Starting with CAT Preparation-Recommended Guidelines for Beginners

Before jump starting your CAT preparation you must analyze, understand and plan the preparation in such a way that it enables you to sail through all the hurdles. Below post is recommended to all aspirants who are looking forward to crack CAT in coming years.

The number of hours a candidate needs to put in for CAT or other MBA exam preparation depends on their current level of expertise across following sections:

-Quantitative Aptitude
-Verbal Ability
-Logical Reasoning
-Data Interpretation
A person who is very good in mathematics and has good verbal ability would surely need to spend lesser time in preparation when compared to a person who is not good in math’s and verbal. Below are the recommended guidelines to anyone who is planning to start preparing for MBA exams like CAT.

Step-1 Learn all about CAT (First 2-3 days)
Devote few hours daily for next few days and try to know as much as possible about CAT covering eligibility criteria, exam format, kind of questions etc. This is important so that you are very clear on different attributes of CAT and there is no confusion in your mind.
Below links must be useful for you:

• All About CAT
• Initial Analysis before MBA Preparation for beginners
• Must have Skills for Cracking CAT Exam
• Tips for Online CAT
• Tips to do well in CAT Exam
• Tips & Strategy while attempting CAT paper
• IIMs Selection Criteria
• Cut-off percentile for MBA colleges

Step-2 Do Self Analysis for CAT (For next 7 days)
The next thing which you should do is analyze yourself so as to find your strength & weaknesses(Spend 2 hours per day). How to find your strength & weaknesses
1.Simply pick up a past years CAT exam papers. (Attempt Free Online Mock Tests or Download Past Year Papers for MBA Exams.)

2. Attempt as many questions as you can without putting the time limit in one go (say you sit for 4 hours read all the questions & attempt which ever you are confident of.....don't make any blind guess for any of the questions.....feel free to make calculated guess in verbal section :) ).

3. Check your answers and attempts.
4. Write down your overall score, along with sectional score
5. Repeat step 1-4 for 4 more Past Year CAT Papers

With your consolidated scores for 4-5 attempts of different Mock CAT tests, you would be able find which section is your strength and which one is your weakness.

Refer below links for past paper and free online tests:

• Free Online Mock Tests
• Past Year Papers Link 

Please Remember: Initially when you write any mock tests with same time limit as actual CAT, your scores would be quite low as you are yet to master the time 
management. So don't panic, slowly with time & with your preparation in progress your score will rise progressively.

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Step-3 Execution: Mastering your strengths & improving on your Weaknesses

Once you have finished analyzing yourself, you need to start working on weaknesses & mastering your strengths. There are difference ways to improve your weaknesses and master your strengths:
1. Stick to Self Preparation + Mock Tests : If you are confident about your abilities based the analysis done in step -2, you can continue with self preparation without joining any coaching. Even for self preparation you must have good collection of study materials and books. Refer below links for recommended books:

• Recommended Books for CAT & other MBA Exams-Quant, Verbal & DI-LR
• List of Novels, Newspapers and Magazines for MBA Students

2. Join a Good Coaching along with Mock Tests:  If you are not confident enough after the self analysis, you should consider joining a good coaching institute to improve on your weak area's.
Which coaching institute you should join?
ByJu, TIME, Career Launcher, IMS , PT Education are some of the popular coaching institutes for CAT. Rather than just focusing on the brand names of coaching institutes you must consider below factors before joining a coaching:
a. Based on your Weaknesses -Some of the coaching institutes have certain area's as their strengths and they might be providing the best coaching in a particular section. You must know what is your weakness and whether the particular coaching institute is known to be the best for that particular section or not. To find out this you can sync up with the current ongoing batches or students who have taken coaching from the particular branch.
Example: Raj is very good in Quantitative Aptitude and Logical Reasoning but he is not at all confident in Verbal Ability. He joined ABC coaching institute in his city without analyzing whether their Verbal Analysis coaching is very good or not. ABC institute coaching for Quantitative Aptitude and Logical Reasoning are very good but Verbal Analysis coaching is mediocre.
Due to this Raj ended up wasting lot of time and money as he made a wrong choice.
b. Proximity to your Residence -If the coaching institute is too far from your residence then you may end wasting too much of time in commuting to and fro. Even though the coaching might be good but wasting more than 2 hours in commuting to and fro is not recommend.

c. Feedback of the particular center - Even if a coaching institute name is very famous throughout the country, still there is no guarantee that a particular branch would also be good. What matters for you is the feedback of the local branch which you are planning to join and faculty member's reputation as an expert in coaching. A local coaching center which is dis-organized, non-punctual and lacks in god faculty may become an extra burden for you. You must seek the feedback about coaching and its faculty members from current ongoing batch students before joining a particular coaching center.  
 
You should start with self preparation and stick to it for *few weeks. Join for Mock CATs after few weeks of self preparation. Based on your performance in Mock tests and your self- preparation, you must decide if you really require joining for classroom coaching or not.
There are plenty of tips, tricks & shortcuts shared across this site, just browse and download whatever you feel would be useful for you. Also there are lot of free ebooks, past papers and study material for MBA preparation. 

Below are some of the links:

• Quantitative Aptitude Study Materials for MBA + Free Download 
• Verbal Aptitude & English Study Materials for MBA + Free Download 
• Data Interpretation & Logic Reasoning Study Materials for MBA + Free Download

*Note: The duration of *few months mentioned above varies from candidate to candidate. A student who is in 1^st year engineering has lot more time for preparation than some on who is in final year. Few months for 1^st year student could be 9-12 months whereas it could be just 1.5-2 months for someone who is in final year.

Step-4 Work on Personality Development
We also recommend you to focus on spoken English, please form a group within your friend circle and have mock Extempore/ GDs/ Interviews/ Debates. This will not only help you in your MBA preparation but also for job interviews & will surely help in your overall personality development.
I hope you should be able to organize such a session for half an hour everyday within your college campus or hostel.

• Different Tests after CAT at each B-School
• IIMs Selection Parameters for 2017-19
• Skills Assessed in a GD
• Guidelines for doing well in GD 
• Essay Writing Tips - Content Writing Tips

 
Step-5 Set your Goals

After spending considerable time in preparation it would also be advisable for you to set a clear cut target about your aspirations, whether your are planning to take admission only in top 10 colleges or top 20 colleges or top 30 colleges. The target must be realistic based on your self-analysis your preparation and your confidence on yourself. In general spending 1 hour on week days & 2-3 hours during weekends/holidays is suggested for a normal & average CAT aspirant.

Note:

For candidates who are doing their graduation and also preparing for CAT & other MBA exams must remember that their graduation marks plays a major role in selection process. Not only that, it also plays a major role in their whole career as well. The advice to them is not to be complacent about their graduation studies due to the CAT preparation; graduation performance is something which reflects a candidate’s sincerity, dedication & hard work towards their career. A candidate spending 4 years without putting effort would not be considered as mature enough and would have to face lot of difficulties later.

So please do your graduation with the same zeal with which you are aspiring for MBA.

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