10 Common Mistakes to Avoid while Preparing for CAT 2015

With less than 80 days left for Common Admission Test (CAT) 2015 it’s time to gear up and focus on the right preparation strategy. While preparing for the exam it is crucial for aspirants to channelize their energy in the right direction and avoid common mistakes that could hamper their score.

Here are the 10 common mistakes that aspirants may commit, so here we forewarn:

• Not Solving Enough Mock Papers

To get a proper understanding of the format, time management and to be able to solve questions accurately one must take as many mocks. Solving and practicing individual questions is a lot different to attempting a full mock test. While taking mocks aspirants can realize mismanagement of time, silly errors which do not get highlighted otherwise.

• Ignoring Past Year Sample Papers

Even if there are major changes in exam pattern, candidates should not ignore past year sample papers. They are a great source to practice section-wise questions. Moreover, there are chances of questions getting repeated after 3 to 4 years.

• Not focusing on Error Analysis

Analyzing mistakes is crucial for an all round preparation. One should revisit all the tests and questions solved and find out the repetitive mistakes. After identifying the mistakes one should just focus on getting the basics clear and be cautious while attempting those kinds of questions on the exam day.

• Not Iterating the Preparation Strategy

Having one preparation strategy is good, but sticking to it despite no results in terms of scoring in mocks is stupidity. Changing the study plan if not working well is recommended. Here advices from industry experts and academicians can be followed.

• Not listing down important formulas and concepts

To have a quick access to all the important formulas, concepts and tricks, aspirants can prepare a list of the same. The list can be put on pin board, it proves good for revision.

• Ignoring the SWOT Analysis

Identifying strengths and weaknesses is very important for performing well in the exam. If strengths are known one can be confident and start solving the test from questions based on strong concepts. On the other hand the weak areas can be practiced and focus can be on minimizing errors.

• Not Focusing on Offbeat Topics

CAT exam has a legacy of throwing the most unexpected challenges at candidates. Therefore, questions based on uncommon or offbeat topics should not be ignored. Topics like Clocks, 4- variable Venn diagram, Fact-Inference-Judgement (FIJ) etc. should be studied.

• Not working on Quick Calculations

Scoring well in the quant section becomes easy if a candidate has practiced for quick calculations. This requires going through all the fractions, squares, tables and Pythagoras triples.

• Lack of Awareness

An aspirant should not be closed to what’s going on around him or her. Any update or announcement can dictate the pattern or the level of difficulty of the exam.

Isha Sharma is a graduate in Economics from Delhi University & also holds a masters degree in Business Economics from Guru Nanak Dev University.