There are just a few days to go before the window for CAT 2012 exam commences and most candidates just have one question on their mind-how they can increase their percentile scores, so as to get a call from the best management institutes in the country.


How can this be done? How can you improve your percentile in the last few days before CAT 2012 that would be conducted from 11 October - 6 November 2012.


Analyse your Strengths and Weaknesses

Firstly, conduct a careful analysis of your performance in mock tests. It is vital that you carefully analyse your performance and scores in the mock tests that you may have undertaken and try to assess the areas in which you score well or are weak.

(Also read: Crack CAT 2012: 7 Tips to Bell the CAT)

For example, within the Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation section, you may be doing well with algebra-based questions, but struggling with geometry problems. Or within the Verbal Ability section, you may be good at grammar but not so good with the reading comprehension based questions. 


Hence, you should go back to this particular area, revise your fundamentals and try to make sure that you are not failing to attempt such questions at all, or worse, that you are attempting them and getting them wrong. Remember that there is still time for you to improve on your weaknesses; I suggest you do this till around two weeks before the exam, after which you can concentrate on consolidating your areas of strengths.

Be Judicious in your selection of questions

Two, the candidate should be able to wisely select the questions he/ she wishes to attempt. Why is this important? Students don’t always realize that injudicious choices with respect to the questions attempted could decrease your accuracy levels, result in several negative marking.


I have often seen that students actually get sufficient questions correct to clear the sectional cut-off, but then the negative marks they get pulls down their overall score to below the sectional cut-off! Hence, it is vital that you choose which questions you actually attempt.

(Also read: CAT 2012 Pattern & Duration)


This point is particularly important for the questions pertaining to Data Interpretation/ Analytical Reasoning. I suggest that candidates choose the sets to attempt based on factors such as their familiarity with the data format, number of variables etc.


Reasoning-based caselets, may be avoided if there are too many variables, because there is always the possibility that the candidate may miss out on some aspect of the logic and get the entire set wrong or spend too much time trying to work out a solution but fail to solve it.
Given a choice, it is preferable to attempt questions pertaining to given graphs or tables, even if you need to perform some lengthy calculations, as you will be more certain about the final answers you obtain.


In conclusion, I suggest that you keep these two points in mind when you attempt CAT 2012 and the remaining mock tests. You may well find that your percentile increases substantially with a relatively small effort.

Sidharth Balakrishna

Sidharth Balakrishna is an alumnus of IIM Calcutta and has been employed with the world’s top Marketing, Management Consultancy and energy firms. Besides his regular corporate job, he has written a number of books and articles for various reputed publications and has taken several guest lectures and seminars across the country. He is also an Expert on Campuswalkin Ask & Answer section.
Click here to know more about Sidharth. 

Related Articles:

Crack CAT 2012: 7 Tips to Bell the CAT

Tips to Prepare for Data Interpretation (DI) section in CAT, XAT, SNAP & Other MBA Entrance Exams

CAT 2012 Official Bulletin Out: CAT 2012 Registration, Sale of Vouchers, Important Dates, Eligibility

IIM Kozhikode to Conduct CAT 2012 from 11 October - 6 November 2012

List of non-IIM Institutes that Accept CAT 2012 Scores

Tagged in MAT MAT test pattern MAT exam AIMA MAT exam structure

Like us on :