Name:
Location: Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

CAT Prep. Strategy

I started preparing for CAT (rather made up my mind to give CAT ) on 24th April.
Did I hear "Tooo late buddy..". Yes I admit, I am a bit late but "Better late than never..". So no wasting time, let's put on the gears and move on.
15 days have passed since the day and all I have done is that I have made a significant progress in maths. While that is good, I feel I should have a regular study plan.
This is what I have thought:
Now let's start from the end (as I allways plan from the end even in my project work).
Let's take the end date as 12th Nov.(Last 6-7 days will be spent in revision which can be planned later.Also, if there is some specific area where I am not confident, it can be taken up then.)
I need to take 30-40 mock cats.
Each mock CAT will take 3 days.
1st Day -- take the test, calculate the score, see the questions which went wrong and why did they go wrong. Enter the mistakes and score in an excel.
2nd Day -- Do the entire paper with no timelines and find which easy questions did I miss out on
and why did I miss them out, again record them in excel.
3rd Day -- The 2 days work will throw some topic which needs more attention.This is the day for revision and strengthening the basics.
As the 3rd day will be saved on some occasions and the summation will give me a few days where I can decide to take more tests or revise a few things.
Taking the minimum number of tests to be 30, it will take 90 days.
This brings me to the date of Aug12. As I will be exerting more towards the end, I can shift Aug-12
to Aug 15(just to make it synonymous with an imp day.. yes the Independence Day).
Independence day will be the day I will start taking regular Mock CAT's.
As I would prefer to give some sectional tests and revise the whole thing once, before moving to MockCAT's, I will remove the last 15 days for the same.Hence, I need to roughly complete my basics
by 31st July.
hmmmm... now it becomes interesting...... how to do it..??
I have to study 3 hrs a day. (Why 3..? because it is a trade off between 2(too less) and 4(burning myself) ).
The 3 subjects can be managed in the following way:
Day 1: Maths - 2hrs, DI/DS - 1hr
Day 2: DI/DS - 1 hr, VA/RC - 2hrs
Apart from this I'll be reading books (which have good english) daily for at least half an hour before going to bed.The books will be on various ongoing relevant topics. This will help me in 2 ways
1. I would gain knowledge for GD/PI. -- Whatever I read, I will put it here (at my blog) just to make a summary of what I've read.
2. It would expose me to various styles of writing and also inculcate a reading habit.
Some people are pressing me to do a word list which I, personally, do not believe in.
If the need arises, will find time to do it.

Looks like a good strategy... doesn't it...
Implementation remains the key as allways.

Thought for the moment :

"If u r to succeed u will find a way.. else.. u will find an excuse."

nitin

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Achhi strategy hai dost...

very well said "better late than never"..

All the best!!!!

1:58 AM  

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