How to analyze CAT Mocks:
One thing that is common to any aspirant’s preparatory journey is taking mock tests. Many of the serious aspirants end up appearing for anywhere between 25-75 mocks in a season. While there is no particular number of mocks that ensure success, the quality of analysis of a mock can make a significant difference to the outcome of one’s score. As high as it is rated by CAT toppers and institutes alike when it comes to the analysis of a mock, many aspirants are clueless/resort to insufficient techniques to analyze a mock and end up defeating the purpose of the entire activity.The commonly known, universally followed quick-fix method is the solve the paper without any time limit -> go through the solutions -> make a note of the key findings -> understand your strengths and weaknesses -> take the next mock
As much as there are merit and simplicity to this process, there could be times when you are not able to figure out how to improve in spite of following all these steps religiously. We will try to explore why and figure out a process that would be a bit more insightful.
Lack of objective/Misplaced objective:
The main objective behind enrolling yourself for a mock test series should be to understand the intricacies of test-taking the process through real-life scenario simulation, understanding your prep status with regards to your strengths and weaknesses, and trying out means to get into a better shape with each passing mock. The common misconceptions involved in mock taking are: Practice free mocks
My percentile in mocks has a direct bearing on my performance in CAT:
Mock percentiles are more of a marketing gimmick than anything else. Yes, you get to know where you stand with regards to the rest of the competition but then again, the conditions are not standardized at all, leading to quite a few variations with regards to place (home vs. in a badly proctored environment), time (leisurely over 170 mins vs. shorter duration owing to commitments/lack of time) and seriousness (there are quite a few casual mock takers who believe in upping their performance come to CAT) at the very least.
This results in either a false sense of security or a feeling of worthlessness and disappointment thus shifting the focus from getting better at preparation and understanding your strengths to that of competing with the others. Even straight 100%iles across mocks would mean nothing when you go for the real test except maybe, an ounce of confidence.
I am not seeing instant results in the mocks and so, should stop taking mocks for some time:
Again, there are no quick fixes when it comes to conceptual knowledge. It takes some time to get used to a concept and apply it in a real test-taking scenario. You cannot force it on your brain to accelerate that process if that is not your learning style. So, it is advisable to stick to your learning process and not worry about the result much (unless of course there is a significant gap between your classroom solving ability and your mock performances in which case, you need to question your faculty or an expert who can advise on the basis of your profile, aptitude, etc.).
Also read: How to Analyze CAT Mocks
Wildly fluctuating scores are just a part of normal prep and these are phases every aspirant goes through:
Now this depends on your definition of ‘wildly fluctuating’. For example, a fluctuation between a 95%ile and a 99%ile can be termed as normal as it would be impacted due to either an unbalanced paper, testing conditions, number of takers and so on but a fluctuation between a 90%ile and a 70%ile would point towards a major issue: either you are heavily dependent on being ‘in the zone’ while taking the test and cannot tolerate minor fluctuations (bad scenario to be in and has to be rectified before the actual test) or the fact that you are a bit reliant on the guessing game when it comes to boosting your attempts or that there is a conceptual gap and whenever these questions surface, you tend to lose it a bit.
So, as a benchmark, a +3%ile fluctuation is ok and needs no special attention as such but anything consistently greater than that could mean there is something amiss. (Why percentiles, you may ask especially after the first point: absolute percentage is not really an indicator of a change in your performance, because the difficulty levels of mocks keep on fluctuating and so, you would rely a bit on your percentile to understand a trend) If you have either of the above-mentioned issues, you need to straighten your objective first and then go about taking mocks and analyzing them.
Strange problem with the current process
While preparing a mock, a lot of thought is put into ascertaining the difficulty level of a mock. There cannot be all easy questions and there cannot be all difficult questions. The difficulty level can be increased in two ways: 1. by making a conceptually deep question that is beyond the repertoire of a normal CAT aspirant or 2. by putting too much information in a question, leading to a disproportionate amount of time required to solve the question.
In the case of the latter, even if you solve it without the time constraint and succeed, it does not necessarily mean that you should solve the same question if it appears in another test. Many aspirants, under the pretext of analyzing a mock, spend hours together on solving the unsolved questions. If you ask yourself the question ‘What have I gained through this exercise?’, there won’t be a concrete answer that you could tell yourself. At most, you can say that you understood that your score could have increased by an x amount without understanding either your mental state during the test or the way forward. If eliminating silly mistakes is your only takeaway post-analysis of a mock, it is not really an insight.
The ideal process
The broad steps indeed remain the same. First of all, you take a mock with some objective in mind (changing order of attempt, splitting sections, leaving certain question types for the end, using the view question paper option to understand the difficulty level of the paper before you start and so on). Taking mocks just for the sake of scoring a high percentile does not make much sense considering the scenarios we saw above.
Not to say that you neglect percentiles altogether but then there is a big difference between considering your score and percentile as the principal outcome of a mock and focusing on other, more pertinent issues while keeping an eye on your relative performance as well. Mock-taking is for self-improvement, and not for showing off your competitive edge. A small change in outlook would make a big difference to the end result.
Also read: How to Crack CAT
Glance through the missed questions:
The next step would involve glancing through the missed questions once the results are out. While it is ok not to completely solve all the questions, you can keep a sheet handy and put a reason next to the question as to why didn’t you attempt it in the original test:(a) because you did not know the concept/are not particularly fond of the topic
(b) because you thought that it would be too time-consuming
(c) because even after spending a few minutes on the question, you were not able to figure out the way to proceed
(d) because you were not able to go through the question during the test due to mismanagement of time
(e) fear of getting negatives. While going through the question during analysis, it is ok if you don’t solve the entire thing. Even if you are confident of having made a headway, you can let go of the question. Once you have done this, you can decide again whether you would stick to your original option behind the reason for leaving the question or would like to change it. You can check the solution now. The possible causes are:
With regards to the incorrect answers, you will encounter the following scenarios:
(a) Silly mistakes:
In spite of cracking the logic and going all the way, you ended up getting entangled in the paper setter’s trap, because of reading the question incorrectly or comprehending it wrongly or because of a calculation mistake. It is a crime to make such mistakes and you should find the reason and fix it as soon as is possible. This is more critical in case you are attempting fewer questions and so, cannot afford to make such errors due to lack of concentration, minor lapses, or pure carelessness while taking a mock.(b) Conceptual errors:
You might have read a concept somewhere and have imbibed the same in your system to be plugged in next time you see a question. Paper-setters thrive on this naivety of aspirants and play around oh-so-slightly with words. There is a lot of difference between 4 cards put into 8 boxes, 4 identical cards put into 8 boxes, 4 identical cards put into 8 identical boxes and 4 cards put into 8 identical boxes. If one blindly applies the ‘number of non-negative solutions to an equation’ concept in each of these cases, it would be incorrect. The better thing would be to make sure that you understand a concept fully along with all the relevant wordplay before considering it ready-to-use.
(c) Inappropriate shortcuts:
A lot of aspirants get impressed by shortcuts and reverse-engineering techniques propagated by seasoned takers and past/present toppers and try to replicate the same. These techniques are a result of years of hard work and dedicated preparation and crystal clear understanding of concepts. Just because it looks easy doesn’t mean that it is easy.
Many aspirants fall into the trap of blindly going for these techniques without understanding the hidden connections and end up getting a lot of incorrect answers (which gives false security with regards to the number of attempts during a test). If you are unaware of the depth of a concept, shortcuts won’t help. Most of the time, it is better to swallow your ego and do it the conventional way unless you have mastered the art of shortcuts.
(d) Guessing:
Many aspirants resort to ‘intelligent guessing’ while taking a mock to boost their attempts. If it is actually intelligent guessing, it is a very good idea to do so (generalizing scenarios as equilateral triangles, integers, squares, and so on). But many let go of the ‘intelligent’ part of it and mark options that they ‘feel’ are closer to what they have got. If there is no mention of the word ‘approximate’ in the question, it is a sure-shot indicator that you have made some blunder while calculating the answer. In these cases, you can either check your calculation and figure out the right answer or again, swallow the humility pill and refrain from marking the ‘closest’ option.
The incorrect answers are a big revelation as to how your understanding of your strength is slightly misplaced and the minor factors that you need to focus on while attempting the test. Regarding the correct answers, it is sufficient to sit with your rough sheet while analyzing the mock and cross-checking your method. If there is a shorter alternate solution, you can make a note of it and try to understand the underlying concept. I have tried to touch the major aspects of mock analysis in this post. There could be variations to this and you can customize it according to your needs as well.
