World of Random Thoughts

Simulated Cat Exams referred as Mock Cats or SIM Cats - They are nothing but simulation of testing environment and just a personal feedback nothing more. It doesnt by any chance tell you whether you are going to crack CAT or not. This is a very popular notion where people scoring good in Sim Cats are always looked upon as sure “crackos” and those you dont are “give ups”.

Its not bad to score good in sim cats neither its that bad to score bad in sim cats. They are just feedbacks which point out to you areas of improvement rather than answering the million dollar question “what should i have done to crack CAT ? “.

Let me tell you real story. There were two friends ( I am one of the characters and the other being my childhood friend) . Both were neck to neck in their preparations for CAT. By an large their score used to be really close and it was a even game over a span of such simulated exams. Sometimes he used to score over me , sometimes I used to score over him. On real difficult ones without any loose sections, we used to score exactly the same. So, according the sim cat trends the destinity for both of us should have been the same. ? But it didnt happen that way. I went to IIM Cal, he went to XIMB for his MBA.

Where lies the mystery ? ok ! i will answer that. My friend was really strong in DI where I was good . He was good in quants, where i was really strong. We both were ok in English. Our CAT paper was skewed in term of DI was really difficult and Quants was really a cakewalk. Since DI was extremely difficult, my friend being really strong in it could obviously perform better than me , but his leverage was limited to 2 marks which infact leveraged him a lot in terms of percentile ( dont remember but say by 5 percentile ) . I scored 11 , he scored some 13 or 14. Now, since quants was realy simple and i was really strong it at it, I performed better than him again by 5 percetiles but since it was simple i scored 15 marks in excess of him for the same 5 percentile gain in that section. So both of ur 99 odd percentiles in one section but he got a benefit of 2 marks which did little to boost his final score. But my 15 marks leverage boosted my total score into the 99+ percentile zone.

Of all the people who clear cat only 15~ 20 % of the lot are such who would clear it given no matter what is asked and no matter how the paper is skewed. Rest is a mix of nerves, strategy and mix of luck ( in terms of paper matching your strength ) . I have seen so many regular 99+ percentilers in really reputed SIM CATs breaking down just before the exam. The expectations

are just too heavy for them to carry, the anxiety growing on to them every passing minute. They loose it right their . There have been ” bindaas” people who have nothing to loose, who just walked in without preperation and cracked it because of application of a “free” “intelligent” ( but not GOD ! Trust me ) mindunder zero stress.

So what do i do about SIM CATs? First, I you are not scoring well in SIM Cats, it doenst stay “you are ruled out of CAT” . Take it as a feedback on to how you performed in each section - your score, your attempts, your accuracy, your choice of questions. Try to access for yourself your concentration curve - when it peaks and when you start feeling restless. try to put weakest sections at concetration peaks and strongest sections in the restless zone. How comfortable you were during the entire experience? do what every it taked to make your self comfortable. The sections where you score bad - access was it a real tought section with no loose questions , or you didnot scan the entire paper to pick out the easier ones, you were not thorough with some concepts, you made real silly mistakes and got them wrong?

 Give each Sim cat a good hour of analysis. Think hard behind that 2 hr effort. Just dont wait for the scores to come and get busy either in boasting the score or sulking about it. None will help

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