How To Prepare For CAT In 8 Months
CAT 2021 is roughly eight months away and this is the right time to undertake a solid preparation, especially for those who plan to start their preparation from April. In this article, let us see how to prepare for CAT in 8 months, the detailed CAT Preparation study plan to kick start your preparation, starting from April.
You can start preparing for CAT 2021 from home by self-study, at your comfort through the online CAT course. CAT online preparation which includes CAT preparation material and the detailed preparation strategy, can help aspirants from remote areas, working professionals, final year college students a great deal in improving their grasp of the concepts. Aspirants can check out online preparation for CAT as the exam is online and also online coaching would give you the flexibility to prepare at your own pace. Try checking out previous year papers of CAT to know about the level of questions that appear in the exam. Also, taking a free CAT online mock test will help the candidates in gauging their strengths and weaknesses.
How To Prepare For CAT 2021 Exam in 8 months, from April:
CAT is an exam that tests the basic aptitude of a candidate. The syllabus of the exam is fairly simple. Cracking CAT is not a tough job provided one is fairly thorough with what one has learnt during schooling. It takes discipline and tenacity to crack the exam. So, if you’re preparing from home by self-study, it’s very essential to take a structured online preparation program.
Starting from April, the syllabus can be completed in three months (at most four months). The following is a study plan to finish the CAT Syllabus in three months. This can be used by students who plan to start studying in April and complete the syllabus by June/July. Please remember that the study plan will vary from individual to individual- So if you are a working professional or a final year graduate student, it is essential that you spend a bare minimum of 2 hours every day for CAT preparation.
The exam consists of 3 sections:
1. Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC)
2. Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR)
3. Quantitative Ability (QA)
The first phase of your preparation study plan should be to cover the basics from all three sections. In any case, spend enough time learning the fundamental concepts, and make sure you thoroughly understand them. Without strong fundamentals in place, you are not going to improve your mock scores in the later stages of the preparation.
How much time required to prepare for the CAT exam depends on the individual. Considering that the CAT syllabus has to be completed in three months (i.e, roughly 12-13 weeks), every week spend five to six days learning the concepts, watching the concept videos; and on one day test yourself by taking the concept tests. Tweak your study plan and allocate enough time to work on the weak areas. For example, if you’re weak in Quant you can allot more time in Quant.
CAT 8-month Preparation Strategy and Topic-wise study-plan:
How to prepare for CAT VARC: A study plan for Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC)
Here, the focus has to be on reading, for 1 hour every day. Reading will also make you develop a viewpoint on a variety of issues. Start with reading what you like, and then read articles from different genres to make yourself comfortable with various writing styles.
Apart from that, complete the concept videos in VARC in the first 1-2 months of your preparation. The major part of the preparation for VARC happens from Reading regularly and practising RC’s every day. In the initial days of your preparation, solve at least one RC every day.
Avoid speed reading, skimming, surfing and other such gimmicky techniques. Read to absorb the essence of the paragraph. Most of the questions that appear will require the reader to infer the information from the passage. Therefore, avoid rushing through the passage. Questions on para jumbles and sentence elimination require aspirants to spot coherent ideas, and the other questions in the VA section (like Para summary) also depend greatly on the ability of the aspirant to comprehend the passage. Therefore, having a strong reading habit is indispensable to ace the Verbal Ability section as well.
Spend 1 hour every day to cover the Verbal Ability concepts. You can spend some time on vocabulary and grammar if you do not feel confident about it, but make sure not to spend too much time on it.
The following is the schedule one can follow. You can adjust this depending on the time available during the day, and based on your strengths and weaknesses.
Spend at least 1 hour every day covering the VARC Concepts.
|
Topic |
No. of days |
|
Reading Comprehension |
14-15 |
|
Para Summary |
8-10 |
|
Para Completion |
8-10 |
|
Para Jumbles |
8-9 |
|
Odd sentence out |
8-9 |
Download Verbal Ability for CAT PDFs
How to prepare for CAT DILR: A study plan for Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DILR)
Evenly dividing the week for DI and LR topics, one can spend 3 days for DI and 3 days for LR. So, that will be 36 days each (12weeks * 3 days per week) for DI and LR.
Also, try to solve 2 sets every day (one DI set and one LR set).
Spend around 1-2 hours every day covering the DI / LR Concepts.
|
LR Topics |
No. of days |
|
Arrangements (Linear, Circular, etc) |
4 |
|
Puzzles (Einstein puzzles, constraint-based etc) |
4 |
|
Networks, LR based on picking coins |
6 |
|
Games and tournaments |
4 |
|
Scheduling |
4 |
|
Blood relations, family tree, Truth-liar concept |
7 |
|
Cubes |
4 |
|
Others (2D Space LR’s, etc) |
6-7 |
|
DI Topics |
No. of days |
|
Bar Graphs, Line Charts, Pie Charts, Unconventional charts (radar chart, bubble chart etc) |
14-15 |
|
Tables |
5 |
|
Venn Diagrams |
5 |
|
Others (DI Based on growth over years, Data Sufficiency, Caselets, etc) |
10 |
Just like the VARC section, practice is the key to cracking this section as well.
Read: How to prepare for DI for CAT
Read: How to prepare for LR for CAT
How to prepare for CAT Quant: A study plan for Quant
The Quantitative Aptitude (QA) section can be easily improved with practice. The first step is to revise the quant basics well. More often than not, aspirants tend to skip the basics and move directly to the problem-solving part. Chances are there that the aspirant might have forgotten a seldom-used concept and hence, aspirants must allocate at least a month (those who are thorough with the basics) to refresh the concepts.
When leaning the concepts, watch the concept videos, and ensure that you solve a few examples for practice and move on to the next topic; candidates should not be spending an unreasonable amount of time on one particular topic. The actual practice of a variety of sums can be done after the completion of the syllabus.
These are the following Quant topics: The days allocated for each topic will vary depending on whether a topic is your strength or weakness. Spend more time learning your weak areas.
Spend around 2 hours every day learning the Quant Concepts.
|
Topic |
Number of days |
|
Number Systems |
5-6 |
|
Ratio and Proportion, Percentages, Averages, Alligation, Profit Loss and Discount |
14-15 |
|
Simple Interest and Compound Interest |
2-3 |
|
Time, Speed and Distance |
4-5 |
|
Time & Work |
3 |
|
Linear equations, Quadratic equations |
7 |
|
Inequalities |
3 |
|
Logarithms, Functions |
7 |
|
Progressions and series |
4 |
|
Surds and indices |
2 |
|
Geometry & Mensuration |
12-14 |
|
Basic trigonometry |
2-3 |
|
Co-ordinate Geometry |
3 |
|
Permutation and Combinations |
5 |
|
Probability |
4 |
|
Set Theory |
3 |
| Miscellaneous | 6-7 |
Read in detail: How to prepare for QA for CAT
Month-wise schedule / Study plan:
The following is a month-wise schedule that one can adhere to.
|
April-June/July |
Learning the concepts of all the three sections |
|
July |
Revise the concepts, Practice, Take sectional tests and one mock per week |
|
August |
Take 2 mocks per week, note down the mistakes and work on them before the next mock |
|
September |
Take 2 mocks per week, improve your question selection skills, Experiment with various strategies in the mocks. |
|
October |
Can take 2-3 mocks per week, experiment with mock strategies. |
|
November |
Pick a strategy that suits you the most. Test it in the mocks. Revise the concepts and the common mistakes you tend to make. |
Checkout: CAT Free Practice Questions and Videos
Do not wait until the completion of the syllabus to give a mock. Start giving 1-2 mocks per month simultaneously, during your syllabus completion phase. While practising, try to maintain the balance among the three sections. Make sure that your areas of weakness do not hinder your chances of getting a call.
From the month of July, you can start taking 1-2 mocks a week. During the weekdays you can analyse them and practice your weak areas depending on your mock analysis. It is essential that you analyse the mocks thoroughly, and work on your shortcomings before the next mock.
And, this process continues till exam day.
Checkout: CAT Free Practice Questions and Videos
Daily routine while preparing for CATÂ
The daily routine depends on whether you are a college student, working professional or whether you have taken a drop. The following is a broad schedule you can follow, you can customize the schedule.
The daily routine from Monday to Saturday:
Watch the concept videos. Spend more time on understanding your weak areas – 2-3 hours.
Reading regularly (read what you like, can be your favourite novels also)- around 1 hour daily.
Reading diverse articles- 30 minutes
Solving puzzles like sudoku and doing basic mental math calculations- 30 minutes
Sunday: Take concept tests (to test yourself the concepts learned during the week)
Overall try to allocate around 3-4 hours for preparation during the weekdays, and more time on weekends. Make sure to allot more time to your weak areas (but at the same time don’t neglect your strong areas.)
So, a balanced schedule that covers the syllabus and the weekly concept tests for revision will be a good preparation strategy. This is the right schedule starting from April, and once you complete the syllabus by June/July, then you can move on to the practice and mocks phase. So, later the focus will shift to practice, taking mocks, evaluating your performance, and building your Strategy.
