With just a few days to go for CAT’13, a balanced mix of revision of
concepts and test practice is crucial to cracking the exam.
Your run-up to the Common Admission Test (CAT) exam can be equated to
the final preparation phase of an athlete preparing for a very important
competition in front of a very demanding audience. In your case, all
the pressure comes in from your own set of expectations. You should be
peaking at this time for giving out your best performance in the actual
test.
Assuming that you have put in consistent work over the last several
months, the last few weeks/days running up to your actual CAT testing
day should essentially consist of a balanced mix of revision of the
concept areas and test practice.
Recalling abilities
While revising, it is a good idea to do a ‘shadow practice’ with the
areas. This technique requires you to recall as much as you can about a
particular test area without the aid of study material. Use a notebook
for good measure and keep track of the flowchart of your recollection.
At the end of this session, look back at your study material to see how
much you have been able to recall with good accuracy.
This is relevant more for the topics in the Quantitative Ability areas.
This exercise gives you the confidence built on your recalling abilities
and if you are doing well on this, you can be reasonably sure that you
will not miss many questions for want of recalling abilities concerning
equations and formulae.
Test-taking practice
While you are doing practice tests in the coming days, do remember that
at this time, it is more important for you to understand the reasons for
your errors than the number of correct answers. At this stage,
correcting a conceptual error will reward you more than learning
something new. So spend double the time on evaluating “what went wrong”
rather than relishing a good performance. When you reward yourself with
the wisdom of correcting an error by understanding the steps that led
you to that mistake, you are taking a better grip on test dynamics.
At the venue
Your instructions are to reach the venue much ahead of the scheduled
start of the test. When you arrive at the venue, you are likely to meet
classmates and old friends. Do not engage in discussions that take away
the focus of the examination that’s coming up. Another danger is
engaging in conversations based on latest trending topics based on the
patterns of the examination. In today’s age of fast connectivity, news
travels fast and when people add their views to third-party-provided
information, there's possibility for great speculation. You are well
advised to stay away from this.
Inside the exam hall
Although the computer terminals are shielded off from the view of other
test-takers, it does not take extraordinary effort to succumb to the
temptation of stealing a glance at another terminal — with not malicious
intent for sure. Don’t stay completely insulated from your surroundings
and other external stimulus.
The second section has an exit option before the test-window is over.
But it just doesn’t make any sense for you to exercise this option as
you will still need to sit out the remaining time inside the
testing-window. Utilise your resources completely.
Once your test appears on the monitor, spend some two or three minutes
to scan the entire section for preparing a good mental picture of the
paper. Consider this time spent at the start of the sections as an
investment. This is when you create a mental footprint of the manner in
which you are going to go about the paper. The order of the questions
need not determine the order in which you answer the questions. While
looking at cluster questions, this mental mapping will definitely help
manage the time better.
Towards the end of the test, when you have about eight to ten minutes
left, you should go back to those questions you have marked out for the
last phase. This is something that gets executed well if you have done
the mental mapping properly. The combination of good initial scanning,
careful picking of questions to solve during the middle of the testing
time and marking off those ‘doubtful’ ones for the last stretch would be
a good strategy.
The writer is director T.I.M.E. Chennai & Vice President, T.I.M.E. Pvt Ltd.
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