Tips for cracking CAT 2009

Starting off: Analyse the areas where you need to work. Prepare a schedule that ensures that you study 2-3 hours every day six days a week and stick to it.For engineers: Start by working on your English. Read books with difficult prose. Look at RCs from GRE, GMAT and SAT. Work on improving your vocabulary. You can start Maths around March. Focus on understanding concepts rather than on mugging formulae.If you wish to prepare via distance learning, Testfunda.com has an online course with an integrated Ask-a-doubt facility which enables you to study at your convenience. GMAT: If you have prepared for CAT, you do not need any extra preparation for GMAT but you will need to give online tests for practice. The IIMs are not biased for or against work experience. Therefore if you do not have any work experience you need not worry provided you are young. However if you are 25-26 years old and have not been working after your graduation then that can prove to be quite harmful.

For working professionals: Make CAT preparation a part of your morning routine. Working has its advantages. It is easier to access a vocabulary site online and to read non-fiction passages. Photocopy one or two exercise pages and keep it on your table while working.

Preparing for group discussions

Importance of practice:

To avoid nervousness and anxiety, practice a lot. Candidates usually panic because they feel the panelists or the moderators are out to get them. That is far from the truth. Feel positive for them and you will automatically begin to relax.

How to practice:

Start by initiating discussions amongst friends, become a little aggressive with them and move on to discussions with strangers. Reading from books loudly will help you with your tone. You do not have to shout but a slightly higher tone has a better chance of being heard.

How to get a chance to speak:

The noise level in GDs has a pattern — there are peaks and troughs. If a GD gets too noisy, try and enter during the troughs. It takes some practice but learn to enter at the troughs.If you do not understand a GD topic, wait for someone in your group to start. Pick up from what the group is discussing. You could also try and become the de facto leader of the group by summarising the discussion at regular intervals and providing a new direction from time to time.Do not read simply for the sake of learning facts. Form opinions with justifications and apply them in practice GDs.

How to do well in the IIM-

A written assignment:-IIM-A introduced a written assignment in place of the GD last year. The topic is given to students and they have 10 minutes to write on it. Ten minutes is not a lot of time to cover all perspectives but what is crucial in making a good impression on the panelists is your coherence and consistency in presenting some aspects in your essay. Marshall your thoughts before you start writing; pick one or two points which you think are important, cover them coherently and with grammatically correct English and you should do fine.

Accent :- is not as important as the content and the presentation. Ensure that you speak without grammatical errors and know your content. Regular practice will make your accent fall into place.

Current affairs:-Topics of common knowledge that you should be familiar with are the global recession, sub-prime, Obama’s  victory etc.

How to tackle case studies:

First identify the problem and then try and ascertain whether it is part of a bigger problem. Come up with a few possible solutions. Remember, always advocate an ethical solution. The Mckinsey site, Harvard and MIT sites are a good repository for case studies.

Preparing for personal interviews

Academic questions: Questions on academics are often asked of candidates with less than one year of working experience. Know the basics of every subject and work on one or two subjects extensively. Know your curriculum well.

Answering ‘Why do I want to do an MBA’:

There is no ideal answer. It depends on your background. Answer why an MBA education makes sense with your long term goals, combined with your work experience and your academics. How you believe in the concept of learning throughout your life etc. If you can come up with something honest and unique then your chances of making a good impression will increase exponentially.

Answering ‘Tell me something about yourself’:

Avoid repeating from your resume. Lead the interviewer into an area that you are comfortable with in your academics or in your work experience. What has shaped you as a person? Do not mention facts. Your answers should be self explanatory. For example mentioning that you play cricket might seem irrelevant but mentioning how playing the game made you appreciate the importance of team work would make it self explanatory.

Preparation:

Do a lot of soul searching for PIs. Along with academics and your work experience you should work hard on your personal questions. Avoid lying as the interviewers are quite good in detecting inconsistencies in your statements. You could ask your friends to describe you in three words and flesh out the words. Get feedback from your seniors or your boss. Try and get some mock interviews from experienced people in your field.

Online Format : Drag the RAT & Bell the CAT

After much speculation, on April 28, IIM officials confirmed that CAT 2009 would go online. After a three year of tradition  of being held as a written test on paper, to secure admissions to the Post-Graduate Programme in management at seven IIMs in the country, this move heralds the next generation of tech savvy. Officials at IIM-B say that they welcome the move as it is in the right direction. They can now handle the growing number of CAT applicants, maintain the quality at test centres and the environment with utmost ease. The test will be conducted over a span of 10 days at the end of the year

The test would also be cost effective because students will not have to shell out for facilities like test centers. Computerization will also improve the security process, make for a better physical environment and test-taking experience. In terms of security, biometric identification of candidates and video monitoring will help boost the CAT’s foray into the online medium. Prometric, ETS, the organisation which conducts GRE and TOEFL tests will partner with the IIMs to deliver the computerised CAT.

Only a few days after the announcement of the IIMs that CAT would go online,hundreds of students are wondering .Though the kind of question paper for the computer based test (CBT) is yet to be decided, it is clear that the candidates may not be able to see the entire question paper at once. Students wonder whether it will be a computer adaptive test or just a computer test. The difference In the adaptive method,is that if a student answers a question right, then the next question has a higher level of difficulty. If the student’s answer is wrong, then the next question is of a lower level of difficulty. This is similar to the pattern of GMAT. However, in a computer test, it will be a simple computer-based  format. The questions do not vary depending on the answers. Here are a few challenges that students will face in the online method -
Those who have already begun their CAT preparation need to de-learn a little.The average time per question will increase.

CAT 2009 might  be  Verbal Section Centered taking into account past stats. Candidate’s verbal skills must be a strength area for a high percentile.New RCs, new approach, no more can a candidate surf through all questions before looking at the RC’s content. The questions coming one by one. Moreover, there is ZERO possibility of underlining the keywords in the passage. No option but to jot down the keywords, topic sentences and inferential information in the passages on to a paper to answer the questions in time.Old DI with new challenges – managing the large amount of data in the DI section without any option of writing or underlining key information on the screen itself will prove to be  a challenge.

CAT 2009 : PROMETRIC INDIA , PROMETRIC CAT

                                

The world of change had got the official voice.Prometric, the world’s leading provider of technology-enabled testing and assessment services announced that it has been awarded an exclusive, $40 million dollar contract by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) to computerize the prestigious Common Admissions Test (CAT).To efficiently deliver the first ever computerized version of the exam to over 250,000 Indian students this fall, Prometric will accelerate plans to further build out its people, services and technology infrastructure in India.In assuming responsibility for all aspects of the CAT program, including item authoring, test development, test administration and scoring and reporting services, Prometric will add resources, including dedicated test development and support staff, in India.

Complementing the 185 employees, test center network and other assets Prometric already operates in India, these additional new resources will provide a more powerful and rigorous means for the CAT, and any other test publishers looking at expansion in India, to leverage for growth.The CAT is the premiere admissions test used in the selection process for admission to the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), a network of India’s most prestigious business schools based in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Indore, Kozhikode, Lucknow and Shillong.

Of the 250,000 students that take the exam each year, ultimately just over 1,500 are admitted to one of the IIMs. It is therefore one of the most competitive and high profile admission exam administrations in the world, requiring tight execution and secure exam delivery.It is the first time in history, that instead of testing only one day a year,D-DAY will be able to test during a 10-day testing window across 23 Indian cities where secure computer-based testing centers specially prepared for the CAT exam are strategically positioned throughout the country.

The longer window and wider availability will provide candidates greater flexibility when choosing a testing date, time or location as well as near-ubiquitous access to testing locations.In addition, computerization of the CAT will result in faster score processing, enabling the IIMs and more than a hundred other Indian business schools that rely on the results to more quickly make their admissions decisions.