Belling the CAT: Aspirants pull their socks up for exam

Bengaluru: With the date announced for Common Admission Test (CAT) 2017, the gateway to 20 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and top B-schools in the country, management aspirants are trying to make most of the crucial phase of preparations. 

While some focus on taking numerous mock tests to hone their answering technique, others including professionals take a break from work to prepare for the test.

Experts say the heavy weightage given to the Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC) section directly implies to the demand of having students with high quality reading abilities on board for management courses. “Today’s reader is tomorrow’s leader and the ability of a candidate to understand abstract ideas to apprehend them later is looked for the most in CAT,” said Srinivas Belvi, course director for CAT in T.I.M.E.

Engineering graduates, according to experts, constitute close to 70% of the total number of candidates who apply for the test, even when they add “smart people” are preferred rather than engineers.

“The reality observed in the education sector in India is that most of the smart students end up taking engineering or medicine after school, mostly due to compulsion by their parents. The stats for the same has seen a major decrease from 85% to 70% now over the past few years, and this can imply that individual choices are given more importance nowadays,” Belvi said.

 Ajoy Joseph, a civil engineer and an IIM aspirant believes that pursuing an MBA from a top institution would help him plan his future well. “With the engineering background and industry exposure I have attained, a management course will enlighten and assist me in times of planning for a start-up venture later down the lane,” he said.

Belvi adds that the educational background is not considered an important factor for the test as data interpretation and logical reasoning and quantitative ability (QA) is tested along with VARC.

“The analytical ability rather than mathematical skills of the candidates is put into test for CAT and candidates from non-technical background can crack the code easily spending more time to solve former questions from this section,” Belvi said.

For Ashwini K, a creative writer who has quit her job to prepare for the test, pursuing a management degree from an accomplished institution would help her earn more and get settled better.

“The pay for creative designations especially for graduates from the non-technical background is very less. Moving into management is the best way I can take to diminish the arts label on my resume,” she said, adding an MBA degree is gradually becoming a pre-requisite to find a well-paid job in India, especially to survive well in metropolitan cities.

While most of the candidates have enrolled themselves for various crash courses at coaching centres, a minor share of professionals follow self-preparation methods as well. One among them, Arjun Sasikumar, an electronics engineer, believes that getting the basics right is what he focuses on at the moment. 

“Giving importance to questions from all sections is important to score a basic cut-off to ensure a seat in a top institution,” he said.

He adds that juggling working hours with study time is the challenge he faces at the moment even though he tries to spend extra hours during weekends and free time from work to prepare for the test.

The preparation for CAT, said Belvi, can be divided into two phases – learning and application. 

The ability to apply the knowledge one has acquired is the skill that is quintessential to crack the CAT code, he said.

“Fine tuning the strategy to tweak it in terms of the style of questions that appear on the question paper is important and mock tests give practice towards this,” he asserted. 

The expert also advices candidates to have an active 3-4 hour preparation on a daily basis to build a capability in solving problems at a faster pace. CAT 2017 will be held in two sections on November 26 across 138 cities this year. Candidates can apply online for the test till September 20. IIM Lucknow is in-charge of conducting the test this year.