With only a few days in hand, the students appearing for CAT are struggling hard through the dilemmas about things like – what to study, how to study, what is more important and what can be dropped, so on forth.

Every year there are lakhs of students who sit for the CAT exam. So, what are the ingredients that you need to keep in mind to make the most of the extra minutes in hand to earn those extra marks.

The students of IILM share their CAT experience with all the aspirants out there to crack CAT this year. Hear out these top 10 tips which could possibly make your CAT study journey effortless

1. Do Self-SWOT – Know yourself inside out thoroughly. Understand your weaker areas, work on them and keep a hold on your stronger areas, in respect to quantitative, verbal logical, reasoning and data interpretation.

2. Stick to your strategy – Your strategy will help you solve the question paper in a much better flow. Sticking to the strategy you planned while preparing for the exam will make the solving of the paper with a better clarity.

3. Time is money – It is highly important to know when to quit on a question that you may not know after a number of attempts within a few seconds of application. Timing is everything. Time management is crucial during the preparation of exam as well.

4. Practice, practice and practice – Practice is the gateway to success. More and more you practice, the better you get hold of the knack to crack through the exam at much ease. The trick is to learn the shortcuts and also logic during the unpredictable patterns in the paper.

5. Break free all the tension & jitters (mental & health well being) – Keeping it cool and calm is very essential. If the mind and body are at ease, cracking a competitive exam becomes much smoother.

6. Refer to the past (crack all the mock papers) – This should be taken very seriously, getting familiar with the complexity of the question papers as presented year after year will help you know the unseen patterns that might play the trick in the next paper.

7. Hit the bull’s eye! (Focus on the target) – Mantra is to build up the confidence to achieve anything and everything. Setting a target is important, but in CAT targets are set in parts.  CAT is prepared in different sections, and focusing on the stronger areas is the key to hit the bull’s eye.

8. Did you check the latest changes in CAT 2015? – Every year there are new changes that are reflected in the CAT paper. Trick is to be well verse with the changes before hand.
► Basic on screen calculator will be permitted for the aspirants.
► Duration of the examination is 180 minutes from 170 minutes as to previous pattern. You have 10 minutes extra. Use it wisely.

So, exam pattern can be highly unpredictable every year. Keeping your nerves calm is the key.  Learn how to change the strategy on the fly. Don’t get ruffled over the changing pattern.

9. Walk along with the fundamentals– Sticking to the basic concepts is what will get you through the study journey to main destination with success. Learn the smart way to apply the basic concepts in different questions, which might be presented on unpredictable terms.

10. Don’t brood over, just act – In the end, depending on the results we can only learn something out of it. There’s no point brooding over it. The preparation requires a little more investment of time in hand. Understanding the mistakes and learning the smart way to handle everything with available time could do miracles.

All the best!