The countdown to the season of management tests has begun and with it the last minute preparations. The time you spend on preparing now must be used strategically and your preparations must be focused on improving your performance on D-day, say experts.
Byju Raveendran, founder, BYJU’s Classes, has this advice for students: “Take the exam like you don’t need it”. Most of these competitive exams need smart preparation and smart techniques to answer, mugging formulae now will not help, says Mr. Raveendran.
Echoing his sentiment, Sai Kumar, Director, Bangalore, T.I.M.E. (Triumphant Institute of Management Education), says, “Aspirants appearing for the numerous exams like CAT, XAT, SNAP, etc., must turn their attention towards understanding concepts instead of trying to practice a number of problems. Exams such as these test a candidate’s conceptual knowledge,” he notes.
Candidates taking the tests must also understand where they are going wrong and try to fine-tune their conceptual understanding of the subject. “A good way to analyse where they are making mistakes is taking the mock Common Admission Test (CAT) and examining their test papers,” suggests Mr. Raveendran. At TIME, the faculty advice students to take one mock test at an interval of five days, says Mr. Kumar. This way students will take about six mock tests until the CAT and will be in a good shape to perform in the final exam.
Timeline
It is also important to measure how much time you are taking to complete the exam at this stage. “Specially in the verbal ability and logical reasoning section, the time taken to arrive at the correct answer is important Everyone will eventually arrive at the answer but how long you take to do so matters a lot,” says Mr. Raveendran. All the sections in the paper follow a few patterns and mastery of these patterns can help students perform better in the test, he says.
Smart thing to do
The management admission test season begins with CAT in mid-October and goes on till January 5, 2014 when the Xaviers Admission Test is held. “Aspirants could consider attempting all the exams as the candidates will then have multiple options to fall back on, it is just the smarter thing to do,” says Mr. Raveendran. Once the season of tests comes to an end, aspirants can start preparing for the Group Discussion and Personal Interview rounds of the test, says Mr. Kumar. “During the time up to mid-January students can also read newspapers to keep themselves up-to-date with current affairs and general knowledge,” says Mr. Raveendran. While students need not worry about knowing intricate details about the economy and politics, it is advisable to have a cursory knowledge of the developments in the country, says Mr. Kumar.
