Five days to go for CAT 2021 examination. Today’s tips are all about what you need to avoid on the exam day. Even with all the prep in place and all the revisions, the exam day is entirely another ball game.
In today’s article of our ongoing CAT tips series, Pranav Pant, CAT mentor lists five things that are to be avoided on the exam day.
1. Entering the exam hall with a bias: Do not enter the examination hall with any bias. Do not think that the paper will be easy, moderate, or difficult. If you go with a bias assuming a particular section is difficult, even if it appears easy in the exam, you’ll find it difficult. Don’t go with a score to the exam. Somebody might say, if you get 50 percent marks, you get 99 percentile. It may not be true if the paper is easy or difficult.
2. Starting any section with a vulnerable topic: Let’s say, you’re not good with solving para jumbles and you see the first question as a para jumble. Skip that question at first, solve those you’re comfortable at, and then if time permits come back to the difficult ones. Doing comfortable questions first will give you the confidence to solve more.
3. Being rigid with strategy: Do not go to the exam hall with a rigid strategy. Change your strategy according to the difficulty level. Say you’re good with arithmetic, but the arithmetic question that appeared in the exam is difficult. So change your strategy according to your comfort level.
4. Falling in love with a question: Do not fall in love with a question. You might be a quant wizard, but you may encounter a question where you’re unable to figure out a solution. So do not spend too much time on a question. That will just kill your time and hence, impact your score badly.
5. Marking flukes in MCQs: Remember that the paper comes with negative marking in the MCQs. For each right answer, you’ll get three marks but for the wrong ones, you’ll lose one mark. Make sure you do not mark flukes. It will do more harm than the benefit you. Attempt only those questions which you’re confident of. Maybe in some cases, you can take an educated risk. For instance, you have eliminated two of the four options. Then you have a 50% chance of getting it right. But if you fluke, you’ll have only a 25% chance of getting it right. You may lose good marks in that.
