100 days to CAT 2024

100 days to CAT . Not a lot of time,  many would say, but for the assiduous, it’s a chance to etch success with dedication , hard work and perseverance.

The next 100 days should be an autobiography of toil , perseverance and discipline consumed by an insatiable hunger to succeed.

Let’s unravel the CAT story.

CAT is not difficult !!! It is a logical application of concepts , learned throughout our growing up years. It tests our comprehension skills , logical skills and basic maths skills that are necessary to navigate the labyrinth of complexities in the business world.

Before we formulate a plan to BELL THE CAT , let’s have a look at the previous years’ papers.

KARNA KYA HAI !!!???

The paper patterns of  CAT 2022 and CAT 2023 papers were similar . The question paper had sixty-six questions with a time duration of two hours.

If we look at the scores in CAT 2022 ,99 percentile was achieved at a score of 84 , 95 percentile at a score of 60 , 90 at a score of 49 , 85 at 41 and 80 percentile at 36 .

 Pretty doable , YES , I can do it.

Looking at the individual sections in CAT 2022

VARC a 90 percentile was achieved at a score of 23 , and an 80 at a score of 18.

LRDI , a 90 percentile was achieved at a score of 18 , and an 80 percentile at a score of 11.

 QA , a 90 percentile was achieved at a score of 17 , and an 80 at a score of 12.

 

Now let’s turn our gaze to CAT 2023 , does the scenario change ?

In CAT 2023 , 99 percentile was achieved at a score of 76 , 95 percentile at a score of 55 , 90 percentile at a score of 45 , 85 percentile at 38 and 80 percentile at 34 .

Again, pretty doable , YES. I can do it.

Looking at the sections in CAT 2023 ,

VARC a 90 percentile was achieved at a score of 24 , and an 80 percentile at a score of 18.

LRDI , a 90 percentile was achieved at a score of 16 , and an 80 percentile at a score of 12.

QA , a 90 percentile was achieved at a score of 14 , and an 80 percentile at a score of 10.

 

Having had a look at the previous years’ papers , we can see  the difference lies in the range of 2Qs at 90 percentile to 4Qs at 99 percentile. Can we predict CAT 2024 scoreline?  YES … a  score line around 45 – 50 gets you around 90 percentile , 55-60 marks get you 95 percentile and a score line around  85-95 gets you 99 percentile.

 

So now , what should be my target?

The most important question to answer here is where am I today ? From wherever I am today , we can with consistency scale to 90 if we are in the lower percentile ranges,  and if we are in 80s today, we can always look up to the elusive 99.

So, ladies and gentlemen , what should be my strategy , how do I ace my preparations???

Let’s look at the individual sections:

Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC) :

 The VARC section comprises of 24 Questions. These 24 Questions in CAT 2022 and CAT 2023 have included   four RC passages , two paragraph completion Questions , two  summary-based questions and four Para jumble questions. There were no odd sentence out kind of Para jumbles in CAT 2022 , but in CAT 2023 , you saw a reappearance of odd sentence Para jumbles.

The RC passages in CAT 2023 were  on diverse topics.

	Slot 1	Slot 2	Slot 3
Easy	Return of wolves’ predation in a French region	Second-hand Shopping and Fast Fashion	Colonialism and Global Warming (The Nutmeg’s Curse)
	Current economies of North and South Korea.	Translated Streaming in Europe	Understanding Romantic Aesthetics
Difficult	Indian Ocean Literature	Why Liberalism Failed (Book Review)	Cultural Patrimony Laws
	Modern materialism versus ancient societies	What is Historical Fact	Rationality by Steven Pinker

 

Yes , you got it right to ace the RC passages , you need to be an eclectic reader. Aeon Essays,  yes , Washington Post ,yes ; The Guardian, Yes ; but not before you have mastered the quotidian Indian English newspaper.

Remember reading skills and comprehension come in slowly , they take their own sweet time. Start with TOI. Once the habit is developed , slowly migrate to the Indian Express or the Hindu . Once the terrain is mastered volley towards Aeon Essays and company, for then and only then you will find the true meaning behind words .

Forty minutes of reading everyday , followed by one RC passage every day , followed by the RC passages in the weekly mocks , and in the section tests . You would have done enough to crack the RC section on the final day.

Solving 5 questions on Para jumbles daily would help you master the topic  and provide the necessary balance and diversity in question choice that you might need , if the paper is difficult.

Solving RCs would help you get better at Paragraph completion and Summary type of Questions. For practising these type of Qs , taking the sectional and mock tests would suffice.

The key here is to understand that the VARC section is not about Vocabulary or Grammar but about comprehension and logic , we can build our comprehension by reading well and our logic through practice and understanding of our mistakes.

 

Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation (LRDI):

LRDI in CAT 2022 and CAT 2023 had 20 Questions. There were four sets with five questions in each set. In CAT 2023 the LRDI  questions ranged on the following topics:

	Slot 1	Slot 2	Slot 3
Easy	Professors in departments	5 firms – Funds raised in consecutive years	Number of enrolments in offline and online courses
	Gig workers and Restaurants, Mathematical Reasoning. Involved Measures of central tendency	Draw competition	Six Police Stations with map (route based)
Difficult	Houses on sale	3 friends visited a park. Many rides. Scheduling questions	Projects and scores of 3 boys and 3 girls
	Visa Office Special Equation handling	Nine Boxes – sudoku type puzzle	AC Company – 4 Dealers

  

Before getting down to solve the LRDI sets , have a look at the Previous Years Questions (PYQs) from 2017 to 2023.

Practise again is the key here . The broad areas from where questions are picked in CAT include Arrangements , Games and Tournaments , DI based LR , Route Based Qs, Sequence Based Qs , and Set Theory. Sometimes you get puzzles similar to a Sudoku or Minesweeper.

When we are looking at solving the DILR section of CAT a very important criteria is question-selection. If we look at the previous years scores 5Qs-6Qs roughly give us a 90 percentile.

The trick in solving the LRDI Qs is to be able to write down the Qs in a tabular format , re- reading the Question , and having the patience to solve it. Basic calculations like percentages ,multiplications should be at your fingertips. More importantly during your preparations you need to promise yourself , you will not look at the solution for at least 24 hours. Looking at the solution , kills the question and the thinking process. The thinking process needs to develop ,you need to learn to connect the dots , and moreover you need to realize that the answer to the question lies in question itself.

Practise five DILR sets daily starting with the easy ones in the first 25 days and then slowly moving on to solve the difficult ones. Try solving questions every day from a different area. Day 1 can be arrangements , Day 2 can be Games and Tournaments , Day 3 can be DI based LR …. continue, then repeat.

Practising new sets daily helps wonderfully well , and practising online would be even better , because that brings the timer in the equation , which a lot of students dread. While taking mocks you need to establish clear cut processes , if you are not able make anything out of a set for 15 minutes  , you need to move on. It would be foolish to wait for another ten minutes , because then panic would set in.

Remember solving the LRDI questions does not require you to think out of the box, you need to understand the pattern of solving the questions , develop a logical thinking process  and connect the dots.

Quantitative Ability (QA)

QA section of CAT 2022 and CAT 2023 had 22 Qs with 7Qs or 8Qs on Arithmetic across the different slots.

	Slot 1	Slot 2	Slot 3
Arithmetic	7	7	8
Algebra	8	8	4
Modern Math	2	3	4
Geometry	4	2	3
Numbers	1	2	3

 

To master QA, you need to get your basic concepts right , what I mean by basics is your calculations should be spot on , here basic calculations should be done mentally. The calculator in CAT is like a snail , it kills your speed. It is to be sparsely used. Chapters like percentages , ratio and proportion , mixtures and allegations , profit loss and discount should be practised and re-practised. You should try to develop proficiency across two topics among the five given in the table. It would give you a range of Qs that you can solve.  Remember in QA, you need to learn to pick the Qs that you want to solve, picking the wrong Qs , or picking Qs from topics that you are not comfortable with eats your time and leaves you with little or no time with questions you can actually solve. In the next 100 days , pick up the funda books , many of the topics can be covered with a quick revision of NCERT books from Class 6^th to Class 10^th. It lays down the foundation , if you are struggling with Mathematics.

Remember it is concepts first , tricks later. Don’t worry about the hare in your classroom  , the tortoise in you will help you win the race.

To sum it all up , CAT in the next 100 days demands a minimum of 4-6 hours daily. It requires you to complete the funda books & solve online topic tests & section tests. It requires you to have a look at the PYQs, devise a strategy , & implement the strategies in the mocks.

As the Olympic motto goes : “Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter”, similarly you need to be fast , you need to keep aiming higher , you need to get stronger, and you need to be together with people who think alike and with whom you can question and discuss.

 

For any further query feel free to write to us at jam.cl@careerlauncher.com or visit us at www.careerlauncher.com/jamshedpur or call us at 9102990084.