Think about yourself and another 2 lakh waiting for November 18.

Possibly, they all have worked with expert trainers, preparing for C-Day. Perhaps they have worked on attaining speed and accuracy for CAT 2007. Perhaps they have access to online resources and AIMCATs by various institutes.

They all have deep knowledge of the previous CATs and know that it is not possible -- and rather self-destructive -- to attempt all the questions in CAT.

Then, what makes you superior to them? How will you be first among the equals? How are you going to reach 99.99 percentile?

The answers for these questions lie in your strategy to ensure a perfect blend of speed, accuracy and attempt on November 18. The ability to calculate faster will not only help you in Quantitative and Data Interpretation sections but also in maintaining the blend of speed and accuracy. Hence, expertise in Quantitative reasoning ability is indispensable for CAT 2007.

Quantitative and Data Interpretation in CAT have consistently been rated as difficult and challenging. Even though there have been times when people find the verbal section extremely difficult, still Quant and DI have always been characterised by 'tricky' and 'logical-input based' questions. This makes it vital to study the nature of Quant and DI in a CAT and recall the most effective strategies to excel in the two sections.

Previous CATs: A micros-analysis of Quantitative and Data Interpretation

While analyzisg the past CAT papers, one can easily find half of the questions, which were either tricky or lengthy. A further division into moderate, easier, very easier can be made by analyzing the question statements. Experts at TCY have categorised the questions of last 3 CATs into 'very easy', 'easy', 'moderate' and 'difficult' on the following basis:

Very easy: These are direct formula or theorem based questions. There seems to be no trap in language or calculation and does not seem to have high level of implementation of logic.

Easy: This is the one that involves a little application of concept and one or more formulae. Questions involving language traps also come in this category.

Moderate: Generally this category consists of the questions from Geometry, Mixture & alligation, time & work, and some sub-topics of number theory. Good observation & analysis, fast pace of calculation and comprehensive understanding of the concept are vital in solving these questions. An example for such type of question from CAT 2006 is given below:

Example Question:     

The sum of four consecutive two-digit odd numbers, when divided by 10, becomes a perfect square. Which of the following can be one of these four numbers?

                    (1) 21           (2) 25           (3) 41           (4) 67           (5) 73

Strategy:      

Here the conceptual expertise will be possessed by the one who knows that maximum sum of any four consecutive two digits odd numbers can at most be 389. Now on twisting the question we have to think of a number less than 389 which when divided by 10 will result in a perfect square.

Hence the feasible sum can be 360, 250, 160 or 90. Now let's go with the options as answer should be a number near to � of the sum. 5^th option is easily eliminated as � of none of the assumed sum above is near 73. It should be near 90, 63, 40, and 23 and checking further we get numbers 41 as the part of four odd numbers i.e. 37, 39, 41 and 43 as the numbers, that are odd and which add up to 160 thereby satisfying our conditions.

So 41 is the right answer.

Difficult: These are the questions with ambiguous and confusing question-statements. It is recommended to leave these questions unless you are very strong in math and have plenty of time to solve.

The following graph gives an overview of the analysis done by TCY:

The above graph explains that share of 'very easy' questions is increasing since 2004 and year 2006 experienced more than half (52%) of the quant questions were very easy. Similar trend was observed for DI questions (40% were very easy).

Moreover, the share of difficult questions in Quantitative is declining with time which is not the case with Data Interpretation though. Hence, with more and more logical reasoning inputs, Data Intepretation is becoming more challenging than Quantitative.

Tomorrow: Part II

Priya Varat Singh  Dacharla Vamsi are Quantitative Reasoning experts with TCY and can be contacted at tcychd@tcyonline.com. TCY trains National and International students for high end examinations viz. CAT, GRE, GMAT, SAT, IELTS & TOEFL. Visit www.tcyonline.com to learn more about CAT and winning strategies.

To gain further from the quantitative and verbal reasoning strategies developed by TCY experts for CAT 2007, visit www.tcyonline.com to attend a Web-Seminar in an online classroom atmosphere.