Why I take CAT every year? - article by Rajesh Balasubramanian

I have been asked this question many times in many fora and I had always provided a 'fudged' answer. So, I thought I could have some fun thinking about the real answer. Ergo, this post.

I completed my Post Graduate Diploma in Management more than a decade ago. And like most of my classmates, I graduated with the feeling that I had already completed one MBA too many. Why then do I take the CAT every year?

There are two reasons for this. The first is the ‘professional’ reason. I run 2IIM, an online education Company that focuses on CAT preparation. I spend gazillion hours teaching students and creating content and so it helps to have a sense of what the exam is all about.

The second, personal reason is probably more interesting. I like the challenge of taking an exam where one has to reactivate the grey cells for three hours. If you have ever sat down to try a crossword, math puzzle or good old Sudoku, you will have a sense of what I am talking about here. 

The CAT provides more context so test-taking is far more than being merely a fun exercise of the brain. The exam setting creates an intensity that is absent elsewhere and this adds to the thrill.

In one sense, the exam is also my own way of saying I can compete with the youngsters today. Of  striking a blow against the ageists, and telling myself that the intermediary years spent on the drudgery of stock-peddling have not (yet) dulled my senses.

The obvious question here is whether there might not be far better avenues of challenging myself. There probably are. But they all probably involve lot more practice and training. For instance, running marathons needs six months of training and the very thought of consuming long miles with just myself for company leaves me with dread. So, I want something that can push me over a few short hours, preferably only once every twelve months or so. Ergo, CAT. Besides, I have saved up long-distance running for the mid-life crisis.

Contrary to popular perception, the CAT is actually a high quality exam. Any testing mechanism can commit two kinds of errors - It can let in undeserving candidates, or it can miss out on deserving candidates. The better exams do a good job on both counts. The CAT is very well designed for limiting one kind of error - anyone who does well in the exam has to be reasonably sharp; while the converse is not true. It is society that perversely assumes the converse and therefore ends up placing enormous pressure on candidates. Standardized tests cannot be created to cater to all types of intelligences. We should be mature enough to accept that.

As a potential candidate, you are probably thinking – I have read this piece about the motivations of a 35-year old ex-banker whose idea of a good time is to take exams. What am I going to get out of this?

My experience as a test-taker has placed me in a unique position of being able to view the exam not only as an involved participant, but also as someone who is pressure-free as far as the wider consequences are concerned. The one input I would give all aspirants is to have a sense of joie-de-vivre while approaching the exam. Try to retain a sense of wonder about the idea of solving problems or cracking puzzles. To cite a sports parallel, football can be associated with either catenaccio or Joga Bonito. As far as CAT goes, Joga Bonito (play beautifully).

Best wishes for the CAT.

An excerpt from this piece appeared in the India Today Aspire issue that can be found here.

The author, Rajesh Balasubramanian is an alumnus from IIMB (2003) who runs 2IIM Online CAT Coaching company. The author takes CAT every year and has the distinction of having scored 100^th percentile in CAT 2011, 2012 and CAT 2014.

CAT coaching online: Job and CAT preparation: "Should I quit my job to prepare?

Believe it's the most pestering question among Job goers & CAT aspirants!

Rajesh Balasubramanian and Saravana Baskar answer some of the most sought after questions from CAT aspirants in this series! This video has answers to several questions
1.How to juggle between Job and CAT preparation?
2.How much time should I spend daily preparing?
3.Should i quit my Job?

Detailed article @ pagalguy.com

Shopping and trading is Online. Even Bill payments. CAT is online too!
Why not CAT preparation? Have a go at Online.2iim.com for 4 free classes. Try Before you Buy!!

CAT 2014 Notification: What does this mean?

CAT 2014 notification is out .

First up, let us review the facts

Time duration: 170 minutes instead of 140 minutes
Number of questions: 50 per section, instead of 30 per section previously
Dates: Nov 16th and Nov 22nd, two sessions per day, instead of 40 sessions in the previous avatar
Change in pattern: Candidates can shift from one section to another, the time limit is 170 minutes for the overall paper. Previously, we used to have 70 minutes per section. Now, the time limits are not in silos and one can choose to spend unequal amounts of time on each section.

Thankfully, the IIMs have chosen to clarify why they are doing these changes. All these changes have been done to make the exam "aspirant-friendly". They might have changed the format dramatically, it is reassuring to know that the IIMs have at least retained their sense of humour.

How does this change preparation strategy for individual sections?
The study plan remains the same. The syllabus, framework remain the same. Practice the basics, build intensity and take lot of tests in the end. Do not pontificate too much on why these changes have been made. Be happy that the test has been made more aspirant-friendly, and continue preparation with the warm glow that comes from knowing someone is looking out for you.

How does it change the plan for CAT?
1. Stamina matters: Taking an exam for 170 minutes is tough. This is not a college exam that can be taken even with "day-dream spells" in the middle. This is an intense exam. The extra half hour can be sapping. I have been taking CAT in the past few years purely for the experience (the implication being that the pressure is less). I get drained out completely by the end of the 140 minutes. I am so tired that I can barely drive back home. An extra 30 minutes is going to kill applicants who do not have stamina. So, start building intensity and stamina from now on.

2. Time management needs to be better: Given the freedom to shift from one section to another, students might flit from one section to another too many times and kill momentum in both. Have a plan that broadly allocates time across the two sections, and have one buffer for going for playing it safe in case you are worrying about section cut-off. Do not plan to shift from section I to II once every 10 minutes. Just because the freedom has been given , it does not mean one has to use it. Till 2009, CAT gave students the freedom of shifting from one section to another. Those of us who have taken CATs in both forms will tell you that this freedom of shifting from one section to another is a double-edged sword. I used to consistently "steal"  a few minutes from quant and use this for verbal. This did not help my overall performance much. My best results came when this freedom was taken away from students. The pressure of worrying about section cut-offs sometime takes something away from the performance. So, be careful with this new found time-management freedom.

3. Students with one strong suit and one weak suit will have a small advantage: A student who is frightfully good in quant and just about average in verbal can now spend 95 minutes on verbal and 75 on quant and "balance" things out. Because this option is now available, students with sharp variance between the two sections can now plan with this in mind. Just a word of caution though, trying to be too cute can come back to bite you in this exam. Plan to have mild tweaks, avoid major overhauls.

Obviously, you will have to take a few mock CATs to get used to the new pattern. As always, the best place for getting the newer version of mock CATs is 2IIM.

Best wishes for CAT 2014.

Strategies for taking Mock CATs:

Scored 74 in 10th, 82 in 12th what are my chances for getting into IIMs?

I have scored 74 in 10th std, 82 in 12th std, 64 in UG, what are my chances with the IIMs, especially A, B, C? 

This video, in a tribute to Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy more or less says the answer to this question is 42. As the video says, only certainties in life are death and taxes.

To elaborate on this, I am going to start with a quote from Donald Rumsfeld for this one "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know".

Now, why have I written all this? This question, and its sister-questions, cousin-variants, nephews-nieces etc can all be categorized under "No need to know unknowns".

Suppose I were to tell you that to get a call from IIM B, C and L you will need to have 99.68, 99.71 and 99.23 with your profile, how exactly will it influence your CAT preparation? Further let us say, you have attempted 82 questions in the paper with 10 minutes to go. You know that with this attempt number, you should be able to get 99.73. Will you stop right there and say, "I can take rest now. I dont need any more marks."

I took my first CAT (relevant one) in 2000. Back then, the exam was paper-based. There were no percentile scores, no section updates, no new IIMs. We guys took CAT in December. By about February, IIM A, B, C, L would post their interview invites by snail mail (no email either). So, if you did not receive that post, you can assume you just missed out. So, you had to keep the postman in good spirits. There are endless stories of guys nearly missing out on interviews because the post got mixed up.

Now, thanks to this surfeit of information available, there is this enormous temptation to analyze everything and try to get  some 'certainty'. Whether this question gets 100 replies or 1000 replies, whether 'experts' chip in or experienced candidates share their 'wisdom', you are no more likely to know an exact target or a surefire solution than you were before.

So, forget about this, put your head down and prepare for the exam. There is one thing that you can be sure of. Ceteris Paribus, a higher CAT score will give a candidate a higher chance of getting any admit.

As far as your question is concerned, for IIM A, B, C you need 99.6+, for IIM ILK you probably have a shot with 98.5+ (with L requiring more). 96+ should give you a shot with the new IIMs. If you are thinking, why couldn't this guy have given this last paragraph without going on a rant. Where is the joy in that?

Note: I had written the above as an answer to a query on Quora. Since Quora does not protect writers' freedom, I have pulled down the answer from Quora and published it on the blog

2IIM - CAT Online Course

2IIM launches its online course for CAT. Have a look at the two-minute introduction video to know about the course.

Why the 2iim online course is the best in the world?

The course has been built by a very small team, with ~85% of the lectures handled by Rajesh Balasubramanian. Rajesh is an alumnus from IIMB (2003) and scored 100th percentile in CAT 2011 and CAT 2012. 

2IIM's online course offers students three key freedoms

Freedom over location: Class can be taken anywhere. Course is 'light', i.e. should load even in places where internet speed is not that high

Freedom over time: The course cane be taken any time; and any number of times

Freedom over pace: This is the most important factor that should be a breakthrough for students. Each class is broken into modules and has been built with a mix of slides and videos. So, the course offers students the freedom to take lessons at their own pace.  Each class is of ~2.5 hours duration; but one that an exam-ready student can complete in 45 minutes, and a beginner can take 4.5 hours or longer. Each class has 8-15 short videos interspersed with slides, and is not one long 2.5 hour long video. 

What does the course offer?

•  50 online classes – Each of 2.5 hours duration; but one that an exam-ready student can complete in 45 minutes, and a beginner can take 4.5 hours or even longer.
• 10 books that cover all aspects of CAT preparation
• 20 online mock CATs + 10-paper based mock CATs. Online mock CATs will come with video solutions for select questions.
•  25 online section tests. 

New product, new idea. Obviously you are not sure 

Rajesh might have scored 100th percentile and think he is god's gift to mankind. But what if he teaches at a level that is way too high for you; or at a level that is way too low. Proof of the pudding is in the eating. Hit a few sample classes at online.2iim.com .

CAT FAQ : I have started preparing for CAT only in June. Is there enough time to prepare ?

CAT FAQ :

I have started preparing for CAT only in June. Is there enough time to prepare ?

Is CAT punishing incorrect answers far more harshly?

Every year, after CAT results, we have students complaining about the scoring. Generally, it is just considered overreaction by students. However, this time there have been some funny patterns emerging from the scores. There are two key trends that we have seen

1. A few good students have not just underperformed, their scores have fallen off a cliff
2. Students with very high attempts have seen unusually low scores

Anecdotally, I have seen the following scores/numbers that I am not able to completely wind my head around with the current assumptions that we have made.

1. I had two students more or less equally good in quants. One froze in the exam and attempted 6 questions and ended with a score of 86th percentile. The other probably pushed himself too hard in the exam and attempted 19 questions to end with 78th percentile.

2. Another good student attempted almost equal number of questions in Quant and Verbal, and got 90+ percentile in one and less than 60th percentile in the other

3. We have heard multiple stories about someone getting 50th percentile+ with zero attempts in both sections.

All of these lead me to believe that one assumption we have made with the computation of the raw score is probably incorrect. We have all believed that a correct answer fetches a student +3, and an incorrect one fetches -1.  And then these scores are normalized to factor in level of difficulty.

My suspicion is that the IIMs have created a framework that punishes inaccuracy far more harshly than this. 

On a +3/-1 system someone who attempts 19 and gets 6 wrong would get 39 - 6 = 33 marks. Someone who attempts 6 and gets all 6 correct would get 18. Now, this giant difference in raw scores is unlikely to get bridged in the normalization process.

However, if the IIMs said each student gets -1 for the first incorrect answer in the section, -2 for the second one, -3 for the third and so on, then the person with 19 attempts and 6 wrong could get 39 - 21  = 18 which is same as the score of someone who got 6 out 6 correct.

Alternatively, the IIMs could compute the score, normalize it, scale it to 225 and finally multiply by accuracy level to get the final score. Under this assumption, the final score of the person scoring 13 correct and 6 wrong would be their normalized score * 13/19, which is a more than 30% drop in score. Whereas the one scoring 6 out of 6 would retain his entire score.

I have just given two outlines that punish inaccuracy beyond the +3/-1 framework. I am sure we can create many more. My guess is that the IIMs want to say that 10 out of 10 is way better than 14 out of 18. From a student perspective, the earlier you can wind your head around that the better.

In my view, the most important message sitting inside the scores this time around is this - Do not chase attempts, agonize over accuracy. This is the mantra most trainers have been screaming for many years now. The relevance of this mantra just shot up now. So, all of you who are preparing for CAT 2014, get into the habit of getting every attempt correct from now on. If you are unsure, leave the question. If a question seems too easy, have another read to verify. Do not live in this speed-world where attempting 10 questions in 20 minutes and getting 8 correct is considered better than attempting 6 and getting ALL of them correct.

Finally, a disclaimer. All of this is more of less just conjecture. We can never be sure of the method the IIMs use for getting the normalized scores for CAT. This is just an attempt to interpret based on anecdotal evidence. Research based on statistical evidence is often wrong, so take anything based on anecdotal evidence with a pinch of salt.

Best wishes for all students who are appearing for their interviews. I look forward to meeting all 2iim students at the GD/PI workshop.

The above piece is from Rajesh Balasubramanian, a director at 2iim who trains student for CAT and takes CAT every year. 

What should you make right this CAT vis-a-vis your last CAT?

Category I: I am a rockstar in one of the two sections but have no idea whatsoever about the other.

Kudos! You have identified your strength.  Now, play to your strength.  If your strong area is, say, Section I i.e., Quant and DI, never even shoot to attempt (and get right) less than 26 questions.  Make this a habit right from your first mock.  Remember, this means you don't have the freedom of either focusing less on DI because you don't like calculations (Hi five! I am one among them) or focusing less on a particular chapter, like say Work and Time, because you don't deem it important/don't like it.  Doing this would ensure a 99.6x+ percentile in this section. Believe me, the gap between a 99.6 and a 98.5 percentile is wider than you think because the gap in the CAT score out of 450 could be much higher than the percentile difference suggests.  Since the interview call is based on the CAT score out of 450, the percentile number could be slightly misleading.

Fine. Got it. But, what do I do about the other section?

If you are a rock-star in Section I, then it is almost impossible that you don't understand anything of LR in Section II. Well then, that's your strength in Section II. I know of candidates who attempted just the 9 or 10 LR questions in Section II, ended up scoring an 80.xx percentile but maxed Section I by scoring a 99.9x and landed a seat with a top IIM. That's a smart strategy. But be cautious about the cut-offs for general/OBC/SC/ST categories. Of course, not many people would want to do this and you don't have to either. Anyone who is a rock-star in one section and has no idea about the other has just not tried enough. A person's skill sets for these two sections are not so poorly correlated, after all. Reading Comprehension is, by far, the best sub-section in Verbal that one can focus on. You know you would get around nine or 10 questions of RC and any candidate with a decent understanding of English (if you can max out Section I, you got to be decent in English) can attempt and get right four or five questions. While you are practicing RCs, do not focus on building speed. Focus on understanding what you read. Not being able to attempt enough questions is primarily a function of being unable to correctly answer a question in the first attempt; this happens because you can't understand the question. With this, you might be able to increase the count of RC questions to seven or eight. So, nine or ten LR questions plus seven or eight RC questions and you already have 16-18 correct attempts in your kitty. With a good understanding of passages, you will begin to get most of the answers in Sentence Rearrangement and Paragraph Completion/Elimination questions right. That's three or four questions more. A total of 20 to 22 correct attempts in your weaker section is brilliant. Again, this is something you should practice right from your early mocks.

Category II:  I am not a rock-star in either of the two sections but I almost always manage to get a balanced score.

Well, this is tricky. I know it is because I am one of your kinds. You always have this feeling that you are almost there, yet far. I have come to realize that being able to get a balanced score is actually not that bad. If you also know that you would always score in the range of 94.xx to 98.xx percentile in both sections with an overall of 97.xx to 98.xx, you should focus on accuracy in attempts. Only accuracy can take you from 98.xx to 99.7x and is important for any candidate (especially in the open category and with not-so-decent academics) to secure an interview call from at least a few IIMs. You know you are going to be capped at 22-23 question attempts in each of the sections and you cannot afford to get even a single one wrong.  And for that level of accuracy, besides the fact that you should read every question properly and not fall for common traps, you should not get anxious in the examination hall. Calm down your nerves before you hit Start.

Calm down my nerves!?! That's easier said than done.

True. There's no one way to do this. Even the most careless of all test-takers will have a moment of anxiety while entering the exam hall. However, there's one thing you might consider doing. I did this but I can't say for sure if it worked or not. Do not write only the CAT and be hell bent on joining only the top IIMs.  Broaden your options. There are so many other good B-schools in India, including FMS, XLRI, MDI, IIFT and the likes. If you are prepared for the CAT, you are prepared for pretty much any other exam. So write XAT and IIFT, for sure. You might want to add NMAT and SNAP too. Also, apply well in advance to B-schools that accept CAT/XAT scores such as SP Jain, MDI and FMS. Two reasons why this might help: One, if some of these exams were to happen before CAT, that's good exam-day practice. Two, by applying to so many B-schools, you end up knowing a lot of information about them, thereby realizing that you do have a larger basket of 'good' options to choose from. For all you know, you might end up with a BCG offer from FMS/XLRI than if you had been to IIM-A/B/C!

The author of the above piece is Shivaram, a graduate from College of Engineering at Guindy in Chennai, Class of 2010. He worked with 2IIM for a year before joining IIM-A in 2012. 

Under what circumstances is it a good idea to quit your job and prepare for CAT?

Under what circumstances is it a good idea to quit your job and prepare for CAT?

NONE!

This is one of those essay topics that can ideally feature in competitions seeking ultra-short contributions. The one-word response would be, ‘None’!  However, having told my boss that I definitely want to comment on this topic, I cannot get away with the ultra-short version. So, here goes.

Thanks to my earlier avatar as an investment research analyst, I have acquired this habit of getting my disclaimers in early. I am not going to sit on the fence. It is NEVER a good idea to quit your job. So, if you are among the group of people that has decided to quit and you do not want to hear anything against that decision, skip this article and move ahead to the next one.

Every week, I get at least two enquiries from students who are keen to take a step up by focusing exclusively on the CAT preparation. This roughly translates to, “I hate my job.  I want to have a decent-sounding reason to quit”. Beware! there are two major pitfalls in quitting a job to prepare for CAT.

1. The personal interview phase becomes trickier: You will lose scores for work experience, and might face uncomfortable questions in the interview. Sample this
1. “Quitting a job at an MNC to prepare for CAT makes me doubt your ability to weigh risk-reward.  I think I would be fueling your foolhardy decision-making if I gave you a seat here.  What are your thoughts on this?”
2. “I met eight candidates before you, all of whom have managed busy work schedules and squeezed in CAT preparation while you have focused exclusively on CAT. All other things being equal, why should I select you over them?”
3. “So, you cannot hold a job and prepare for a competitive exam at the same time?  After MBA, you will have to multitask at an even greater level.  You are basically telling me you are not equipped to handle that.  Thoughts?”

Do not think that it is a smart idea to say that you have not quit your job but taken a break to pursue your passion of working in industry X and therefore joined your cousin.

As a general rule, professors do not think it is a great idea to take a break for the sake of CAT preparation and will interpret any shift to a ‘small company in a preferred industry’ on your resume as a proxy for this.

2. Pressure increases: Bear in mind that if you take a break in June, you do not take a six-month break for CAT preparation, but rather a nearly 12-month break.  CAT is not an exam that one needs to prepare for 50 hours a week; it calls for intensity over two-three hours a day.  A longer preparation time could easily lead to a plateau in results performance.  A large number of candidates run out of practice material that really tests them but can never cross 90^th percentile. This is essentially because the intensity disappears from preparation.  If you set yourself a target of preparing for eight hours a day for 180 days, you are creating a recipe for losing intensity within weeks.  All these factors will intensify the pressure on the day of the exam.  Importantly, this plays a role in affecting decision-making after CAT as well.  If you do not have a viable plan B, the temptation to join a college ranked 60^th (because this is the only decent admit) will be high. The assurance that comes with having a viable plan B is vital for cracking this exam.

There are many other reasons for not taking this decision, but the two mentioned above are the most important.

Compared to 10 years ago, the admission processes for the IIMs have changed dramatically. When I took my CAT in 2000, the admission process was extremely CAT score oriented. If you had a decent CAT score, all else was pretty much forgotten (particularly true for IIMC).  In the current era, the CAT score is taken as but one metric in a broad basket of input variables. Ten years ago, it might have been a decent (if still risky) idea to trade 2 percentile points for one year of work experience.  In the current era, the trade-off is not even worth the discussion.

Do not try to use CAT as an excuse for getting out of a taxing/boring job.  Even after your MBA, odds are that you will go through a few bad jobs (and bosses!)  If you must quit, do so in August, have a job in hand that you plan to join by Nov 1^st.  Take a six-to-eight-week break, have a go at CAT in this time window and hope for the best. 

Get, set, go - From "The Hindu"

This is an article from "The Hindu" contributed by the director at 2iim, Rajesh Balasubramanian

 CAT 2012 will be conducted from October 11 to November 6 this year. A number of candidates will be fine-tuning their preparation right now, while others will be looking to somehow kicking the inertia out of the system and starting their preparations in right earnest. We provide a plan of action for the latter group.

Do not tell yourself it is too late to start now. Do not listen to anyone who says that there isn’t enough time for preparation. Till about 10 years ago, students used to start their CAT preparation only in August (very reluctantly, I must add). The basic syllabus for this exam roughly corresponds to Maths and English taught in class VI- IX. So, if the fundamentals are reasonably strong, a student should require only 200-300 hours of preparation for this exam.

What should be the plan of action? With the Olympic spirit in mind, let us think of this preparation as a parallel to an athlete preparing for the Olympics. Divide your preparation into three phases.

Do the grind

In phase I, cover the basics for all the topics in quant. Solve as many questions as possible. This is the phase where one builds on first principles and gets the mind ready for the tougher battles ahead. For the verbal section, set aside two hours every day to reading. Read lots of stuff and with as much variety as possible.

The topic, style, subject and size do not matter (Fiction, non-fiction, sports, politics, economics, science, anything goes). Just build the reading habit and get the mind ready to receive written content. This phase is similar to an Olympic wrestler/badminton player spending hours in the gym. This phase should go on for about six weeks.

Build intensity

Start building intensity. Take section-wise tests, set yourself targets for sets of 15, 20 or 30 minutes. Start practicing for Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning. Increase the intensity steadily by mixing up topics and setting varying time targets. This is the phase where you should select one DI bunch, one LR puzzle, two passages in RC, eight questions in Number Theory and set yourself 50 minutes of high intensity preparation. This is akin to an athlete training muscle by muscle and play-by-play. This is probably the part of CAT preparation that is heavily underestimated. People who are used to spending 10 hours in office or eight hours in college think that writing a 2 hour 20 minute-exam cannot be that taxing. Taking a test for 140 minutes without concentration “drops” is challenging and will not come without getting the mind ready for it. The better you do this the less tired you will get handling regular questions in CAT and more energy you will have for handling tougher ones. This should go on for about four weeks.

Fine tune your preparation

Phase III is simple. Take mock exams. Analyze them vigorously. Plug whatever gaps you find by revisiting phase I or phase II. And when you analyze a paper, you should focus on what kind of questions you have gotten wrong, which ones you should have attempted but have skipped, which ones took time without giving you much in return, which questions should you have skipped straightaway, etc. Do not waste time on studying percentile patterns and such. Most mock CAT percentile scores are nothing more than a distraction. This should ideally go on for about five weeks. This is the phase where the athlete simulates match conditions, studies opponents, figures out the draw, etc.

Phase I, II and III could overlap. If you plan well and are willing to throw in lots of time toward preparation, this can be done in 10 weeks. The students with intense shorter-term preparation have seen better results than those who enroll into long-term courses but do not do justice to them.

For those who have been preparing for a while, the strategy is simple. Skip Phase I. Kick start your preparation now and focus on building intensity. Best wishes for CAT 2012.

The author, a B-school trainer, is one of the CAT toppers last year with 100 percentile. He takes CAT every year to understand the pattern and help his students better.