In an online chat with readers on August 24, ARKS Srinivas, ex-director, TIME and CEO, Vista Mind addressed queries related to CAT 2012, b-school admission and more.
For those who missed the live chat, here's the unedited transcript:
Chandra asked, What do the interviewer expect from a candidate after the CAT?
ARKS Srinivas answers, at 2012-08-24 16:01:34The Interviewer wants to select candidates who can thing rationally ad have basic level of awareness
crackcat asked, pls tell how to crack cat in 2 months... is it possible?
ARKS Srinivas answers, Anything is possible. 2 months is 60 days, 1440 hours!! Start building your concepts in each subject area for next 40-45 days and keep last 10-15 days for testing
crackcat asked, when should i start taking mocks?
ARKS Srinivas answers, Depends on when you started your preparation. Ideally 70-75% time should go into preparation and remaining into testing
rahul asked, Please advise as to how to improve upon Vocab, RC and VA sections
ARKS Srinivas answers, Vocab and RC takes some time and serious effort to improve. Read a lot of varied topics that appear in CAT for RC. For Vocab, do mugging from some word list, learn from root-prefix-suffix approach and through reading. For VA, identify the various question types that have appeard in CAT rcently and work on each of them
Kaustabh asked, Sir, can you suggest me how to improve my time required to do QA questions, as I have found in the past that I take a lot of time to work them out, though I am able to arrive at many of the answers at last....!!
ARKS Srinivas answers, You should be happy that your first level of preparation is done. All that you need to do is reduce the time taken to solve a question. For that you need to redo all the questions once again. And again. When you solve questions multiple times, you gain confidence and hence can do faster.
Kaustabh asked, Also please suggest the strategy/approach which we can take for the first section, i.e. QA and DI....
ARKS Srinivas answers, Scan the section in 2-3 minutes. You will get an idea of what it contains. Then start the section, try every question and do the ones which you are familiar with and can do in reasonable time. The ones that are time consuming or you are not sure of, should be bookmarked. Finish the section in 45 mts. Then try the questions that you had bookmarked.
amit asked, what is the pre-requisite for executive MBA from IIM's?
ARKS Srinivas answers, You will need Work Ex of a certain number of years. For ex, IIMA asks for 5 years of Work Ex. Apart from that you should be a graduate with 50% or more marks
Auro asked, Sir, being a working professional, the time dedicated to preparation fluctuates on a day to day basis. Can you guide me what should be the procedure for attempting mocks in d last 1 month??
ARKS Srinivas answers, One mock every 2-3 days is good. What is important is what analysis you do after the mocks. Spend at least 5-6 hours analysing the Mock, solving the questions you cud not do earlier, checking the solution of the ones you did and got right - to see which method is better, and revising the concepts of questions you got wrong
Auro asked, Is attempting sectional mocks a good practice rather than goin fr the full one from now onwards??
ARKS Srinivas answers, Sectional Mocks is good. CAT is nothing but 2 sectional Mocks :o). You can start the Full Length Tests one month before CAT
Illustration: Uttam Ghosh
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