With just two days to go for CAT 2021, Pranav Pant, a 99.96 percentiler in CAT, who is also a mentor and coach has listed out for us a few pointers that students can keep in mind before/during the examination.
Tips for the Exam Day before the exam
1. Make sure that your read the instructions on the admit card carefully.
2. Ensure you keep the essential items like admit card, photograph, mask, stationery.
3. It has been mentioned in the admit card that you’d be given pens at the examination centre, but still I would recommend that keep one for an emergency.
4. Footwear with thick soles is prohibited, so either wear a slipper or a sandal. Metallic items such as jewelry are prohibited too.
5. Reach the examination centre on time. Reporting time and gate closure time must have been mentioned on the admit card. You should at least reach 10-15 minutes before gate closing time.
Tips for the Exam Day during the exam:
1. Before starting the examination, you would be allotted a system. Check if your system/mouse is working perfectly fine. Many times it happens that since the computers might be outdated, students find difficulty in scrolling through the mouse, clicking repeatedly, so that adds up to unnecessary time during the examination.
2. As I have said earlier also, you should always start the exam with your comfort zone, be it any section. Start with the easy questions and do the difficult ones later. Get off to a flying start. Pick the low-hanging fruits and skip the difficult questions.
3. In the DILR and the RC part, invest your time in a set and not in single questions. Spare a couple of minutes going through them, and decide the order you are going to solve them.
4. Use the ‘>’ on the test screen to fit the text on the entire screen.
5. Avoid guesswork for MCQs. These are the questions that give you three marks for a correct answer and minus one for an incorrect answer.
6. Make some intelligent guesses in TITA, for example, para jumbles.
7. Don’t panic if you get stuck on a question. Treat them as speed breakers and try to avoid them. If you feel that you’ve taken sufficient time on the question, and then you’re heading nowhere, so just skip the question. It’s perfectly fine to skip multiple questions consecutively.
8. Staying positive throughout the exam is very important. You have three sections and three sectional timings. Let’s say one of your sections did not turn out to be very good, do not feel negative about that. Concentrate on the next two sections. If the paper turns out to be difficult, don’t feel burdened. Remember, it is the same paper taken by thousands of other candidates. So if it is difficult for you, it’s difficult for the rest as well. Try to give your best.
(Pranav Pant, an MBA from FMS, Delhi University has cracked several exams such as CDS, SBI PO, RBI Grade B, UPSC Prelims and teaches Quantitative Aptitude, Data Interpretation, and Logical Reasoning is hosting FPJ-CAT Tips series exclusive for FPJ readers. A 99.96 percentiler in CAT, Pranav Pant is all geared to drive exam blues away)
