CAT 2023 examination is scheduled to take place on November 26, 2023, which falls on the last Sunday of November. IIM Lucknow is responsible for conducting this significant entrance exam for admission to the IIMs. CAT is known for its intense competition. It draws in numerous aspirants who aim to pursue an MBA at the esteemed IIMs.

  • To succeed in CAT preparation, candidates need a well-structured study routine.
  • Regular practice of essential topics is essential. Additionally, continuous assessment through problem-solving is crucial.
  • It would be prudent for final year undergraduate aspirants to give around 25-30 hours a week to prepare well for CAT 2023 exam. 

CAT aspirants who are in their final year of graduation have several advantages in CAT preparation like more time to take coaching and the overlap of CAT Quantitative Aptitude Syllabus and the Syllabus of several engineering and management courses. Check CAT 2023 Syllabus

Latest Update: The official notification for CAT 2023 has been released on July 30, 2023 by IIM Lucknow. CAT 2023 exam is expected to take place on September 13, 2023. Check CAT 2023 Exam Schedule

Read the full article for all the tips and strategies on how to prepare for CAT exam for final year undergraduate students. 

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CAT Study Plan for UG Students

CAT 2023 Study Plan for Final Year Undergraduate Students

With only a few months remaining for CAT 2023 exam, it is strongly recommended for you to have a comprehensive and customized study plan that you will pursue over the next few months before CAT exam. Also, you must first identify your strengths and weaknesses and further divide each one into two parts. 

CAT 2023 Study Plan for Final Year Undergraduate Students
Strong areas can be divided into two parts, one in which you solve in less time with 100 percent accuracy and the other in which you solve with 100 percent accuracy but end up taking longer than the average time required to solve those questions.
Follow a similar pattern for areas of weakness: divide them into two layers, the former being the ones where you lack accuracy but can manage by solving with a little more time in hand, and the latter where you have little or no knowledge of the basics and have to work on from scratch. 
Build on your current strengths and eliminate your weaknesses. You could also learn to allocate time effectively throughout topics and understand the number of questions you need to answer for each subject.
Eventually, when you progress to attempt both sectional and full-length CAT mock tests, if you feel your performance is trailing in other areas, you must work more on the sections where you need improvement.
Diagramming a plan for each topic or question type within each topic and defining targets for the same topic is vital. 

August and September months are the peak months for your preparation for CAT exam.

  • August must therefore be dedicated to developing concepts to remove weak areas and practice applications to further improve strong regions.
  • September must be directed at improving weak areas and ensuring 80 percent attempts with 80 percent accuracy and 95-100 percent attempts with at least 90 percent accuracy in strong regions.
Upon strengthening basics, you must spend the next two months fine-tuning your training by concentrating on better question selection. You must engage in detecting tough questions so that you can avoid wasting time on them after you are done with the low and medium difficulty questions. 
Before moving on to more mocks, you must not only solve as many mocks as you can but also evaluate them and introspect their result.

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Section-wise Tips for UG Students

Section-wise CAT Preparation Tips for Final Year Undergraduate Students

Section 1: Verbal Ability

  1. Read various kinds of magazines and books, including those beyond your comfort zone. This will help you find a lot of new words. 

  2. Attempt a number of VARC mock tests to expose yourself to a series of questions that will evaluate your verbal ability. 

  3. Utilize appropriate verbal ability study materials when training for CAT VARC. You will need to look at CAT sample papers to identify the correct syllabus book. 

  4. To make learning fun, download mobile apps like Vocabulary Builder, Word by Word, etc. 

  5. Use in your daily communication with friends or family the new words or phrases you learn. Such use of those words will help you remember better.

  6. Watch movies or TV series and play word games to identify more words when you get bored reading. 

  7. Highlight daunting dictionary terms, and study their meanings. It is advisable to keep your dictionary nearby when watching movies or reading books.

Section 2: Reading Comprehension

  1. Each day, select a passage from a magazine, book, newspaper, or novel to recognize your reading comprehension skills. 

  2. Work to develop your vocabulary by making flashcards of words that seem new to you as you read. Read those flashcards frequently. 

  3. Just enjoy what you read to boost your vocabulary. Do not make it an unremitting chore. 

  4. Briefly summarize your readings. 

  5. When you feel tired, interpret the passage aloud. 

  6. Go through every part of a given text. Do not miss any bits, however small they can appear. 

  7. Discuss with your friends about your readings and their interpretations, and have rational debates with the learned vocabulary.

Quick Links:

How to prepare for CAT DILR (Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning) How to prepare for CAT VARC (Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension) How to Prepare for CAT QA (Quantitative Aptitude)

Section 3: Data Interpretation 

  1. Work to enhance your capacity to understand voluminous data. 

  2. Maintain familiarity with various types of charts. 

  3. Strengthen your analytical maths skills. 

  4. Practice raising the speed when problem-solving. 

  5. Learn how to measure the rise or decrease in percentage or contrast ratio. That would be a useful skill to save time. 

  6. Solve DI sets that demand reasoning skills on a consistent basis and increase your understanding of these questions. 

  7. By attempting as many questions as possible well in advance, you will have a clear understanding of the DI sets. 

  8. Do not leave out DI sets that appear to be big on the volume of data. More data does not automatically mean a tough collection.

  9. Do not seek to fix any of the problems at once. Attempt to answer a lot of easy questions at a time and some tough ones. 

  10. In 2 to 2.5 minutes, try questions that you can answer confidently. This would help improve your score. 

Section 4: Logical Reasoning

  1. Take a few seconds, and analyze the problem carefully. A brief explanation must run through your mind as to why every choice is right or wrong. If you practice this tip in logical reasoning sample questions, then you can do well in the actual exam.

  2. Do not assume or use any details which the question does not provide you. This is not an evaluation of how much you know about a subject generally. Perceive only the information given when selecting an answer for each reading passage among the alternative solutions. 

  3. Go through the factual passage and the instruction for completing the sentence carefully. Both of these must be remembered when making your decision. 

  4. Be sure to read all answer options carefully before deleting or selecting one of them. 

  5. In questions that ask you to select a logical conclusion, always choose the one conclusion that is sure to follow from the knowledge that you are given. Pick the one conclusion that certainly does not fit the information provided to you in questions that ask you to find the wrong alternative. 

  6. After reading the factual information each question provides, pay close attention to words such as "all," "none", and "some" Also relevant are other terms such as "other than," "only", or "unless" Such terms can play a crucial role in deciding precisely the details that are to be used in your case. 

  7. Please make note of negative prefixes such as non-, un-, or dis-. It may be necessary for the interpretation of the paragraph's essential details.

  8. You ought to be very careful about any response choices which contain the quantifiers "all" or "zero." Overall, these terms are not markers of incorrect answer choices in the questions of sample practice and the actual CAT assessment. They will show up in both correct and incorrect answer choices. 

  9. Watch out for the word "only" and the phrase "if and only if."

Section 5: Quantitative Aptitude

  1. Although on-screen calculators will be provided for CAT, it is highly recommended that you practice mental math while preparing because those calculators will take up more time than simple mental math. 

  2. Write out formulas on flashcards and keep revising them as often as you can.

  3. Frame your own strategies for different topics under this section.

  4. Improve your mathematical skills so as to improve your accuracy, understanding of mathematical terms, and problem-solving speed.

  5. Understand the applications of formulas while learning them because this will make it easier to apply them to questions.

  6. Take part in group studies to widen your strategy-forming plans. 

CAT Exam Preparation: Best Books for CAT 2023

MBA aspirants often find themselves confused about which books to study from and what constitutes the best study material for CAT preparation. Let me clarify that most CAT preparation material available in the market is quite similar. It's not about the choice of books, but rather how you utilize them. Here are some section-wise recommended books:

CAT Books for Quantitative Ability:

  1. NCERT mathematics books (6-10)
  2. How to Prepare for Quantitative Aptitude for the CAT by Arun Sharma
  3. Quantitative Aptitude for Competitive Examinations by Abhijit Guha
  4. Quantitative Aptitude Quantum CAT by Sarvesh Verma
  5. Quantitative Aptitude for CAT by Nishit Sinha

Verbal Ability Books for CAT:

  1. How to Prepare for Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension for the CAT by Arun Sharma and Meenakshi Upadhyay
  2. Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension for the CAT by Nishit Sinha
  3. Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis
  4. High School Grammar and Composition by Wren and Martin
  5. Read different novels of various genres

Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning Books for CAT:

  1. A Modern Approach to Logical Reasoning by R.S. Agarwal
  2. How to Prepare for Logical Reasoning for CAT book by Arun Sharma
  3. How to Prepare for Data Interpretation for CAT book by Arun Sharma
  4. Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation for the CAT by Nishit Sinha
  5. Data Interpretation by Nishit Sinha

Remember, what's crucial is how you study and use these resources effectively. Good luck with your CAT preparation!

Read Best Books for CAT Preparation 

Advantages for UG Students

Advantages of Attempting CAT 2023 for Final Year Undergraduate Students

  1. Enhanced CAT preparation

It takes approximately 9-12 months to prepare for CAT exam. It would be ideal to prepare for CAT along with the final year exam preparation for a candidate. BTech, BSc, and BCom students can prepare better because a few of the subjects in their course; mathematics, in particular, coincide with CAT Quantitative Aptitude(QA) Syllabus.

  1. More time for CAT coaching

Unlike a working professional, students can easily take time out to attend coaching classes in their final year of graduation. Such individuals are not bound by a timetable of 9-5. It might not be appropriate for all to take coaching lessons for CAT training but it does help the applicant to focus and streamline planning. A working professional will not have this advantage due to time constraints. 

Know Best CAT Online Coaching

  1. There will be no gap year 

As noted earlier, it takes at least 9-12 months to prepare for CAT. A candidate who has already graduated will have to spare that number of months for it. This will likely result in a gap between UG and PG education.

  1. No possible loss of income 

Most working people who want to appear at CAT must leave their well-paid jobs to train for CAT. All those who are preparing for the test when working have to work hard to plan well to manage their 9-5 job as well. Not to mention, aspirants who leave their employment will lose money. Nevertheless, an aspiring undergraduate is secured from such a situation.

  1. Can attain work experience before admissions to IIMs

The IIM allows candidates chosen for admission to postpone their admission if they wish to gain work experience before pursuing the PGP course for up to two years. For such candidates, roughly 10 percent of seats are kept aside. For a given year, if a final year candidate clears entry, he/she can also take up a job for one or two years before completing the program.

As mentioned previously, there are MBA colleges that pay greater attention to a candidate's profile. Hence, for a final year UG student, it would be a minor disadvantage. Obtaining a 95 + percentile score ought to be a student's first priority, provided which, a job experience must always be the fallback option after MBA. Offer it your best try every time and gain admission in any of the top B-Schools in the country.

  1. Syllabus Overlap Between Undergraduate Courses and CAT Exam

There is considerable overlap between the syllabus of undergraduate courses like B.Tech, B.Sc, and B.Com, and CAT.

This overlap occurs in the subject of Mathematics which is known as Quantitative Aptitude in CAT. As a result, QA, which is considered a tough section in CAT, can be made easier to attempt through the preparation of the topics for the undergraduate degree as well. Syllabus management thus becomes quite easy with regard to Mathematics and Quantitative Aptitude. 

The topics which are the same in the syllabus of undergraduate courses and CAT are: 

Time-Speed-Distance Linear Equations
Inequalities Geometric Progression
Geometry Quadratic Equations
Work and Time Number System
Trigonometry Ratios and Proportion
Mensuration Percentages
Partnership (Accounts) Logarithms
Profit and Loss Surds and Indices

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CAT Exam Preparation without Coaching

CAT Exam Preparation without Coaching

CAT exam preparation through self-study mode is a viable option for aspirants who cannot attend daily classes. Many CAT toppers have achieved success through self-preparation. To excel in CAT 2023 without coaching, follow these steps:

  1. Join online study groups and forums: Engage with CAT study groups on platforms like Facebook, Quora, Telegram, and YouTube. Websites like iquanta and handakafunda can provide valuable resources.

  2. Access online CAT study material: Utilize online study materials available on various websites and subscribe to free CAT test series offered by coaching institutes.

  3. Use MBA entrance exam preparation apps: Download relevant apps that offer CAT-specific study material and practice tests.

  4. Choose the best CAT preparation books: Invest in high-quality books specifically designed for CAT preparation.

  5. Create a CAT 2023 preparation timetable: Develop a well-structured study schedule to cover all topics effectively.

CAT 2023 Preparation: Coaching vs Self Study

Coaching:

  1. Rigid study hours
  2. Special attention to tough topics
  3. Study material and mock tests provided
  4. Classroom discussions
  5. Channelizing energy in the right direction
  6. Helps in developing analytical ability
  7. A competitive environment brings out the best in students
  8. Motivation level is high at all times
  9. Common problems and achievements instill confidence
  10. Chances of getting complacent higher

Self-Study:

  1. Flexible study hours
  2. No expert guidance on tough topics
  3. Study material and mock tests are easily available
  4. Can join online forums and study groups
  5. Can adjust resources according to time and need
  6. Helps in developing analytical ability
  7. No peer pressure
  8. Need to stay self-motivated at all times
  9. Chances of getting complacent higher

Experience Shared by CAT Topper

  • Ravi Prinshu, a CAT topper, emphasizes that self-study, combined with a strategic approach and taking test series from reputable coaching institutes, can lead to success in CAT.
  • CAT topper, Rahul Manglik, shares his experience of attending coaching classes but primarily relying on self-study with the guidance of his sister. He believes that disciplined and consistent self-study can make coaching classes unnecessary for some candidates. 

Check CAT Eligibility Criteria

How UG students should Manage Placement with CAT?

How to Manage Placement Time with CAT Preparation?

There are several students who have a dilemma regarding whether to prepare for Campus Placements or for CAT. Not planning for Campus Placement means taking your career to high risk. It is also going to be difficult for you when you see your peers get a job and you do not get one of the best employers. This anger may begin to affect your personal life and your studies as well. Not training for CAT also means you will be leaving your dream that you have had for the past 2 or 3 years. If you do not continue your CAT preparation, you will be in a position that will demotivate you to take CAT.

CAT training does not end with earning a good percentile. For further progress, you will also need a reasonable academic history. Thus, you must not forget to prepare well for studying in your college. It will also help you with the Campus Placement as well as with various IIMs' personal interviews. It is found that most of the questions come from UG departmental topics in most interviews with the IIMs. So, it is easier to study the topics of the final year as well as the subjects of the preceding year. It will help with your Campus Placements as well. 

Managing placements and CAT preparation can seem to be a daunting task for final-year students. However, by abiding by the tips given below, you can easily ace both, CAT and placements. 

  1. Every day, read the newspaper for a total of an hour. 

  2. Seek to take one mock test every two days. After completing the mock test, look for any difficulties that specific questions pose to you. Try to analyze these questions and try to solve the same kind of problems more. 

  3. Aim to answer as many questions as you can in the DI-LR segment after the day you take the mock exam. 

  4. Try every day to answer 4-5 RC passages and 5-6 VA questions. 

  5. Solve 15-20 QA questions a day on different topics. 

  6. Learn your department subjects three times a week.

Indeed, attempting CAT while in the final year of graduation comes with several advantages to students.