How Can Working People Crack CAT
Are you a working professional wanting to crack CAT? Do you know there are online CAT coaching that adapts to your schedule? Here you will learn how working people crack CAT
CAT is the most important exam if you wish to get a seat in the best management institutions in India. CAT is a very competitive exam. This can be verified from the fact that last year more than 2.2 lac people registered for the exam. Let us learn why an MBA is important and how working people crack CAT.
Getting a good percentile in CAT requires intensive preparation of at least a year. That’s how you can ensure a seat in the most premier colleges.
Why the best colleges you ask? That is because MBA is as much about the environment as it about theoretical knowledge. In fact, we’d argue that the MBA is much more than theory and books.
MBA is all about teamwork, time management, and practical learning. A great B-school ensures an atmosphere full of the best students, eminent faculty, and distinguished industry leaders.
Among the best students, you learn the best skills of each other. This could be anything from communication skills, time management skills to absolute professionalism.
The renowned faculty provides you the best and most relevant and updated knowledge there is. And the industry leaders provide you with unmatched expertise and experience in the real business world.
Take the example of IIMs. IIMs are the alma mater of renowned economists and leaders who went on to hold very respectable positions in institutions like the UN, the World Bank, IMF, and the RBI. They are frequent guest lecturers at their own college. There is no denying the fact that they feel a personal responsibility to give guidance to the current students who must look up to them.
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Why is an MBA from a top B-school so important?
MBA is one of the most sought-after degrees throughout the world. Let’s learn why is that.
An MBA from a top B-school is not just a degree. It is a symbol of quality and eminence. It is a responsibility that you carry, to uphold the same level of performance and achievement that has been a tradition of that school.
The world does not see it as just an MBA. It sees you as a custodian of that legacy that is your school. It gives you respect and admiration in the business world as well as the society.
An MBA enhances your personality from all angles. It makes you more confident and street-smart. You become secure in yourself when you see your projects completing successfully and proving your mettle among the best and the smartest audience.
You also learn to become a team player. Working day and night on projects and assignments with your peers teaches you a very important skill ie. working in a team. You learn to accommodate according to other members.
You also learn to delegate, learning a key lesson on the division of labor. You find out that any work is much more efficient and of better quality if it is done by a team that is well-coordinated and where people have complementary skills to each other.
Many skills that you learn in a team are transferrable, like communication. This is why it is important to be a part of a great team.
An MBA from the best B-schools also provides you credibility in the business world. Your skills and expertise are trusted and you come off as more competent. You can negotiate higher salaries as a result.
Another big advantage of an MBA is that it is relevant in all sectors. Sectors like hospitals, hotels, manufacturing industries, media houses, sports, politics, tech companies, start-ups, etc. are after all businesses that require efficient personnel to run them. With an MBA you can enter any industry of your choice and your career won’t be limited to your bachelor’s degree.
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MBA graduates are often given roles that involve creating strategies for business. This is because an MBA teaches you develops your strategic thinking.
You start to automatically weigh the pros and cons of any decision, whether in business or personal life. With this skill, you can make the best short and long-term decisions for the best possible outcome. With this vision, you can always plan wisely.
This is an important quality for managers in any business. With the landscape changing faster than ever, with new trends and technological breakthroughs, it is important to make the right choices now to reap the fruits in the future.
Another advantage of doing an MBA which is as important in personal life as it is professional is communication skills. Management teaches you how to convey your ideas and thoughts effectively.
Your smartness and intelligence are of no use if you cannot explain them to others. It is essential to communicate in simple and clear words so that everybody understands you. You learn how to persuade and convince people. All these skills are necessary for real life too.
MBA also involves doing lots of projects, assignments, tests, etc. under tight deadlines. The 2-year program is packed with activities and there is no time to waste. You learn the most essential skill of time management. You become much more efficient and productive with time.
Perhaps one of the most important assets that a great business school gives you is a great network. Many experts think that a management college is the best place to form a network.
The batchmates you meet today are someday going to sit at important positions in the business world or maybe politics, sports, and arts too. Your worth is associated with the kind of people you surround yourself with.
A management college provides you an asset of a lifetime. You meet renowned economists, policymakers, and business leaders that come as professors and lecturers. There is no better place to network.
Doing an MBA also broadens your horizons. When you join an internship, you get to see and learn how a day in a big corporation looks like. You get hands-on experience at how your job is going to be. Dealing with clients, making strategies, handling day-to-day tasks, and so on. A good management college will get you an internship in the best companies in India and abroad.
You learn the impact of your position. How the decisions you make are going to affect thousands of people. For example, correct business advice from a management consultant can save a company from being declared bankrupt.
You will save so many jobs and in turn, so many families are going to be saved from being incomeless for months. That is the kind of impact you will have.
In the materialistic sense, a good college provides you more value. You can negotiate salaries to suit your needs. You will have the possibility of working for so many companies. Your options will be vast.
The best colleges also get you high pay packages. You can afford a better lifestyle and a high standard of living. You will also get more respect in society as well as the business world.
Another unseen advantage of an MBA is innovative thinking. As a manager, you will encounter many problems. To solve them, you will need to think outside the box. Because there will be problems that no one has ever come across before. Your solutions have the opportunity to set a precedent for later managers.
Why is an MBA important for working people?
Are you stuck in the same role for years? Do you want to expand your responsibilities? Would you like to have more impact on the company and make important decisions? Or you just want to increase your salary that is rising slower than inflation?
An MBA from a good college can revive your stuck career. You will no longer be accountable to your supervisors who have no idea about your work.
As an MBA, you will much more value and authority in your domain. Your work will have a larger impact on the company as a whole as well as its employees.
Having a management degree will get you a much more salary.
Why CAT?
CAT is the entry gate to any management institution in India. CAT is designed to test the candidates in designated areas and analyze how suitable and effective they will be as managers and CEOs.
Almost all business schools in India take admissions based on your CAT score. If an MBA is your target, CAT is the exam you should focus your efforts on.
CAT is an online test. The paper has 3 different sections of
- Quantitative Ability (QA)
- Verbal Ability (VA) & Reading Comprehension (RC)
- Data Interpretation(DI) & Logical Reasoning (LR)
The Quantitative Aptitude(QA) section consists of basic maths, based upon a 10 + 2 level. Questions come from various topics such as Arithmetic, Geometry, Algebra, trigonometry, statistics, and Commercial Mathematics (Word Problems). The questions are mostly based on the application of maths to look for solutions to real-world problems.
The Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DI-LR) section consists of problems that are based on a given set of data. The data given could be in the form of like graphs, charts, tables, or paragraphs.
This section tests how the candidate makes sense of the available data and their ability to make meaningful conclusions. Logical Reasoning problems test the candidate’s ability to use logic and evaluate problems.
The Verbal Ability (VA) section consists of questions on the usage of standard English language and grammar. Verbal Ability problems test the candidate’s ability to arrange paragraphs in a sensical order, determining the tone of given statements, completing the paragraphs, etc.
In the recent exam papers, it is found that all the sections share an almost equal weightage. But that should not be taken as a rule.
The test was started by the Indian Institutes of Management(IIMs) to grade candidates seeking admission into their management programs. All the IIMs take turns every year to prepare the question paper.
Today CAT scores are a standard used by almost every management college and that includes management schools in IITs and IISc.
CAT used to be a conventional pen and paper test before 2009. From 2009, CAT became a computer-based test. The format of the CAT is like this.
Each correct answer gets 3 marks for the candidate. A wrong choice deducts 1 point. The test has many sets of question papers. All the scores are equated or neutralized later.
To be eligible for getting a seat through CAT, a candidate must hold or expect their bachelor’s degree before the time of admission.
A good score in CAT is a necessity for a seat in the best management colleges in India. Although it doesn’t guarantee it. To get to the top b-schools, you also need to pass their group discussions and personal interview stages.
CAT is like a gateway to the top B-schools. We have already seen why you need to be in the best business school.
A great CAT score basically ensures a great learning environment in whichever college you decide to go to. You get a great network of a lifetime. You get to meet industry tycoons and renowned economists. You get the best start to your management career. The best business schools also have a record of 100% placements. That’s how valuable it is.
How can working people crack CAT?
After learning the basics, let’s discuss how can working people crack CAT.
To answer the question: can working people crack CAT?
In a word, yes.
But you have to choose the right resources.
It is possible to get a great percentile in CAT while being a working professional, or even a student in their final year of bachelor’s degree. But in order to gain an edge over candidates, you need to do something special.
First of all, if you are a working professional, you already have an advantage in the GD and PI stages. But you’ll reach there only if you get a great percentile in the written test.
Candidates who are solely preparing for CAT while taking a year’s break and doing coaching classes have much more time to prepare. Every year, the percentage of people who studied independently is far lower than the ones who came from coaching. And this is the honest truth here.
So it is clear that for a few months you will have to prepare for CAT intensively. What do we mean by that? Let’s see.
It is possible to crack the CAT as a working professional. There are people who are doing it, so you can do it too. But how are they doing it? And how can you maximize your chances of success?
First of all, you need a solid plan. You need to take the exam seriously from day 1. You need to manage your time so that it leaves no room for wastage. Everything you do in your time apart from work should be dedicated to CAT. People who are not working have enough time to spare for fun and leisure. But not you.
This means no travel, no partying, and no fun time with friends until the exam is over. This is how working people crack CAT.
There are other sacrifices you need to make too. You will reduce your time on TV and movies. You will need to watch less news and read fewer newspapers.
Your time must be spent on activities that give you the highest returns. This means you have to follow the following steps. This is how working people crack CAT and get the best colleges.
- Make a plan. Designate your time for each subject. Finish it no matter what inside that time.
- Get the best study material. Get the best books that have been reviewed by other toppers for CAT. Don’t try to study from too many books. Just get one best materials and finish it completely.
- Divide your time between different sections. Solve the problems as soon as possible. Always keep your time constraint in mind. Solve the QA and LR questions every day because this has the highest weightage and is the most difficult part of the paper.
- Practice every day. Do not leave any day in between. Optimize your free time you get in the office. There is always scope for more.
- Try to solve questions within a time limit. Don’t spend too much time on one question. Look at the solution and remember it in case of more similar questions.
- Utilize your time to commute to the office in learning or revising. This is how working people crack CAT.
- If you want to know how working people crack CAT, you will need to use and learn a lot of tricks in a very short time. Tricks in CAT save you time. You will learn that CAT is as much about time management as it is about intelligence.
- Practice making calculations without using pen and paper. Mental calculations will speed up your solutions which is very important.
- You need to dedicate at least 2 hours on working days for CAT. On weekends, you will at least 8 hours.
- For the VA section, practice questions rather than spending time reading novels or newspapers.
- Try to solve a mock test every weekend. Keep a time constraint. Develop a strategy to approach the paper. Try to relax and be very serious about the mock papers. Make sure there are no disturbances while you write the paper. Do mock tests at the same time as your CAT exam. This will tune your biological clock and train you.
- Do not start the paper immediately. Plan a strategy. Take the first 5 minutes just to mark the questions that you attempt and those that you will not attempt. Aim for 50%. This is how working people crack CAT.
- After you are done with mock tests, analyze your performance. Find out how you can perform better and score more. Never try to do every single question. No one solves every question in CAT. It is a bad strategy. Aiming for less improves your efficiency and you can reach closer to your potential score.
- Find out your percentage of correct answers out of all answers. Try to analyze why is it less. It is essential to avoid negative marking.
If you want to find how working people crack CAT, another thing is that you have to take advantage of all the resources available to you.
IIM Skills is regarded as the best online CAT coaching. The coursework for CAT is designed by experts who have years of teaching and industry experience. They not only prepare you for the CAT but also for the further stages of admission. The course is customized for each student.
The course is a great resource for working professionals. This format of personalized coaching ensures that every candidate can learn at their own pace.
The admission procedure at IIM Skills is unique. The admission test is designed to give our experts an idea about your strengths and weaknesses. This is used to create a personalized course material just for you.
Our coursework is also free of unnecessary subjects that many other coaching fill up to make students feel like their coaching is offering them extra value. The only focus for IIM Skills is to get the student a great CAT percentile on their first attempt.
The coursework of CAT coaching from IIM Skills is unlike any other course you will ever find. The first thing it does is to make an evaluation of the student’s weak and strong areas. It lets us know which areas need more focus depending upon their weightage in CAT. This is important to direct the efforts of the student in the right direction. Just like classroom coaching. But better.
IIM Skills provides the right combination of study material, video tutorials, and mock tests. For example, If a student is strong in Verbal ability(VA) but their Logical Reasoning(LR) part has some scope for improvement, the coursework will focus more on LR.
There is no substitute for industry experience especially when the competition in the exam is so high. IIM Skills trains a student to compete among the best talent of the country. This is how working people crack CAT.
The online CAT course is specially designed around the individual candidate. There are no other obligations to worry about. If you are a working professional, you need professional coaching and online CAT coaching is great because you can learn and study in your time, as you like.
If you want to know how working people crack CAT, find out more about IIM Skills online CAT coaching. Find more articles like this that will help in your preparation.
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