-study and guidance from good coaching. I was confident to score a very high percentile as I was always good during preparation and the mocks conducted at my coaching institute where I used to score high. My Quant part was good enough and I expected maximum percentile score in this section.

But, when I got the CAT score card, it was Quant where I scored lowest and couldnt even qualify the bare minimum cut off for short listing prescribed by any IIM. On recollecting and recalling my mistakes, I got it clear that my mistakes led to this disaster which is not expected from a serious CAT aspirant. I am sure I wont repeat the mistakes which could pull down my scores and hopefully, my story will also help you not to repeat any of such mistakes.

Mistake-1: Attempted MCQs first
CAT had 28% Non-MCQ type of questions which did not carry any penalty of negative marking. Each of the 3 sections on VARC; DILR and Quant had to be solved in 1 hour. With the thought that answer options are available for MCQs first and invited more penalty of negative marking. By the time I began attempting Non-MCQs very short time was left and many of the Non-MCQs remained unanswered or were answered without getting proper attention.

Mistake-2: Overconfidence in Quant made it worse
The sectional time constraint did not allow to move from one section to other before the lapse of one hour assigned for the section. Since Quant was the last section, I thought I would crack it faster. But it did not go the way I thought.

I tried to maintain my cool but was not able to maintain good speed with accuracy level. Quant section had 10 Non-MCQs out of which I could attempt only 4 due to my wastage of more time on MCQs. In the process I lost my cool and started taking Quant questions haphazardly which added to my woes.

Mistake-3: Took the questions as challenge
This was the biggest mistake that I made trying to continue fighting with the question and arriving at some wrong result. I lost the track of calculation, concept and sometime the formula also, but probably to satisfy my ego did not give up. It eventually resulted in long time consuming calculation and making me panicky as less time was left.

Mistake-4: Solved more with less accuracy
Instead of resorting to pick & choose the appropriate doable questions, I continued solving more and more questions. Despite knowing I was making this mistake, I continued with it and lost.
Mistake-5: Questions not properly understood
I also made a mistake of incorrect reading of the question. After reading the question, I solve the question and found out that I had incorrectly read the question and therefore, arrived at the answer which was not asked for.
Even after doing everything right, my answer was wrong. Probably, Quant being the last section I lost my focus.

Experts comment
CAT 2016 preparation experts Prof S K Agarwal, Prof Nishit Sinha, Prof Arks Srinivas among others are unanimous on few points and share the tips for CAT 2016 aspirants-
-- You get high sectional percentile in CAT, if you score even 35 to 40% marks in each section
--Attempt all the easier questions and no-negative penalty questions first
--Learn the art of skipping the difficult question
--Accuracy is more important than number, so be careful
There are still 100 days to CAT 2016, so there is sufficient time to build your concepts, fundamentals and go for frequent revision of basics. Learn the time management skill as it will help in your preparation and practice sessions how to crack CAT 2016.