A lot is said and written about CAT/ XAT. And why not? A sufficiently good score in either of these examinations can get you admission in one of India's top B-schools. A bright future is just a few steps away (two gruelling years, to be precise).

I receive a large number of e-mails everyday from students who want tips on how to clear the CAT/ XAT, and I'm going to share with you exactly what I tell them.

Study time: Quality or quantity?

Preparation for CAT cannot really be counted in terms of hours of study. To an extent, it depends on the candidate's inborn capacity, which nobody can change. What you can do, however, is try and sharpen your skills as much as possible.

The time required for this varies from person to person. There are people who have studied for seven to eight hours a day and still not cleared CAT, while there are people in very good B-schools whose CAT preparation was limited to two to three hours a day.

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Focus on your strenghts

A key point to be remembered is that you should always focus on your strengths. Once the cut-off in all the sections is cleared, it does not matter where the marks come from. So, if you are good at English, spend more time on Verbal. The same holds good for Data Interpretation/ Data Sufficiency and Quant.

The objective is to maximise your total score. Don't forget, however, it is very important you clear the cut-off in each section of CAT (if you do not clear the cut-off level in every section, you will fail CAT).

Since it is true you will not know the cut-off, you should try to ensure you do moderately well in all the sections and exceptionally well in the ones you are good at.

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Good at Quant?

A general brush-up of your Class XII/ IIT screening level maths should be enough. For people with a non-maths background, a good GRE/ GMAT book could serve as a great starting point for Quant preparation.

Formula for Data Interpretation/ Data Sufficiency?

As far as DI/ DS is concerned, there is no fixed formula for preparation. You should keep practising more and more questions until you are able to come up with a definite strategy.

Initially, don't worry about time limits. Start timing yourself only when you need the the advanced stage of your CAT preparation.

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Get that Verbal edge

It would be ideal to do some regular reading. You could read anything -- magazines, novels, etc. Most coaching centres would ask you to memorise word lists, but I don't think that helps at all.

Once you become used to reading stories/ books, questions like sentence rearrangement, etc, will come to you naturally.

Irrespective of how you choose to approach the exam, there is no 'fixed' formula for success. What I have mentioned above are some of the things that have worked for me when I was preparing for CAT.

I hope they help you too. Best of luck!

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Gaurab Sengupta is a first year PGDBM student at the Xavier Institute Of Management, Bhubaneswar. His scores -- CAT 2004: 98.2 percentile; XAT 2005: 99.45 percentile and IBSAT 2004: All India 27th rank.

Know how to ace CAT? Write in and let us know. Don't forget to add your name, age, the name of your management institution, the year in which you passed out and where you work now.

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Illustration: Dominic Xavier