The Quant section happens to be one of the most dreaded sections for CAT aspirants. The general notion among students is - Quantitative section is really difficult to crack. However, this is not the real case. With proper preparation and following some time-tested strategies, cracking the Quant section in CAT is quite plausible. Don’t just believe what everyone says, go by what a CAT coaching expert is saying. Here are few Dos and Don’ts of CAT Quantitative section to get better score:
List of Dos
Preparation
- Revise concepts from all areas: Numbers, Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry and Modern Math since easy questions can come from any area. The only way you can attempt more questions is but being thorough with more areas (logarithms and geometry are not as you think)
- Practice at least three Data Interpretation Sets every day since DI accounts for one-third of the QA-DI section.
Test-Taking
- Always remember to use the answer options to see if you can get the answer by substituting some values in the answer options or substituting the answer options to see which one fits the conditions given in the question.
- Scan the answer options to see whether you need to precisely calculate the answer or you can estimate them. You can also estimate the answer first and then see which answer option is closest instead of wasting time to precisely calculate the answer.
List of Don’ts
Test-Taking
- Do not go in with a fixed mindset that you will solve all questions from particular topics and ignore questions from specific areas. While taking Simulated Tests practice choosing the easy and medium questions across areas instead of choosing questions only from your favorite areas.
- Do not choose or leave a question purely based on the area to which it belongs. Read every question to evaluate whether it is easy/medium or difficult before deciding whether to attempt or leave a question
- Do not leave a question because it is long. Some questions may take 2-minutes to read and 1-minute to solve whereas other might take 30 seconds to read but might turn out be unsolvable. So do not judge a question by its length.
- Do not get stuck with a question for more than 3 minutes, proceed to the next question since easy questions are spread out across the section.
- Apply the approximation and calculation techniques learnt for DI to Quant problems as well since even 30 second saved per Quant question can give you at least an additional 15 minutes on the test.
Article Courtesy: Tony Xavier, Head of IMS Chennai (www.imsindia.com)
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