When I first met Gejo a good ten years ago, I saw this cocky young man who thought he knew the CAT like the back of his hand. Turned out he actually did! Legend has it that no CAT question is too difficult for him, no quant question he is not able at, no data he cannot interpret, no reading passage he cannot comprehend and no logic question he cannot reason his way through. As a stalwart of CAT test prep and the genius behind CL Mumbai, he will share some of his CAT fundas with you over the next few days.
A good friend, a great mentor, and a superb CAT-ter, there are very few people in the world who come even close to him when it comes to him when it comes to devising the most ingenious CAT tips and tricks, and the best part is he makes it look so easy! With his uncanny sense of humor, he makes even the most boring topics look interesting.
For those of you who already know him through CL Mumbai, this is where you can get more of him. For those of you who are just getting to know him, be forewarned, he will change how you see the CAT, forever.
Over to you Gejo….
Sir
I am preparing for CAT 2017. I am good at QA & LRDI but not at english. I attended an online session by Gejo Sir, where he told to focus on RC instead of vocabulary. I tried that but the problem is that I am not able to understand RC due to weak Vocabulary and its not just affecting my VA only but QA & LRDI too. I have tried to understand the the meaning of the word by reading the whole line but the accuracy rates aren’t impressive. Kindly help me.
Chirag, practice makes a man perfect. Do not get scared, you still have a good amount of time to boost your VARC section. Start spending more time on RCs and take tests and spend a qualitative time on its analysis.
Sir
My cmat September score is 206(94.6%tile) i would like to know are there any good colleges for which i can apply through this score
Best
Ashish, the only two good institutes through CMAT are KJ Somaiyya and GIM and both should be possible at your score.
Sir
Thanks for your reply to my query, But is kj somaaya really possible because i read somewhere it takes students at 250+ score
Best
Ashish
Ashish, raw score is not important the percentile score is. A score of over 90%ile has a good chance in KJ Somaiyya and GIM.
Sir
I have been scoring between 86-94 %tile in all my mock cats that i have given.
Which all college’s should i apply for as applications start early on so i don’t want to waste much money just on forms for different colleges.
I’m form delhi and although migrating isn’t a problem but Delhi institutes are prefered.
sir can you please list top 10 colleges for me that i should apply for at this percentile score
Ashish, the B school advisor in your SIS will give you a list of the colleges that you should consider applying to based on your performance. You can also refer to the following posts:
1. Cutoffs of CAT allied institutes
2. Cutoffs of XAT allied institutes
3. Jayein toh jayein kahaan 2014: Which Institute?
Sir
How much do i need to score to get selection in MFC(DU) or through new IIM’s in CAT 14.
Also how to avoid over attempting the English section of cat as most the time i’m pretty much sure that i’m right in the answers even when i’m not.
Thanks
Dear Ashish,
Securing over 99 percentile in CAT should be good enough to get calls from all new IIMs. The cutoff for calls from MFC (DU) generally hovers around 93 percentile. In order to avoid the problem of over attempting any section, set a firm target for your attempts in each section before starting with your mock tests. This will ensure that you allocate time across sections appropriately and clear all cutoffs.
Sir
My score just keeps on going up and down also with the new format i usually get tired around at end of 2 hours during my mock tests.
Also with my college studies and MBA preparation i get lesser time to sleep and even my motivation level is all down.
How do i get through with this
Best
Rahul, you will have to build stamina and ensure that you are able to last for 3 hours and this can be done by practising all area of the paper on the computer and also by extensive reading on the computer. For example you could try reading e-papers everyday for about an hour and practice questions from test gym for about 2 hours regularly. You could also take 3 sectional tests back to back or a Mock followed by a sectional test. Doing this offline will also help but then you should do it for 4 hours at a stretch because the same stuff will take less time in the offline mode.
Hi GP/Gejo Sir,
Please let me know whether Expert level is really important from CAT point of view in Test Gym Adaptive of Smart CAT cracker?
Being a 6 days working professional , i think i need to focus more upto advance level of each topic rather than juggling with expert level, Please let me know in case i am following a wrong strategy here , any guidance from you will be very helpful for me.
Thanks!
Soumyansh
Soumyansh, Expert level is by and large above the CAT level but I suggest that you still go through it, about 15-20% of the questions in CAT can be from this level.
Respected sir(s),
I am going to take CAT a day after tomorrow. I took it last year also and performed decently with calls from few of the top B-schools. I couldn’t make it that time. I had to improve my weak areas to get even better percentile this year. As the time passed by, I believe that I have added to my knowledge new tricks and new concepts.
So far so good, but I haven’t been able to mend my accuracy that was my weak point earlier also. I don’t find it tough to attempt many questions but my accuracy hovers around 70-80% with attempts ranging between 18-30 in QA and 20-27 in VA of CL mocks and it was 28+27 in CAT 2011. But Gejo Sir, as you mentioned that less than 80% accuracy means more than one fifth of time I spent went in vein- in fact, fetched me negative score. Moreover, the mistakes I make are all but few silly. Not that I guess answers, I solve them or negate options but result is as mentioned. I have long hoped to end this thing but unfortunately I haven’t been. Every mock I have 10-15 wrong answers overall with attempt of around 45-50 questions. Although this does fetch me good percentile but I know it is not my limiting score. I can do much better if I improve my accuracy. I have attempted all the mocks of CL and did analysis of all of them.
Last mock was CL’s un-proctored 21. I would like to mention the mistakes I made:
Q1: Took 10C2 in place of 9C2.
Q6: Contribution of A decreased and revenue increased so I marked it answer without going through calculations.
Q7: Negated statement 2 but still marked option 2 (I & II)
Q10: Missed one case of success in probability
Q18: Calculation mistake.
Q19: Calculation mistake.
I had 7 mistakes in verbal too but right now I would like to work on the ones I committed in Quant.
Sir, these mistakes were all avoidable and silly. Many times it is 8-10 wrong in quant itself.
Please tell what needs to be done. I have speed and if I have accuracy on the D-day(at least) I will come-hopefully- with flying colors. Please revert soon sir.
Regards,
-Sharish
Sharish, I wanted to talk to you to discuss the issue that you have raised in the query and sent an email at sharmarishap@gmail.com with my cell number. It appears that you have not seen the mail and hence responding here itself. If possible, do call me.
The errors that you have listed are essentially unforced errors or silly mistakes, 7-8 silly mistakes out of 45-50 attempts is extremely high. The reason for unforced errors in QADI, most of the time, is not reading the question or DI set completely or jumping to calculations without understanding the question. With hardly any time left for your CAT, suggest that in thee paper you should slow down a bit in reading the question and not to pick up the pen/pencil for calculations without reading & understanding the question. Also do not apply shortcut in calculations, write down if required. In VA & RC go thru all the choices before marking the answer. Basically I want you to slow down a bit.
All the best.
Thanks a lot sir. I took CAT today and I did good (at least that is what I think).
Dear Sir,
I appeared for CAT 2012 on the 22nd October,2012 in the morning slot.. I would like to inform you that in my exam,one DI set regarding the magazine subscription was not properly written.
Basically ,the passage of the above mentioned DI set was not properly structured and the sentences of the DI set were jumbled up.
As you have already mentioned in the 22nd october analysis webinar ,this was a really tough quant paper.On top of this,this DI set was not attempt-able because of jumbled up sentences.
I just want to inquire if this will be taken into account during the normalization process.Should I mail the CAT 2012 authorities regarding the same?
Vaibhav, Please use this link http://www.prometric.com/IIM-CAT/contactus to inform Prometric of the incorrect DI set. Do send a mail on this to catcentre@iimk.ac.in also. If Prometric agrees with you they will compensate you for this error.
Sir, quants are killing me. Everyday I make them, each day finding lesser and lesser accuracy and mistakes. There is no motivation left for me at all. Even if I m good at the other sections, quants is where I fall, each time. Kindly suggest me proper ways to handle it.
Ronnie, Thiis is not a Quant paper, it has other areas too. If you can do well in DI and attempt about 7-8 QA questions you will still be in contention. Practice DI from CAT 1990-98 papers and in the paper attempt 2 DI sets (the easier ones) and then attempt a few QA questions – the ones you are 100% sure of solving. Then move on to the remaing DI set and the reamining QA questions. All the best.
Hi GP/Gejo sir,
i have given all proctored mocks and got average marks and percentile(<=70 %ile) consistently, i didn't analyse mock papers, but i really want to join in some good college (ranking<30) this time,so planning to put my best efforts from now,my exam is on 25th oct, so please give me some suggestions to improve my percentile in this span . i still have 18 unproctored mocks left and started doing previous years papers(started with 2008). sir please suggest me…!!!!
Kumar, I have already answered this query in the other post where you had raised it. Hope you have gone thru it.
sir i want to clear the CAT but i have some difficulty in RC and geometry… How can i increase my score..????
Sarthak, For geometry, practice all the questions in the old CAT papers, this will ensure that if anything similar comes in the paper you will be able to answer it.
For RC, please choose your passage carefully, go for passages with subjects that you are comfortable with, do not rush thru the passage but read it at your speed and while answering if required go back and refer the passage to confirm the answer. This will mean around 10 minutes per passage.
Hi Gejo ,
Just wanted to know about the exact meaning of Cutoffs defined for the procmocks and the other tests.
Is this defined as the cutoffs for the iims?
Hi, I have been scoring 85-98 %ile on an average in last 7-8 mocks.I have also been able to clear the cutoffs in all sections.I have been doing a decent job in QA with almost 92%ile and around 90% accuracy. But once in a while my VA section disappoints me. The %ile in this section sometimes goes as low as 60s. I have found that I lack accuracy in this section.Specially in VA I have 50-60 % accuracy and whenever I have fared badly is when I have 2-3 LR questions wrong that lowers my overall accuracy from 75% to 60%. Please help me out to get out of this. How can I improve my accuracy in this section specially VA.
I posted a qury twice last week.. it hasnt been replied yet.
Dear Gejo/GP sir , i am scared of identifying my strength and weak areas , i fear if most of the topics will fall in the weaker section. I scored between 70-90 in the last few mocks and mostly around 55-60 before that. Now just a month is left.. what shall i do to improve my score and perform well in CAT ? Should i go only for tests and previous papers now ? I am not comfortable with questions of vocab and phrasal verbs , i usually leave them. And i dont know why but i make silly mistakes in DIs. Should i practice RC’s more and more ? I usually get around 5 wrong when i attempt 19-20 in Quant and atleast 7 wrong in Verbal , no matter weather i attempt 18-19 or 24-25. My best score was 93 in mock 7 , but i have scored percentiles as low as in 50s too.
Mohit, a fluctuating percentile coupled with high error rate usually indicates lack of revision. Hope you have been analysing your maocks, identifying important questions and revising them regularly. the fact that you have pulled up your score from 55-60 to around 90 indicates that some of the steps taken by you are working and you should continue with them. 7 wrong in VALR with an attempt of 24-25 and 5 in 20 in QA are unacceptable. Converting 3 wrongs into rights, in each section would drastically alter your scores. A safe score in CAT would be 18-19 correct in VALR and about 20-21 correct in QADI. Overall an attempt of 46 – 50 with around 42 correct is required for an IIM call.
In the last one month you should focus on Mock CATs and past CAT papers and also revise important questions regularly. Revision will ensure increased speed and also eliminaion of silly mistakes. In VALR you can leave phrasal verbs.
sir i am ok with quant but i get very less in va and in rc i tend to get negative marking.. plz suggest a way to improve negative marking and how to choose the right question in english.
Ananya, can you please mention what you think are your areas of strength in the VA-LR section. Try to be as detailed as possible.
hello sir
I need ur help in both the sections.
1)Quant
In this wat is i do i attempt questions which I think That I noe them bt My accuracy is low.I am not able to analyze what are my problems.please help me in that. Moreover,I attemp around 14-15 in all my mock test.What should b approx. Ques I shld attempt To get good percentile. N how can I increase my accuracy.
2)VA LR
In this section i perform well w.r.t quant but here also the marks are not up to the mark.It is just 50 days left. In Around 9 questions of RC I am able to do just 5-6 question from which only 2-3 are right.In parajumble I perform well almost correcting all of them.In gramm. I am very scared of attempting this.
In LR,I correct 5-6 questions. Please sir please help me wid my problem as it is just 50 days left.
sir plz reply. m waiting….
Hello sir.
I am some difficulty in DI. Whnever i am solving a calculation-intensive question, there is always a nagging doubt in my head that what if i am just wasting my time on the calculations and that there might be a simpler way of doing it. This doubt often affects my performance in cracking that particular DI set.
Kindly help me with this.
hello sir, i am scoring reasonably well in quant, with score varying from 90-99 percentile, last year i scored 98 percentile in quant,but the section i am worried about is valr, my focus is on rc,lr, paracompletion and parajumbles, though my accuracy in rc, parajumbles and paracompletion has improved, but i am scoring very poorly in lr, which i once considered my forte, so for the last 40 days i have planned to give mocks by attempting valr only and leavin quant, and will give complete mock once a week, and will complete cat previous years, especially for revising qadi and lr questions. do you think this is the right strategy to follow, and how can i improve my lr???
please guide me
Ishaan, whenever you take a mock please attempt QADI also because in CAT VALR is the second section. You could take only two complete mocks every week and in the remaining time focus more on VALR and less on QADI. The LR questions in past CAT papers are also important and most of them are in QA or DI sections.
Hello Sir,
I am quite good at quants , but i am not able to attempt more than 15 questions(with 0-5 wrongs) in mocks . However, when i resolve the mock at home, i am “easily” able to crack 20 – 30 questions. I figured speed and stress are the problems. Please help me on this.
In verbal section , I generally pick that RC first which is on familiar topic.But , sometimes questions are so tough that i end up attempting no ques from that RC. Furthermore , after attempting rest ones, i realize they were much simpler though not on familiar topics ( generally leave RC’s on topics like economics etc.) .
My main problem is attempting the paper, picking right ques , not wasting time on ques which might take a lot of time.
Sir , with just 40 odd days to go , my strategy and speed needs hell lot of improvement. But , I don’t know “how”.
Hi Ruby,
Let me tell you where the problem is – you have a pre-decided strategy to attempt questions. That would mean, say, you are more comfortable with arithmetic than algebra, you leave algebra and solve arithmetic. Stress would come when that arithmetic question is difficult.
Net outcome – you are stressed before you take the test because your mind is questioning how to pick questions.
Can I suggest a simple strategy – I call it K.I.S. -Keep it simple.
(1) Read a question
(2) Understand it
(3) If you feel you can solve it, solve else keep it for later
Two simple rules – (A) Never get stuck, if you get stuck move on and come back later. (B) No pre-decided strategies.
hello sir
i dont have courage enough to try new questions from Arun Sharma for QA, because i know they will lower my confidence , i have completed basics from other material and now just insisting on mocks..my scores in QA sucks, never crossed 20+ , please suggest me should i get into arun sharma, or should i keep revising what i know?
Hi Arpit,
If you need to go back to the drawing board, go back to the drawing board and do not worry about whether or not it will lower your confidence.
But the most important is to figure out where the problem lies. Analysis of Mock Test is a must. When I say analysis, keep it simple. After solving the test under test condtions, the next day (1) Solve the test once again without any time limit (2) Look the solutions – do not look at the solutions before you do Step 1.
You will come to know where the problem is – (1) is that you need to re-look at basics of some of the chapters or (2) is it that you are gettin stuck in some questions and leaving out things that you can solve (3) is it that you are making silly mistakes etc.
But you need to find what the problem is, only then can you get the answer to the question and trust me, you will find those answers.
Arpit, revise what you know, do questions in CAT 1990 – 2008 papers of QA, DI, Resoning and Usage. After completing this you can consider Arun Sharma but do only Level 1 & 2.
Hello sir,
I have been getting very different scores in VA and quant.In VA I genrally clear the cut offs and am generally in the range 94-90%.but in quant my percentile is not stable at all,it varies b/w 80% and 50%.I am genrally not able to attempt more then 14-15(out of which I get 2 or 3 wrong) questions.My main problem of not being able to attempt a lot of questions is spending a substantial amount of questions I already know,I am not able to solve them fast enough,which leads to me being stuck on that question,and when I try to increase my attempts my accuracy goes for a toss completely.I have been solving trying to solve more and more mocks to increase my score and set a strategy but nothing seems to help.
Please help me out.
Thank you
Hi Avneesh,
Let me tell you the problems –
(1) You are looking at percentile score. Remember, the distribution of the score of students in NOT linear. That is to say that a dip from 80%ile to 50%ile DOES NOT mean an percentage score dip of 30%. First, would be to move away from making decsions using percentage score and look at 2 things – (a) What is my accuracy (b) How many questions I left which I could have scored. Those two things will itself get improve your score
(2) You seem to have a pre-decided approach to attempting questions. That is – I will solve those questions that I think I know. What happens in this case is we end up leaving questions without even reading. Play it like cricket – Play each ball by its merit and not who is bowling! Keep it simple – (a) Read a question (b) Understand it (c) See if you can solve. If yes, then solve. If not, dont. But make that decision only after steps a & b.
(3) Too many mocks without analysis is bad. Mocks are just a reflection. It is like a mirror. I cant improve my looks just by looking at the mirror a number of times. What is more important is to spend time after each mock – (a) Before looking at the solutions, solve the entire questions once again. (b) then look at the solution. This will help you understand where you are going wrong. Remember, identiying the problem is the most important thing. Once that is done 80% of the problem is solved.
Finally, do not worry and do not give up. Just focus on your preparation and keep it simple.
Regards
Gejo
Hello sir,
I’m a CAT repeater i got 89%ile in CAT-11.. i aspire to get into IIMs this time..My doubt is as per VA section..I’m weak in RC and OK with LR,EU and i used to answer EU-LR-RC putting 20 mins to RC at the end..I never attempted sufficinet RC passages and my accuracy was also low..now i changed my strategy to RC-LR-EU which is helping me to flip through all questions accuracy also raised a bit can i stick to this strategy of solving RC first?…I’m weak in quant also tell me is the idea of completing Arun Sharma Quant in 20-30 days from now suggestible?..As per LRDI, i will practise CAT 1990-08 papers writing mock CATs regularly is that sufficient?…kindly help me out..thanks in advance..
Hi Krisha,
RC: The basic assumption in your plan of action is this – That strategy will help you improve the score.
The above may not be true. What is going to improve your score is to get the accuracy high in RC. I do not think that by re-arraging the order of attempt, you will improve the score. So number ONE is to understand why your accuracy is low – what kind of traps are you falling into. Focus on indentifying the problem, that will solve most of the problem.
Yes, you can solve RC first – there is no harm. In fact, you can solve in any order. There is no set rules for these. You must do what you feel is comfortable. My take is that score will improve if (a) accuracy is high and (b) you do not unnecessarily waste time in a question.
QA: What will make more sense is to do the mocks and analyse the mocks. If you identify areas that you are stll weak, then go back to the drawing board.
LRDI: LRDI is an area where the more you practice, the better it is. So your plan looks just fine.
Regards
Gejo
sir,
i want to ask you,”how to revise quant for cat”..???
Hi Sunny,
That is a beautiful question! But the answer is damn difficult to give. The last 40 days HAS to be customized to your specific needs. If CAT was like our college exams, then we would have know exactly what to ‘revise’. If you want to quickly revise the complete quant, let me give you a broad plan – you can customise it.
Let’s take a 15 day plan for revision – 5 areas of Quant (Numbers, Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Modern Math). That would mean 3 days per area, about 1-1.5 hour per day. In those three days – Day 1 – take a test on the area (you can use test gym), before looking at solutions, solve ALL questions once again. Identify questions that you are unable to solve; identify the area. Day 2 – work on those areas identified. All do a quick revision of the others. Day 3- take another test in that area and evaluate again. If that area still need work, take one more day.
Hope this helps.
Regards
Gejo
thanks a lot sir, i will try to stick to the plan….
thanks again…
Thanks a lot, Sir, for the detailed explanation. Needed that. 🙂
Sir i really need help in DI. I dont know y most the time i feel lazy while solving any intricate calculation and hence take a lot of time. Plus for most of the sets i am not able to solve all the 3 questions. It is generally 2 or 1.
Alka, in the next 7 days please attempt all the DI section of CAT 1990-98 papers, the DI that has appeared in CAT in the last 3 years is similar to these papers but easier. Also revise the important questions from these papers. The reasoning quesstions in these papers would be useful for AR in the EULR section. These will also give you calculation practice. Also please write down the calculations if required.
It is okay to leave 1 out of 3 question in a DI set if it is very difficult or time consuming.
Hi Alka,
To me, it is Data Interpretation & not Data Calculation, so most of the time you will not need to do tedious calcuations – you will be able to solve it by observation & elimination. Plus, in your question there is the answer to the problem :). Just don’t be lazy while solving. Afterall our objective is to get to IIM A, not by taking a train to Ahmedabad but through the CAT.
This is what I would suggest. You know for sure that there will be DI questions. So the best is to solve at least one DI question. While solving, try and develop your own techniques of elimination & calcuations. I am sure that would help you be comfortable with DI a bit more.
Regards
Gejo
We all are eagerly waiting for tips from Gejo Sir. Hope he helps us like GP Sir does… 🙂 Thanks in advance 🙂
analyze karo mocks ko yaar….roz ek mock do aur analyze karo….cl ke mocks baap hai, time ke mocks bakwas hai
roz analyze karke dekho kaha kami hai aur test gym se sectional tests karo….dekho kitna tym waste karte ho aur kaha galti krte ho
sir, i have only one query, how to cross 99 percentile mark, i have attempted cat 2 times earlier, once scoring 65 and then 93 the next time, this time my mock scores are between 80-95 percentile range and this time i want to cross the 99 percentile mark, what should i do in the next 40 days, how can i make a real difference this time.
thank you
Mate, I think you’ll be the best person to answer. You’ll know where you lack and where to improve.
P.S. I don’t belong to the CL Team, just a passerby. All the very best!
Ishan,
First, yes – percentile score is in the mock is an important tool. But percentile score just gives a sense of the rank. For instance, if you position is 2000 amoung 20000, you get 90% percentile and if you are 40000 among 2,00,000, you are 98%ile.
Move away from the obsession of percentile score in the mocks. Two important things are:
1. What is my accuracy. It MUST be upwards of 80%. 80% means 20% of the questions were wrong – 20% of the time was wasted. With -ve marking, in a 2 hours test, that translates to wasting 30 minutes. You cannot afford any more wastage.
2. Am I able to solving all the questions that ‘I can’
Keep analysing mocks, keep identifying problem areas, and let the learnings from the mocks decide how the 40 days have to be spend.
Regards,
Gejo