Dear Aspirant,

CAT or Common Admission Test, is the most popular test for management entrance exam in November for admission to 20 IIMs and in more than 1000 B-schools across India. This happens once a year and it is a three hour exam.

Eligibility Criteria:

• Obtain a Bachelor’s degree in any discipline with minimum 50 per cent marks or equivalent CGPA from a recognised university or educational institute.
• The reserved category candidates, such as Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Persons with Disability (PWD), should secure minimum 45 percentage in Bachelor’s Degree in any discipline from a recognised university or educational institute.
• The final year students of Bachelor’s degree/equivalent qualification exam and those who have completed degree course and are awaiting results can apply for CAT 2019 as well.
• Aspirants with any professional degree with requisite percentage of marks will be eligible to appear for the exam.

The syllabus consists of three parts:

1. Verbal ability and reading comprehension (34 questions)
2. Data interpretation and logical reasoning
3. Quantitative Ability

The questions for the exam will be MCQ's and TITA type and there will be a total of 100 questions. Each question will be of 3 marks and there will be a negative marking of 1 mark.

Here is how to prepare:

1. Be thorough with the syllabus. For this go through the previous year question papers and mock tests and plan your time-table according to strengths and weaknesses in the various subjects. Make a combination of relaxation and preparation. Solve question papers to track your progress.
2. Use NCERT books to strengthen your basics.
3. Read articles. Read newspapers, magazines and watch the new channels and browse the internet from time to time. This reading will help you in the comprehension section.
4. For mathematics, go the old-fashioned way. You can try shortcuts for certain things but practice, Practice and practice. Memorise tables, square roots, cube roots, conversion from percent to fraction, etc. Reducing time for this section is important.
5. Other than that, eat well and take care of your health. Know that you can ace it and if you have the right preparation, you surely will.

Here are some free e-books to help:

https://bschool.careers360.com/download/cat-ebooks

Hope this helps. All the best!