CAT 2018 is nearly 60 days away. CAT crash course will be extremely helpful in revising the concepts within the short span available. Most aspirants are now worried about how to improve speed in CAT exam. Improving your speed in the exam can pay rich dividends provided accuracy does not get compromised. In this article, let us have a look at how to improve speed in CAT exam methodically.
Selecting the correct questions to answer can make a significant difference to one’s score. Taking CAT online mock tests regularly will be helpful in improving the question selection skills. Also, taking previous year papers of CAT in the exam interface will be of great help in knowing where you stand with respect to the competition.
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How to improve speed in CAT exam ?
Speed Vs Accuracy
- The first and foremost thing to have in mind is that you cannot trade accuracy for speed.
- Any increase in the speed obtained at the cost of accuracy will be detrimental in the long run.
- Do not attempt more questions just to achieve a target.
- The increase in the speed should be organic and should never come at the cost of accuracy.
Picking the right questions:
- Solve a large number of questions so that you become adept at solving questions. CAT exam will have at least 10 to 15 questions that are easily solvable in the quants section.
- Going through a large number of template questions will help to solve these questions quickly.
- The time saved can be of great help in cracking the unconventional questions that appear in the exam.
- Picking up the easier questions to answer can make a huge difference to one’s score.
- Fine tuning your strategy will increase your score by 15 to 25 marks. Even with the same level of preparation, 2 aspirants can have a great difference in their scores due to their question selection skills.
- Take a large number of mocks and analyze them to improve your question selection skills. After taking the mock, check whether you had picked up the correct questions to answer in the mock.
Leaving the tough ones:
- There will be certain questions in the paper that have been deliberately set up to act as speed bumps. Do not break your teeth with such questions.
- You’ll be doing yourself a great service by spotting such questions and steering clear of them.
- Also, if a question proves to be tough to solve, do not try to solve it at any cost. Sometimes holding on can do more harm than good. Know when to let go of a question.
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Option substitution:
- Make use of the options provided with the questions.
- More often than not, options provide vital clues about how to solve the question. Also, it is not always necessary to arrive at the correct answer.
- By logically eliminating the options that are unlikely to be the answer, you can isolate the correct answer from the other options in certain questions.
- This method can come in handy especially in the VARC section in which the incorrect options will often have a catch that disqualifies them.
- However, it is important to know the difference between intelligent guessing and punting to put this method to good use.
- Try substituting values in the expressions given in the questions.
- Solving certain problems algebraically can often lead to tedious solutions with a significant scope for error. Instead of proceeding algebraically, try putting in values which do not violate the given constraints.
Doing so can save a considerable amount of time in the exam. Most importantly, take mocks regularly to develop the ability to spot opportunities to use such tricks. Question selection is a skill that takes some time to develop. Therefore, ensure that you take mocks regularly till the CAT exam.
We hope that this article would have helped you know how to improve speed in CAT exam. For more useful articles regarding CAT preparation, try reading how to prepare for CAT in 60 days and how to improve mock CAT scores.
