CAT Exam 2024: Last-month preparation tips to crack MBA entrance test

NEW DELHI: A month is left for the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2024 which will be conducted on November 24. The Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta will conduct the entrance exam to determine who’s eligible for the postgraduate programmes offered by the IIMs and other participating B-schools.

The MBA entrance exam will be held as a computer-based test in three sessions. The duration of the CAT exam 2024 will be two hours. As per the CAT 2024 exam pattern, the question paper will consist of three sections – Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC), Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR), and Quantitative Aptitude (QA).

IIM Calcutta will issue the CAT 2024 admit card on November 5 on the official website, iimcat.ac.in. The exam will be held at test centres across 170 cities.

CAT 2024: Last-month preparation tips

CAT 2024 aspirants can prepare for the exam in a month by following the topic-wise tips given below.

Week 1

• Focus on mastering basic number conversions and shortcuts for quick calculations, especially with recurring decimals.
• In classification, identify common types and solve past questions to enhance accuracy. Enhance mental math skills for finding unit and last two digits, and master divisibility rules.
• Improve data analysis through bar graphs, pie charts, and line graphs, emphasizing trend identification.
• Practice multi-parameter questions with spider charts to understand data distribution.
• Strengthen grammar by mastering the rules for nouns, pronouns, verbs, conjunctions, articles, and prepositions, and practice correct sentence usage.
• Review your performance to pinpoint improvement areas from the initial preparation.
• Master profit and loss concepts, including cost price and percentages, and practice successive problems.
• Learn and apply Simple Interest (SI) and Compound Interest (CI) formulas for various rates and periods.
• Understand EMIs and the reducing balance method for loans, and develop strategies for analyzing data interpretation questions across tables, graphs, and charts.
• Study blood relations using family tree diagrams, and enhance logical reasoning through ranking and directional questions.
• Improve reading comprehension by increasing speed and summarizing passages, while also reviewing English tenses and focusing on sentence structure and verb forms to correct tense-related errors.

Week 2

• Focus on understanding polynomial properties and memorizing perfect cubes up to 10 for quick problem-solving.
• Practice linear and circular arrangements, converting circular formats for easier solving.
• Study methods for finding maximum and minimum values in functions. Enhance your grammar skills by mastering subject-verb agreement and improving vocabulary through daily word learning.
• Review the different types of conditional sentences and their correct usage in various contexts.
• Practice quickly calculating averages through mental addition and division, focusing on application-based questions.
• Understand mixture concepts and tackle ratio and proportion problems, especially in mixtures.
• Learn distribution techniques and selection principles, and master partnership calculations involving capital investment and profit-sharing.
• Focus on grammar rules for sentence correction, including subject-verb agreement and verb tense consistency.
• Analyze reading comprehension passages from CAT previous year's question papers to improve speed and accuracy in answering under time constraints.

Week 3

• Master time and work concepts by understanding work rates and practice related problems.
• Learn formulas for time, speed, and distance, including upstream and downstream motion.
• Practice linear and circular race arrangements, escalator problems, and Venn diagram applications for logical reasoning.
• Focus on participle usage, parallel structure, and analyze previous CAT reading comprehension passages to improve question recognition and response speed.
• Practice permutations and combinations to understand selections, and focus on probability concepts.
• Review basic geometry principles and master techniques for specific selections and groupings. Enhance logical deduction skills and develop a structured approach for data sufficiency questions.
• Familiarize yourself with game strategies for logical reasoning, and expand your vocabulary with synonyms, antonyms, and one-word substitutions for improved sentence completion.

Week 4

• Master mensuration formulas for 2D and 3D shapes, focusing on areas and volumes.
• Review coordinate geometry concepts.
• Practice binary logic and logical connectives for reasoning problems, and work on parajumbles to understand sentence flow.
• Analyze past CAT questions for patterns, expand your vocabulary with antonyms, and familiarize yourself with common idioms and phrases.
• Master basic set theory concepts and Venn diagram problems.
• Revise arithmetic and geometric progressions, and familiarize yourself with mathematical grids.
• Review time and date reasoning with clocks and calendars, and strengthen data sufficiency skills through practice.
• Expand your understanding of idioms and phrases, and tackle various critical reasoning questions, including argument analysis.
• Practice data sufficiency questions to determine when data is sufficient.
• Understand roots of quadratic equations and network problems, and revise arithmetic and geometric number series.
• Improve pattern recognition with alphabetical and alphanumerical series, and enhance language skills through sentence correction, completion, and grammar exercises.