Anisha has done MBA in Marketing from NMIMS And Executive Management(PMNO) from Harvard Business School. She has been instrumental in growing CATKing Digital with her experience with Marico and Henkel in the past.
MBA aspirants are just few days away from the CAT Scoring in the 99th percentile in the CAT (Common Admission Test) with just four months of preparation is definitely a challenging but achievable goal with the right strategy and dedication. Here's a step-by-step plan to help you achieve this:
Let’s get started-
- Get familiar with the exam pattern of the CAT exam
The first thing to do with any exam preparation is to know everything about the exam pattern and be updated with any new changes in the exam pattern. The pattern of CAT usually changes every year
| SECTION | NUMBER OF QUESTIONS |
| Verbal Ability | 24 |
| Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning | 20 |
| Quantitative Ability | 22 |
Overall there will be 66 questions and a time frame of 40 minutes will be provided for each section, making the exam for 2 hours. The marking scheme is as follows:
- +3 for every correct answer
- -1 for a wrong answer
- How much marks do you need to score for 99 percentile?
Scoring 99 percentile can be tricky but not at all difficult. All you need to do is adopt the famous ‘Selection Method’ suggested by the CAT expert Rahul sir. In this method, the candidate should aim to score at least 100 out of a total score of 198, and so play smart and choose selectively the questions that are easy to solve and marks fetching.
To get an overall percentile of 99, the focus should be to score 85+ percentile in any two sections and 99 percentile in the remaining section. In other words, you need to aim for 45-50% of marks in any 2 sections and 55-60% in the remaining section.
- Smart work and Right efforts makes it easier
Thousands of candidates appear for CAT, and they come from varied educational backgrounds, streams and work-experience. Hence it is important to identify your strengths and weaknesses in the sections and target accordingly.
The candidates coming from a non-engineering background, or who are not very confident in the Quant section should target to score maximum in Verbal Ability and DILR sections.
Similarly students with weaker English, should optimize the opportunity to score high in Quant and DILR.
CATKing has made CAT courses according to the educational background of the candidates, to help them target and ace the test.
So if you’re coming from an engineering background, you can choose the course specially designed for students of NITs and IITs. Candidates appearing for the first time will find very helpful guidance in the CAT courses of CATKing. The candidates reappearing for the exam can apply for the Repeaters’ course and Non-engineers will be greatly benefitted with our course for non-engineering aspirants.
- Section wise Strategy for 99 percentile
Each section is different in terms of scoring. You cannot score well in Quantitative Aptitude without understanding the concepts, similarly the candidate must have prior practice in DILR, to save time during the exam.
Here’s a simple and very basic strategy to target each section that’ll ensure your overall 99 percentile:
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- Verbal Ability- Getting familiar with reading comprehensions is a must to score well in this section, because Verbal Ability is not the toughest section but is definitely the most time-consuming one. Hence, extensive reading helps the candidate increase the pace and helps in spotting and identifying the answers. Also regular reading improves the vocabulary that’ll bless your scores.
- Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning- This is the section which requires the maximum practice, since there's no fixed syllabus for the section, hence the more questions you practice the wider your range to solve such questions becomes.
- Quantitative Aptitude- The syllabus for Quant in CAT isn’t very difficult or advanced, it is the same as the mathematics syllabus of class 8 and 9. Hence, getting the concepts clear would solve half of the problem for this section, and extensive practice will make this section the most scoring one!
- Timeline and planner for the last 4 months
Here’s what our experts and most of the topper suggest for the last 4 months before you take the CAT exam:
| MONTH | STUDY PLAN AND TARGET |
| August | Get all the concepts clear, and practice enough DILR and Verbal questions. |
| September | Revise your concepts well, take sectional tests to check your pace and problem solving ability. |
| October | Start taking mock tests, take at least 10-12 mock tests in the month, and with every mock test analyze your weakness, increment, and work on the concepts on which you’ve lost more numbers. |
| November | Revise the concepts, take as many mock tests as you can. Refer to the toppers’ approach of solving the paper, and try to give mock tests in three different time slots- like 10 to 12, 1 to 3, and 4 to 6. So that your mind is familiar with the exam time slots. |
With these tips in mind, and religiously following them, any candidate can score 99 percentile in the CAT exam. CAT is all about time management, which is applicable during the exam hours, and before sitting for the test. Hence, it is advised to utilize the last 4 months smartly, extensively and consciously. CATKing has various effective courses that’ll help the enrolled students strategically use the time, and increase their score.
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