CAT 2024 – Near or far? And how it impacts your CAT Prep

Many of you would have begun your CAT preparation in the last calendar year. While that might have been just a few weeks ago, it was still a different calendar year. So, when you began your CAT prep, CAT 2024 might have seemed a distant event. It was something that would happen ’next’ year.

That view may have changed for some of you as it now an event that would take place later this year. The calendar year makes a psychological difference to how we view stuff. On the other hand, as almost all of us are naturally inclined and even committed to the fun-da of last minute exam prep, it may still appear distant to quite a few of you. But how you view it could impact your CAT prep, and thereby, your chances of success at CAT-24. Let’s see how!

Paucity or abundance of a resource in your CAT Prep
Time, like money, is a resource. And how you view it – its scarcity or abundance – has a big impact on how you use it. This analogy of time and resources (such as money) is something you will find me repeating several times over your journey to crack CAT-2024. It is THAT important.

Think about and compare the following things:
1. How we use time at the beginning of a sem versus how we use it closer to the exams
2. How we spend our pocket-money at the beginning of a month versus how we use it towards the end of the month

Our decision making (or use of resources) changes a lot depending on whether we see them as a ‘lot left’ or a just a ‘little left’. This ‘little’ difference in how you see things can make a large difference to your chances of success.

How is CAT different from the other exams that you have taken
While last minute preparation can work wonders in most knowledge/information based exams, CAT is a different beast (and that’s the beauty of it)! It’s not as much about knowledge as it is about how well you use what you have. And that takes work – on yourself, your strengths, and most importantly, your weaknesses. But even before that you need to know what your strengths and weaknesses are. Mindless slogging certainly won’t get you far.

Conclusion:
With around 45 weeks to go for CAT-2024, think about all the weeks you will be committed to some other cause/priority – exams, college, festivals, friends, family, functions and God forbid, illness. All these will further reduce the number of ‘effective’ weeks you will have for your CAT Preparation. If you begin viewing every month, every week, and by extension, every day as precious enough, chances are you will spend them better. And all these gains will accumulate at the end.

About the author: Deekshant has sleep-walked through several 100 and 99.9 %iles in practically every section of the CAT. That he is a cricket fan and he writes okay is evident from most of his posts. 1000s of our students swear that he can motivate almost anyone to double his/her percentile through very simple yet powerful inputs. And that’s why every MBAGuru student has direct access to him via mail and Telegram. Oddly, he somehow also finds the time to write songs professionally. And yes … almost missed this … he is an alumnus of IIT Delhi & IIM Cal