AIMCAT 1120 - Moi Mockery..!!

Here comes the first shocker of the season. After securing 97 percentile in the first AIMCAT, I was pretty sure that I was on the right track. It seems that the paper setters at time had other thoughts in mind which brought be right back down to earth. It seems a mouse and monitor work better for me than a paper and pencil. AIMCAT 1120 was a Paper and pencil based test which was free and open to anyone interested (TIME usually comes out with these once or twice a year to offer performance based scholarships and to increase the No. of registered test takers).

Analysis :

Verbal Ability: Traditionally, the section in which I should have done well. It had 11 VA and 9 RC questions. RCs were easy to comprehend and VA section too had some sitters. Just managed to hold my head above the cutoff line but Accuracy in VA is one of the main things that I plan to focus on in the coming AIMCATS.

Quantitative Ability (My Achilles-heel): I have been putting a lot of effort in this section and am pleased to see that pay off. Managed to clear the cutoff this time (had missed it last time by 4 marks). Accuracy is good enough though lot of work still needs to be done on the grey areas like P&C, Probability, Quadratic Equations, coordinate geometry etc. The difficulty level of this section was easy enough where 10 – 12 questions could have been easily attempted.

L&DI: Only one word comes to my mind – Carnage. It was my worst performance till date in any section of any exam. By far the most difficult section of the test, data sets were complicated and tricky. Only a good accuracy would have seen an average student going above the cut off score. Wrong guesses to some confusing questions meant my accuracy plummet below 45 and my score to a reprehensible all time low of 8 marks.

Overall, the test was patterned on CAT 2009 with 20 questions in each section. Barring L&DI, all other sections were easy enough. A good approach would have been selecting fewer questions to crack and achieving a good accuracy within those questions.

AIMCAT 1119 is two days away. Haven’t been able to study anything this entire week due to some factors. Hope it goes well.

Analysis & Feedback - 1121

The much awaited result for my first AIMCAT of this season is finally out and it is a mixed bag. It is a decent effort with plenty of grey areas as well. A snapshot of my performance is shown above.

ANALYSIS

L&DI: This section looked startling with mammoth data sets. A casual glance could easily have frightened off many test takers. However, on a closer look, the questions were of moderate difficulty level with some demanding serious consideration details. Also there was a set on Cubes which required heavy 3D visualization (Mechanical Engineers wouldn’t be complaining :) ). I was pleasantly surprised at my result in this section as this has never been my forte. Managed to clear the cut-off by a meager 3 marks but its still an improvement from my previous attempts.

Verbal Ability : My strongest section. Traditionally, my overall results in the AIMCATS or Actual CATs have been directly proportional to how well I have done in this section. This AIMCAT was no different with a major chunk of my marks scored of this section. Accuracy was a grey area in which I will have to improve in order to stabilize my scores in this level (My Scores in this section have varied from 89 to 99 in the previous seasons). Questions involving the conclusion of sentences were the weakest link with 4 incorrect attempts out of 5.

Quantitative Ability : It was a decent mix of easy as well as difficult questions but the overall difficulty level was more on the Easy side. This has been my weak point ever since I started my CAT preparations and I have been working tirelessly to achieve a turnaround. Missed the Cut off by 4 Marks but still I’m quite pleased with the Accuracy of 87.5. Still much preparation is required before I start scoring high consistently.

Overall, the Paper was of Moderate difficulty level and 10-12 marks could easily have been scored merely by achieving a better accuracy ad doing a better selection of which questions to attempt and which ones to leave! Pretty pleased as this is my highest ever AIMCAT percentile (2008 season included) though the no. of test takers was low at around 14k. I can expect the same effort to fetch lower percentile three or four months down the line when the number as well as the seriousness of the test takers increases.

In the words of Robert Frost

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
Miles to go before I sleep. ’’

Blast From the Past - AIMCAT 1121..!!

It is a perplexing feeling when you work very hard not to repeat a certain chapter of your life under any circumstances but the exact thing occurs – like a ghost resurrected from the past. This happened to me on the 13^th of June 2010 at 2015 hrs when I finished writing my first AIMCAT of this season. I feel a little brief of my past CAT experiences is required before moving forward:

• CAT 2008: Final year of college, studies were restricted to appearing for the All India mock CATs – No concept building and No Test reviewing whatsoever. Got 94.18 percentile with 98.99 in verbal, 60 odd in DI/LR and 54 in Quant..!!
• CAT 2009: Was settled in a job and had made up my mind towards CAT 2010 but appeared just for the sake of familiarizing myself with the CBT (Computer based test). No concept building and No Test series even this time. Got 88 percentile with 89 in Verbal, 80 odd in quant 61 in DI..!!

It is quiet clear from the above facts that whatever percentile I was getting was hugely due to the verbal section. This sort of a test strategy with majority of marks scored in just one section was in no way going to get me closer to the hallowed halls of the I.I.Ms. So I made it a point when I started studying for this year’s CAT that I was going to concentrate mainly on Quant and DI/LR and turn my weaknesses to my strengths. The process is ongoing and I now dedicate much more time to these two sections while preparation for “Verbal” section is restricted to reading novels or newspapers etc.

In the first mock CAT for this season : TIME’s AIMCAT – 1121, I noticed the first omens when I saw the Instructions: 30 Questions in Verbal as opposed to 20 each in Quant and LR/DI – Similar to quant 2008 where English had more weightage than others. The end result of the examination was:

No of Questions: 70

Attempted: 49

Correct: 35

Wrong: 14

Score: 91

The score is decent but the problem that I am hell bent on destroying is showing no signs of abating for now. Majority of marks scored were from the Verbal section which beats the purpose I’m trying to achieve. Anyways I have doubled my efforts, for if for some reason I do not do well in the actual CAT, it should not be because of lack of tenacity. I’ve learned that life is about Aspirations Vs Dejections. It is like a spring balance between the two and the direction our life takes is the direction we choose to pursue in our minds – Whether we aspire enough for achieving certain goals in our life that we overcome each and every dejection that comes our way or do we let dejections rule us so much that we give up our aspirations. “It is not how hard you fall but how quickly you bounce back that matters’’.

Gearing up for the next AIMCAT.