I will be completing my B. Com. in 2019. When can I take CAT exam. How do I prepare for the same?

It is advisable to try taking CAT in 2019 itself to get a fair idea of the difficulty level. My personal advice is to get yourself some work experience to also understand the corporate world and get some edge in your placements during MBA. CAT wo mostly be held in November. So, you have decent 6 months to prepare. First of all, start by identifying your area of strength. For the first two months or so, start learning concepts and take practice questions. For the next two months, just keep practicing more and more questions, proving your weak areas. For the last twoonths, keeping taking mock tests and try improving your scores.

Hello Ravi

If you will be completing the B.com in 2019 you are eligible to give CAT this year and take admission in mBA courses next year.

Now i think if you have filled the forms then try to give as many mocks as possible in this short time that is left for CAT now. Also clear your basics and work toimprove your weakness in subjects.

Hi Ravi

You should initiate your preparation from this time itself so that when you you attempt it for first time you would have confidence and strong hold on each field I.e DI, LR Quantitative aptitude, VA and reading comprehension as well as each topics also.

For Logical reasoning you may require 2.5 months to prepare, but for reading comprehension you should start reading Economics time on daily basis or The Hindu incase you find Economics time tough as it consist of core financial and economic topics.

Moreover you have to learn 20 words everyday which will assist you to tackle verbal ability.

If you are planning to join any coaching institute for practice then I would suggest you to go for mock test instead of regular coaching class as you are in final year so primary focus should be towards your academic.

Good luck for your career ahead.

Thanks

Hi Ravi Teja,

You will be able to take CAT 2018 and CAT 2019. Assuming you haven't started the preparation for CAT 2018, I would suggest you to apply for CAT 2018 and start the practice. I think the application deadline for CAT 2018 is over so you can start preparing for CAT 2019. You have 13-14 months to prepare for CAT and it would be ideal if you could phase your preparation for CAT. I won't suggest you to go full throttle to prepare CAT 2019 because it may lead to burnout.

Make sure about the topics that have come for the past few years. Verbal Ability, Logical Reasoning, Data Interpretation and Quantitative Ability would be tested in the exam. I would advice you to take a couple of mock test first and get an idea about your strengths and weaknesses first. Then you can plan accordingly.

Of the roughly 14 months remaining for CAT, you may use the first 8-9 months strengthening your hold of the basics and going through different types of questions for the exam. For this the study materials of some leading CAT coaching centres (like T.I.M.E or CL) may be used. Make sure you completely finish the syllabus during that time. Also enrol in the mock test series of any of these coaching centres. Mock tests time and again would give you an idea about where you stand compared to the competition and also give you an account of your strong and weak points.

Having completed the syllabus I would advice you to use your last 3-4 months on taking mock tests 2-3 times a week, analyzing them thoroughly, and work upon the weak parts. If need be, you should go back to the basics of the concepts again. Taking a number of mock tests, you won't have any fear in sitting for the actual test because you are familiarized with the test pattern,

Hope it helps,

All the best.

Go For Cat19 only.

There's an African proverb which I remember very clearly.



"Your biggest enemy is not someone from outside, but from your inside"



If you can conquer that part, everything else will fall in, and you will find a path.



If you don't believe in yourself you can't make other people believe in you.



When I started preparing for cat, I used to imagine different scenarios about how i would present myself in the interviews.



I would Imagine what answers I would give in IIM interviews, the good stuff that id achieve later on and somuch more.



If you can Imagine it, you will hold it in your hand.



Get over the habit of "I dont know!!" And start working on "I am willing to know"



Newspaper readings are compulsary for everyday, atleast editorials, I used to read 3 newspapers a day.



I'd suggest you to read,



"How to read faster by Norman lewis"



Speed builds up over the time, you cant get it done in a week. You have to keep going till you achieve it.



For Cat, vocab is not that important, if you know some basic level words you'd crack it.



You need to follow a simple rule, 50% time for English, rest 50% for Other sections. And work for longer hours if you are weak in multiple sections.



Focus on what you can understand, react and write, to crack Cat.



Once that's done go forward for GD-Pi-Wat preparation.



Fight one battle at a time one deadline a day and you will make it.



There are no shortcuts, working everyday is the only way forward.



Refer past 25 years Cat solved papers by Career launcher from amazon, it will help alot, I used it. Make sure to finish it before Cat.



Now keep giving as much as mocks possible.

The fear of loosing out on close options will go only through that.



Also understand that with increasing speed you will tend to attend every possible question, dont do so.



If you have even 1% doubt in any question and if it has negative marking dont go for it.



I also struggled in certain type of questions so i didnt use to attend these, even if I knew them sometimes.



Because through mocks i understood that there is a high probability that event my gutt feeling is wrong most of the times.





Moreover understand that you will get these close options even in CAT or any other exam because they need you to make quick decisions which is a part of MBa course or PO post etc.



So for that, practice is the only way to go forward.



One thing is if you know the trend of how past questions were asked and know the answers for the same with the methodology to solve them, then you can atleast predict those in the exam.



So make sure to solve old papers and Give as many mocks as possible.



You need to form a strategy that these questions I am good at, these Ones id definitely leave, and these are the ones which I will definitely solve if time permits.



So capitalise on your strengths Work on your weaknesses and if you cant convert your weaknesses into strengths then sometimes leaving them behind is the right way to go forward.



For example I used to do 18 questions right and 17-20 wrong giving me 34 marks, I switched to 18-20 right and 2-5 wrong which gave me a boost of atleast 15 sectional percentile



So formulate your strategy and work on it, because only you can,



Remember Hard work pays off, dont seek shortcuts.



All the best,



SMIT-IIM-AMRITSAR-PGP/04

HI Ravi

since you are completing your B.Com in 2019, an ideal choice would be to apply for CAT 2018. But I guess the dates are par and you can't apply anymore. So applying for CAT-2019 is a good choice you can get plenty of time to prepare yourself for the same.

Talking about the preparation for the CAT:

Dedicate 3 to 4 hours daily for CAT

Keep practicing quants

Try attending courses to help yourself increase analyzing and solving skills

Solve mock papers to know how much you have grasped

analyze yourself

keep reading newspapers, high-level novels to improve English and be updated.

All the best.

U can attempt this year if u already enrol your Registration in CAT Entrance Exam will be held on 25th November 2018.

U hardly had 48 days to prepare With all the topics including Mock Test and Revision of Subjects.



Thanks,

Azim

Hi Ravi,

You can give CAT in next year 2019 (Nov 2019). Since you have almost a year you can start by joining a good coaching institute. You can either join wekday or weekend batch depending on at what time your college ends. The duartion of course would be around 10 months. In the course you will be given some mock test series (like AIMCAT in TIME) that will help you analyse your improvements over the time. On the basis of tests you can focus on your weak sections. The most important factor to consider is time. You should be able to complete the papers on time. So I would suggest you to focus on speed also.

Apart from this many entrance exams like IIFT asks General knowledge questions also. To prepare for that I would suggest you to start reading newspaper (The Hindu, Economic Times, TOI) and business magazines. This will help you improve your reading speed for Reading Comprehension.

You can start a test series in last 2 months to improve on speed. But most importantly you have to focus on self study also. 2-3 hrs of seld study daily would be sufficient to get a good score.

All the best