Cat 2011: The New Cat Pattern Is A Much Fairer Way To Assess Students: Cat Guru Arun Sharma

As the days for CAT 2011 is approaching, the anxiety meter is also raising amidst the test takers. Along with that, the announcement of the new CAT pattern is raising new questions in their minds everyday. To help the CAT 2011 takers with this, AskMBAUniverse.com is continuing with the special series of Live Expert Chat on the topic �How to prepare for the new pattern of the CAT 2011. The last chat was held on Friday, August 5, 2011 with CAT guru Arun Sharma.

Read the excerpts of the Live Expert Chat:

Q: Ankit Pandey: Sir, I am in final year B. Tech. I want to appear in the CAT 2011exam. Please provide me some guidelines. How can I start my preparation? Sir I am not able to attend any classes. Give me some guidelines regarding this.

A: focus on four lines of preparation - Verbal/ Reading Comprehension, Logical Reasoning, Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation. The detailed preparation processes I have already written in my books on these subjects.

Q: Nithin Kode: About the new pattern what should be my approach in Quant and DI Section? And how should I be able to clear the cutoff in short span. Please advice.

A: Focus on Blocks 1, 5 and 6 first (as per the chapter division in my QA for CAT book) - also make Data Interpretation your strong point - for which you would need to do blocks 2 and 3 well.

Q: Sunil Kumar Yadav: I have passed B. Pharm this year (2011) and started preparation for the CAT 2011 since July 2011 with a coaching in Allahabad. My English is good but Quant is weak and I've too much to prepare. What should I do?

A: Quant is about knowing 3000 questions and the inside out solutions to those. If you have 100 days before the CAT it works out to 30 questions per day- develop a good group for problem discussion and go after it- also read the previous answers- they will help you get a direction. All the best!!

Q: Aman Gupta: Will verbal section include English (Critical) Reasoning or Reasoning with Data Interpretation or kind of blood relations and all that?

A: Critical Reasoning would still be a component of verbal - logical reasoning of the types asked in the past few years would be the correct estimate of where the paper would go.

Q: Anshika: What should be the strategy in attempting LR questions? If I am not strong enough in English, do I really need to worry about the same?

A: If your English is not strong LR becomes your key strategic point to crack the section. LR can take you half way to qualifying the section in my estimate

Q: Abhishek: Sir, in previous pattern we were not giving so much importance to DI, now need to give importance and maximum time for DI? Suggest.

A: Exactly. That is what I have been saying. Earlier people used to focus their energies on Quant and verbal/ RC. Now DI and LR become equally if not more critical.

Q: Ashish: Sir, what were the no. of questions attempted and approximate correctly answered by 99 percentilers in each of the sections in CAT 2010?

A: 13 to 15 all correct in each section. It would need to be around 18 to 20 all correct this time.

Q: Santosh: I want to take FMS this year. I want to ask how I can prepare for it, if I can’t afford to join MBA coaching institute. What all books and material I can go through so that there is no need of coaching?

A: FMS preparation is on the same lines as the CAT preparation so all the CAT prep books etc. would help you.

Q: Jinesh: I want to know how one can start preparing for NMAT 2012. What all books need to refer? Which test series should I take?

A: The NMAT paper again is parallel to the CAT with a much lower level of difficulty- so you can assume your cat prep will take care of your NMAT exam.

Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more on Live Expert Chats.