The IIM-s have announced their programme for selection of students aspiring for admission to their flagship programme of Post Graduate Diploma in Management – christened as Post Graduate Programme or PGP by the IIM-s. Last time around 2.3 lakh students wrote the examination and the number is sure to go up this year.
The Common Admission Test (CAT) conducted by the IIM-s has been one of the toughest of the admission tests for admission to B-Schools, all over the world and many aspiring students must now be preparing very hard for the examinations scheduled to be held on the 16th of November 2008. If we have a look at the announcements made, the tests will be of two and half hour duration and will test the quantitative, verbal, logical and data interpretive abilities of the candidates. The criteria for short listing and ultimate selection vary between different IIM-s.
Since the tests typically contain a large number of questions (75 in CAT 2007), it is often not possible to answer all the questions which should not, by itself, be construed by any aspiring student as a failure. This is because the tests are competitive in nature and tests the comparative qualities of the competing students.
Thus success or failure will depend solely on the relative performance which is impossible to predict before hand and can be known only after all the candidates have performed in the test on that day. It is to be remembered that the performance on that day is what matters and not what the student is actually capable of or what has been his performance on previous occasions. Thus it is advisable to maintain one’s cool during the test and be very cautious in approach – wasting time over any question is to be avoided at any cost until all the questions have been read through and the easier ones answered. It is to be remembered that there are no special consideration or marks awarded for attempting or answering a difficult question and it is best to avoid any difficult question.
Remember that speed and accuracy both are essential for being successful in CAT. Since there are negative marking for wrong answers, guess work should be avoided. Considering that there are 75 questions and a total time of 150 minutes available, the average time available for answering each question is 2 minutes. Thus the key to success lies in the level of accuracy and/or strike rate and in selecting questions properly.
Regarding preparations, there are several institutions which provide coaching and guidance through class room lectures, tutorials and mock tests. There are also some websites and distance learning facilities, which are useful. Similarly, number of books (question banks) are also available which are very useful for practice purpose. The previous question papers will also be extremely useful for such preparations. The question paper for CAT 2007 examination can be downloaded from the website of CAT.
One major area of concern is the questions for testing the quantitative abilities, particularly for students from non-quantitative background. One point should be kept in mind that the tests are based on the syllabus for high school mathematics only and is not much difficult. But considering the large number of questions required to be answered the speed of answering needs to be improved. Among the standard books available, the books by NCERT for classes VII to X are very helpful and cover the entire range. Here I would like to suggest that the candidates can make use of Vedic Mathematics – a system of mathematics presented during the later half of twentieth century by Swami Bharati Krishna Tirtha which consists of a list of 16 basic sütras, or aphorisms. Although there has been controversies regarding the claims made by its presenter, the sütras have been found to be extremely useful for solving problems in mathematics and algebra, within the education system. These can be applied in a number of ways to calculation methods for faster problem solving. In fact few schools in the UK have started courses on Vedic Mathematics for their students. Interested candidates can visit the website www.hinduism.co.za where there are names of some of the useful books available in the market. More importantly, there are tutorials available on line (8 in all) to help the students have a real glimpse of the system followed. I am sure students will find this extremely helpful provided they follow the system properly and allow necessary time to grasp the essentials. A number of CAT aspirants in the recent past have found this extremely useful.
By:
Prof. Bikramjit Sen
IIM C Batch 08
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