catstrat

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CATalysis – 1

A lot of people keep asking me “How should I analyse a SimCAT?” so I felt I should do a post on that.

My observation is that most people write a test, then quickly check the answers/solutions to the ones they got wrong, and move on. They then wonder why the score doesn’t magically improve over time – after all, they are working so hard and taking so many tests! The thing is, taking a lot of tests, by itself, is not enough – one needs to identify areas of improvement and consciously work on them. So how does one proceed to do this?

The first step is the easiest (and consequently everyone does it mindlessly) – take the test, within the prescribed time limits. See the score if you like (but don’t check the correct answers just yet!)

Then, after a short rest break, attempt the test again without time limits. This will tell you which questions you were genuinely clueless about and which ones you lost out on solely because of the time constraints (in other words, it will help you identify the bottleneck in your preparation – conceptual clarity or speed). It will inform the first phase of your analysis below. After this exercise, go to the answer and explanations. And do the following 3 phases of analysis (in any order):

Phase 1: The ones you left (within the timed test)

The results obtained by taking the test a second time without time limits would guide you in this analysis. Identify which questions turned out to be easy, but which you ended up leaving for some reason or another. The two main reasons a question would go unsolved are

(a) You never got round to seeing it: in this case, the blame is squarely on your shoulders. Leaving questions unseen is extremely bad practice. Make sure that, during the 170 minutes available, you have managed to at least read every question and consciously decided whether or not to attempt it on its merits.

Understand that the broad, superficial topic should not be the only criterion for attempting or leaving a question. Don’t leave a question just because “it is from Probability” or “I hate Parajumbles” – you should be capable of attempting a simple question in any and every sub-field within the syllabus. Conversely, don’t attempt a question beyond your skills just because of some flawed logic like “I must do all TSD questions in every paper” or “I will attempt all the LR or die trying”. In analyses, I often found that people skipped questions from an area of discomfort in 3-4 seconds (even with a phenomenal reading/comprehension speed, there is no way they would have read, understood and decided rationally about it in that span of time!), while in other cases the same people spent 6-8 minutes or more struggling with an intractable poser, just because it was from a topic they considered themselves experts at.

(b) You found it incomprehensible or just downright scary: in this case, your analysis needs to identify whether it actually was a tough problem or just masquerading as one. In a 100 question test, chances are that there will be a few questions which are really gruelling; the only intent of these is to test whether you have the presence-of-mind to leave them and move on. But these will be few in number. A larger bunch of questions will look extremely difficult without being nearly as bad as they appear; exams like CAT, XAT and IIFT specialise in these. Identifying these might make a key difference in your scoring patterns and provide a 10-15 mark boost.

Phase 2: The ones you got wrong

Find out, among those, how many of them you goofed up because of silly mistakes, how many were because of misreading the question (as in you failed to understand the English of the question, what it was asking you to find) and how many were because your concepts were unclear (you understood what needed to be found but were unable to hit upon the right logic/formula/concept).

(a) There were lots of silly mistakes: work on focus, on avoiding those lapses of concentration (in one way it is a good thing – it means you can achieve significant score improvement in a short time as your concepts are sound). Examples of this would be taking the diameter of a circle as the radius, forgetting the factor of ½ in the area of a triangle, taking the sum of n natural numbers as n(n-1)/2 instead of n(n+1)/2, writing 3 x 3 = 6, etc.

(b) Understanding was the issue: learn how to identify the language cues in the question, so that in future you would be better equipped to notice the subtle traps and shades of meaning inherent in a well-set question. For example, if the question uses the phrase “non-negative integer solutions” then it should ring a warning bell in your mind; why hasn’t the examiner used the simpler “positive integer solutions”? And immediately the answer should strike you – you need to watch out for the zero as well.

(c) Conceptual clarity was a problem: revisit the relevant topic in your Basic Reference Materials and textbooks and internalise the concept thoroughly so that in future you will be able to apply it properly. For example, if you lost 3 easy marks because you forgot the volume of a sphere or the concept of a dangling modifier or the number of ways to put identical objects into distinct groups, you should chastise yourself mentally and ensure that in future you know everything you need to.

Phase 3: The ones you got right

This is the part of the analysis most people ignore, even the serious ones. I mean, it is right, right? Why bother analysing it? seems to be the thought here. However, there are crucial lessons to be learned here as well. After all, these are the question types you are surely going to attempt on the D-day as well, so it behooves you to be as efficient as possible in them.

(a) Questions you got right by a fluke: ensure that, in the future, you will know the correct logic for these. You don’t want to rely on luck in the real thing, do you?

(b) Questions you got right by a valid logic: it is always great to get 3 marks, no doubt, but if you spent 7-8 minutes on them then that takes off some of the sheen; the price is a little too high. Try to seek a better, more efficient way to do them, reduce the effort and time spent. And what of those which took only 2 minutes? Even there, see if you can reduce it to 1.5 minutes? 1 minute? 40 seconds? Because that will give you more time to spend on the other, tougher questions. Start with the assumption “However good I am at this, I can always get better”, let that be a cantrip guiding your preparation.

In my next “strategy” post I will try to look at a broader analysis; how to find your strengths and weaknesses and use them to optimise the order of attempting questions.

regards

J

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How Should I Allocate My Time On CAT 2014

This is a big question and so this post will be a bit long. So settle in for a long read.

The biggest change in the new CAT 2014 pattern, as everyone would agree, has been the removal of sectional time-limits. The thing about this change is that for some test-takers it is the best thing that could have happened and for others, especially those who were ‘set’ and have taken the CAT in its previous avatar, it is the worst kind of change. There will be the fence-sitters of course, those who are yet to see if it is a good thing or a bad, well the sooner they embrace the change the better.

In an earlier post we had mentioned that this change will change the skew the test from being a test of competence — the number of QA-DI or VA-LR can you solve in 70 minutes — to a test of strategy — the way you manage 170 minutes, your strengths & your weakness in such a way that you clear both sectional and overall cut-offs.

From our experience, most test-takers have the mental ability to be able to ace the Quant or Verbal questions in isolation but what lets them down is their ability manage time and clear the sectional cut-offs. In a sense through the CAT you have to prove that you have the potential to be manager and not just a worker (problem-solver) before your do your MBA.

What You Need To Manage — Not Just Time But Also Unpredictability

The CAT has been a notoriously unpredictable as a test. Since its inception only two years have passed where it did not spring a surprise on unsuspecting test-takers. So given that they have given the format a major overhaul this year test-takers will do well if they go in prepared for at least a few novelties.

The surprises can primarily come in two forms —

  • Changes in question types: no more parajumbles, return of FIJs or data sufficiency, fill in 3 blanks
  • Changes in the number of questions from each type: more LR or RC than usual.

Another part of the unpredictability is that we cannot predict how the difficulty-level of each area is going to be on test-day —

  • Quant can be much easier than usual (which is a sign that cut-off will be higher and not a reason to rejoice)
  • Logical Reasoning can turn out be tougher than usual and you might be required turn to Verbal to clear the VA-LR cut-off.

You should allocate your time in such a way that you have the flexibility to deal with any unpredictability and not let it jeopardise your ability to clear the sectional cut-offs.

Small Is Efficient

We always do well when we have limited resources because we then maximise every penny. And on the CAT, the most important resource is time. So does it make sense to divide it into two big block of 85 minutes each? Absolutely not! It is like having just one pit stop during an entire race.

Dividing it into smaller units based on the proportion of questions you will see from each area is your best bet to manage your time in the most efficient manner. So the idea is to break down this large mass of 170 minutes into small units with specific targets to achieve.

Five Areas Instead Of Two Sections

So the first thing to do will be to move away from the dichotomy of Quant & Verbal and look at the test as comprising five areas : QA, DI, VA, RC & LR . Why five areas? Since doing well on all five is a must to ace the test.

Area # Questions # Attempts
QA 30-35 18 – 20
DI 15-20 12 – 15
VA 15-20 12 – 15
RC 15-20 12 – 15
LR 15-20 12 -15

DI, RC & LR will comprise at least 45-50 questions on the test. Can you afford to ignore any one of them. Also every area will have a certain number of difficult questions. The task is to pick out Easy & Medium questions from each area. The reason most people do not cross a particular threshold is because they choose a favourite area and try to attempt even the tougher sets which are better left alone. One LR Set might be better left alone under test conditions, a few Quant problems are better ignored altogether. Focussing on five areas will ensure that your attempts are higher as well as better chosen.

How To Divide Your 170 Minutes

Area Time Attempts Accuracy
QA 45 minutes 14 – 18 12 – 15
DI 25 minutes 12 – 15 8 – 10
VA 20 minutes 12 – 15 12 – 14
RC 25 minutes 12 – 15 8 – 10
LR 25 minutes 12 -15 8 – 10
Buffer 30 minutes 8 – 10 6 – 8

What does such a division ensure?

Ensures That You Clear Sectional Cut-Offs: The table below shows that the minimum sectional cut-off is 80 and the maximum is 90.

IIM QA-DI VA-LR OVERALL
Ahmedabad 85 85 90
Bangalore 80 90 90
Calcutta 85 85 90
Lucknow 85 85 90
Indore 85 85 90
Kozhikode 80 80 90

The time division and attempt-accuracy defined in the previous table will ensure that you will get around a 90 percentile in QA-DI and way above it in VA-LR at the end of 140 minutes. You can use your buffer time at the end to not only clear the sectional cut-off but the overall cut-off but maximise your overall score as well.

Ensures That You Do Not Miss Out On Easy Questions: How many times have you gone back home and analysed a SimCAT only to find that there was an easy set or question that you could have done but did not since you did not really read it. This division ensures that you take a look at all areas and pick out easy questions from them.

Ensures That You Can Gauge the Difficulty Level of Each Area: If you consistently use this strategy in all your SimCATs, come test-day you will be able to gauge the difficulty level of the section-based on the number of attempts at the end of the defined time-limit. This will enable you to define what you need to achieve in the next time-slot. For example, if you attempt fewer than usual in Quant at the end of 45 minutes, then you will know that you need to amp up your performance in the DI time-slot. If you have a really good day on the Quant then may be instead of tackling DI next you can do VA and RC and then come back to DI later.

Ensures Timely & Better Performance Tracking: It is quite common for test-takers to realise towards the end of a test that their performance was below par. This is not because they performed poorly towards the end of the test but because they did not keep track of the deficits that were building up during the course of the test. By measuring yourself over smaller time slots with specific targets, you will be able to clearly know how your test is progressing and formulate your strategy in stages depending on your performance in the previous time-slot.

Why The Buffer

Anything can happen on test-day, for some reason an LR Set you might have otherwise done might pose a stubborn problem. Quant might throw up more questions that usual from your least favourite area, Geometry or P & C. How do you deal with this? Can you allow these minor setbacks to jeopardise your entire test?

The buffer is to help you deal with test-day uncertainty. It is that safety net at the end of 140 minutes that helps you ensure that you deliver to you clear sectional and overall cut-offs despite any setbacks during the 140 minutes.

The division suggested above has shown great results for a few students. One student saw his score shoot up from 134 to 166 (SimCAT 8 to 9) after he implemented this strategy. He felt that it really pushed him to achieve more on each area than usual. But he also added that what really helped was that he kept the time-limits sacrosanct.

You can customise the plan by changing the time-limits here and there by 5-10 minutes but you should not let your buffer time go below 20 minutes. More importantly you should stick to the plan.

We will be coming up with a follow up post on the various things that can go wrong in the 170 minutes and the strategic blunders you should watch out for.

Until then embrace the change and keep an eye on the timer!

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CAT 14 Strat – Should I give equal time to each section?

In the old days, when there were no sectional cut-offs in many exams, some people would choose to be “specialists”. In other words, they would strive to be really really good at one section and devote most of the time in the paper to that section, thus clearing the overall cut-offs despite a negligible score in one section.

However, colleges quickly realised that by such a criterion they ran the risk of getting people who spoke impeccable English but could not do a back-of-the-envelope calculation to save their lives (or their jobs), or others who could be human computers yet could not string together two consecutive grammatical sentences. Either type would go on to be less-than-ideal manager material. So nearly all the top colleges have moved to a scenario where there are sectional cut-offs; thus ensuring that one needs to spend a significant amount of time on each section.

Having said that, one can still choose to be flexible about time allotment. Very few people are equally proficient in both sections; and it is an established fact that the overall cut-off exceeds the total of the individual or sectional cut-offs (the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, after all!). So it is generally necessary not only to clear the cut-offs in each section but also to totally ace one section. You need to create a strategy which plays to your strengths; one of the most important things benefits of the SimCATs is that they allow you to experiment with different strategies and work out what suit your style.

For example, let us assume that practice tells you that your stamina is average, but your preparation is solid enough that you are tolerably confident of clearing both sectional cut-offs. You could start with your weaker section, planning on giving it a little less than half the time (say 70 minutes) and then taking stock after that time. If you are confident that any reasonable cut-off would be crossed, then you could shift to the other section and give it your best for the remaining time, thus ensuring that your overall score will be maximised. If you are not confident, give the first section a little more time to be safe!

Another strategy which a lot of people found handy in the old paper-based days could also be adapted to suit here. Initially, give maybe 70 minutes to each section. If at the end of that you feel sure that you have done well in both sections (and confident of clearing realistic cut-offs), then devote the remaining 30 minutes to your strongest section and aim to maximise your total score. If, on the other hand, you feel that you haven’t done justice to either one of the sections, then go to that section and ensure that you clear its cut-off. An advantage of this strategy is that it doesn’t require you to modify your existing strategy much, as you are already used to giving 70 minutes per section initially.

Note: all the above assumes that the test-taker has adequate ability and preparation in each of the sections! Without that, all the strategy in the world will avail nothing.

In the next couple of posts, my friend T will delve deeper into time-allocation at a micro level, rather than the broad generalisations I have made here.

regards

J

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CAT 14 Strat – Series or Parallel?

An important question to ponder is “should I attempt one section completely and then move to the other? Or should I switch between sections?” To decide this, once again, let’s do an experiment: first take 2 section tests each in QA and VA. Do two QA first and then 2 VA. Then take another set of 2 section tests each and do 1 QA, 1VA, 1QA, 1VA.

 If the score in the latter experiment is significantly lower than in the former, then you probably have a “switching problem” as in your mind takes time to get into top gear when you switch from QA to VA and vice versa. If the two performances are comparable, then your mind is probably adept at shifting from one section to another without requiring a warm-up time.

Another way to recognise this is if you find you do better within a section when you do all question of a given type one after the other; say all RCs or all VA or all LR – your analysis when writing Sim tests should help you to recognise this kind of pattern if it exists.

 If you do have a switching problem, do ensure that you do not make frequent shifts just because the option is provided. Decide on which section to do first (as discussed above) and allot a certain minimum amount of time to be given to that section; once that time is done, move to the other section and stick with it. Towards the end, perhaps, you can return to the earlier section if you have budgeted some time for it, or if you feel absolutely confident that you would have cleared any reasonable cut-off in the second section.

 If, however, you find that switching is not a problem per se, then you can be fairly flexible in how you attack the paper. You might choose to, for example, do all the quick-shot singleton questions first, then do all the sets (DI, LR, RC) then if time permits attack the rest of the questions. Or you might choose to first attack certain pre-decided question types (say “vocabulary, parajumbles, arithmetic, logs, LR”) and leave the rest for later.

 Either way, another question which should arise is, how do I divide the time across sections? My next post will address that.

regards

J

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CAT 14 Strat – How do I build stamina?

Concentrating for 3 hours at a stretch can seem quite a daunting task, given that 2 hours 20 minutes seemed like forever in the previous format. But to be brutally honest, it is far less than what our minds are capable of (even in these days of T-20 and twitter and ten second attention spans). After all, tests like the GMAT last for over three hours and people manage perfectly fine.

If we are honest with ourselves, we will realise that our brains are basically extremely lazy chaps – so when we sit for a “140 minute test”, knowing that we have to concentrate for 140 minutes, by the time about 100 minutes are up, our brain is already thinking longingly about what to do when it gets over. And when we try to get our brains back on track, they tells us “look dude, I can’t concentrate for so long at a stretch. Give me a break already!” Effectively, we rationalise the laziness as incapability.

Another acquaintance of mine, who faced this issue, took a rather extreme approach to solve this issue. He sat down one day with a whole bunch of mock tests (2 hour full length tests of those days), with the stated intention of writing 3 in a row (i.e., he planned to sit for 6 hours at a stretch!). He lasted for over 5 hours before he had to give up. But his result was rather interesting. Normally, he used to see that his concentration (and scores!) would drop drastically towards the last 45 minutes of a test. But when he had committed himself to sitting for that long, he stayed fully focussed for more than 4 hours because his brain no longer was in anticipation of release. He scored excellently in the first two hour test – and remarkably, he exceeded that score in the second test! And of course, he never again faced a problem of stamina again – when one has once concentrated for 4+ hours running, one cannot very well perceive 2 hours as a significant strain!

While this was probably a rather extreme solution, it is certainly a good idea to at least get used to concentrating hard for three hours at a stretch. Next time you sit for a test at home, firstly eliminate all distractions (keep your phone, gmail, twitter, facebook etc off!). Secondly, make sure that you have no commitments for at least the next 5 hours. Thirdly, plan that immediately after finishing the test, you will take a section test. Give your mind as little opportunity for distraction as you possibly can. Just maybe, you will find that you can concentrate for 3 hours at a stretch after all.

In my next post, I’ll address a related question – should one do the sections in series or in parallel?

regards

J

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CAT 14 Strat – Which section to do first?

In the last few years this decision, for good or for bad, was not in your hands. This year, however, you have the freedom to choose. But if you don’t choose wisely, this can prove a liability. So then, do you start with your strongest suit? Or should you instead choose to do your weaker section (assuming you have one!) when you are still fresh?

Let’s do a little experiment to inform our strategy: take 4-5 section tests of similar type and level, and write them continuously one after another, sticking to the time limits in each. Note the scores. If the scores are nearly the same across all the tests, then stamina is not much of an issue and you are able to maintain a similar (and hopefully high) level of performance throughout the test. But if, as more often happens, you notice a sharp drop-off in performance as time goes by, then chances are your stamina is not what it should be and that nervous exhaustion is taking a heavy toll (this might also explain some of the instances where people with otherwise good VA skills scored a depressingly low section 2 percentile in the past few CATs).

If you find that you have a good stamina and no appreciable drop in scores over a 3 hour stretch, then it might make sense to do your strong section first, totally annihilate it, and then aim at clearing a cut-off in the other section. An advantage would be that you would most probably have performed well in the first section and therefore there would be a morale boost, a feel-good factor, which would stand you in good stead when attempting the relatively weaker section.

However, if stamina is an issue and you find that your concentration tends to drop sharply over time, a safer strategy might be to get your weaker section out of the way while you are still fresh (so that you can at least ensure the cut-offs), and then do the stronger section. (The assumption being that you can do your strong section in your sleep, so to speak!).

Flexibility should also be part of your arsenal of course. Let me give you an example of an acquaintance of mine: when he was an aspirant, English (and especially RC) was his strong point. Stamina was not a major problem, and his concentration could easily hold for 2 hours (CAT was then a 2 hour test with 3 or 4 sections!). So in practice, he used to attack the verbal section/s first and aim to get almost everything in RC and VA and then clear cut-offs in QA and DI. However, on the day of his test he was recovering from a fever and was consequently quite weak – so he made the spot-decision to do the QA / DI first (as that required more concentration) and then moved to VA and finally RC (as those were relatively straightforward for him – to quote him “I can do those with my eyes closed!”). He scored lower than usual in VA, but a bit higher in QA so it still ended up as a very respectable score.

Whichever approach you take, if your stamina drops off too fast, then whatever you do later is going to suffer. So a valid question at this point is, how can one increase stamina? In the next post I will attempt to throw out some suggestions to tackle this…

regards

J

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CAT 14 Strat – Dealing With Change

In recent years, the CAT has had sectional time limits. Consequently, many candidates – especially repeat takers – tend to see those limits as an integral part of CAT. So when it was announced that CAT ’14 would not have such limits, a lot of people were confused (or upset). The older and more experienced people, who have met the CAT in its various avatars over the years, would take it in their stride though; in CAT, as in real life, the maxim “change is the only constant” has been an abiding truth. So let us look at this change and see how it would affect a test-taker.

Firstly, the longer perspective: in the long run, sectional time limits in the CAT have been the exception rather than the rule. Before 2011, the last time there were such limits was in the last millennium (1997 to be precise). In fact, the lack of such time limits better serves the purposes of a test like the CAT; it also tests skills such as “optimal utilisation of limited resources”. In the words of a colleague, when there is a sectional time limit, the candidate just has to do 2 separate maximisations, rather than an overall optimisation. So it is not particularly surprising that the CAT might choose to do away with it.

Note that such a change is not intrinsically good or bad. Whether the CAT chooses to have 60 questions in 140 minutes or 100 questions in 170 minutes (or, as they once used to, 185 questions in 120 minutes), the competition is still the same. At the end of the day, the number of aspirants has not changed due to this. Neither has the number of seats available. So if someone gets hurt by this change, by the same token someone else will benefit. The more things change, the more they remain the same! What it means is that one should understand the implications of the change, and accordingly devise strategies that make the most of one’s own peculiar strengths and weaknesses under the new paradigm. This brings up some obvious questions, a few of which I shall attempt to address in the next couple of strategy posts:

“Which section to do first?”

 “How do I maintain my stamina for 3 hours?”

 “Do I attempt the sections in series or in parallel?”

 “Should I give equal time to each section, or more weightage to one of them?”

regards

J