CAT preparation is as much about training your mind for the test as it is about focusing on conceptual knowledge. Numerous books and instructors are available for conceptual understanding, but unfortunately the mental training aspect is often overlooked. In this article, I propose an approach that trains your mind to take the test in the way that works best for you.
Our minds and bodies are creatures of habit. They like to save energy and work on ‘automatic pilot’ as much as possible. Our goal here is to train our body and mind so that eventually answering the CAT paper becomes easier and easier and the energy is conserved to tackle the toughest questions. The basic principle of mental or physical training is ‘repetition’. Any mental or physical action repeated several times slowly and gradually becomes automatic. It’s like learning to drive a car. When you’re just learning to drive, it requires a lot of concentration and effort; you can hardly do anything else while driving. However, after a few months of driving, you can quickly eat, talk, drink or text (never do this!) while driving. This shows that a mental or physical task becomes almost automatic and effortless after enough repetition. Apologies for such a long introduction; the approach I suggest for the CAT 2022 is to religiously attempt a fake CAT (or a CAT paper from last year) every day in the exactly timed conditions as the actual exam. Do not wait until you have completed the entire syllabus. I urge you to complete the syllabus in parallel with solving full CAT papers. Most importantly, your grades in these practice CAT papers are not an indication of what you would ultimately score. So don’t let the fear of scoring low keep you from trying a full newspaper every day.
There are many benefits to trying a full paper every day. As much as CAT is about the ability to solve the problem, it is also about the ability to manage your time on paper. You should be able to decide which question to skip and which questions to spend more time on. Repeated practice will train your mind to understand your strengths and weaknesses and optimize time accordingly. While writing the actual exams, the stress levels will be quite high and you won’t be able to actively stop and think about which questions to skip or focus on. A rigorous, repeated practice will train your mind to make these decisions in automatic mode without your focused attention.
The second benefit of taking one full test each day is that your body and mind will develop the strength to sit and concentrate during that time, and you will feel relaxed and stress-free on the day of the exam. By being stress-free, you increase your processing capacity and you can solve problems more effectively. So the advice is to start each day by solving a full paper, regardless of your preparation level, and at the same time complete the chapter preparation for the entire syllabus.
Then adjust the order of your chapter preparation based on your performance in the everyday fake CATs. Prioritize the chapters you find most difficult and check if there is any improvement in trying those questions after the chapter preparation. If you don’t see any improvement even after the preparation, continue to prepare the next topic and don’t waste your time on that topic.
Last but not least, allocate more time to the section you are weakest in until you only have about a month left before the exam. In the final month of preparation, start devoting more and more time to the section you are best at. This approach will strengthen your defenses against your weakness and allow you to leverage your strengths. For example, if you are weak at quant and relatively better at verbal, consistently spend more time on quant and a little less on verbal in initial preparation. But in the past month, increase the time allotted to verbal and relatively limit the quantitative preparation time. I am convinced that this approach will allow you to train your mind and maximize your performance effectively! Good luck.
About the author:
Prof. dr. Amogh Kumbargeri is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at IIM Udaipur. Prof. dr. Kumbargeri has a PhD from IIM Ahmedabad, India. His research focuses on consumer information processing related to anthropomorphism and branding. His teaching interests include branding and digital marketing.
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