Be it the data that your CAT preparation process throws up continuously, or the performances that a sportsperson or a sports team strings together – performance, good or bad, almost always reflects patterns. I would even go to the extent of saying that performance, more often than not, is because of patterns.
The most recent events affect us the most and strengthen the patterns – good or bad. Look at any player or team that strings together a series of wins (or losses)!
Repetition of mental patterns is why a batter (the new gender-neutral term fast gaining adoption) in form keeps scoring runs and one out of form keeps struggling. Their minds are caught in respective patterns – of belief or doubt, of good basics or lack thereof and so on.
It happens very similarly for those who do well, or not so well, on the AIRCATs too and it is likely to happen at CAT too.
In fact, this confidence to succeed (or lack thereof) can even rub onto completely unrelated areas. It is more of a state of mind than anything else. Our mind quickly builds patterns, and forces us into the inertia mode of accepting them as reality, or the inescapable finality.
Could this knowledge be helpful in your CAT preparation? Absolutely! The challenge for you, is to simply identify the good patterns and maintain them. And to identify the bad ones and avoid them.
The ADAPTIVE Analysis Excel sheet in your AIRCAT logins is an extremely effective device to see how you’ve been doing on easy, intermediate, difficult questions across tests, overall as well as in each section.
Use it well and you will know which patterns are bogging you down and which ones are propping you up.
Are you missing out on attempting easy questions in VRC across most tests?
Are you picking out a high percentage of difficult questions in QA across tests?
Is your accuracy in intermediate questions in DILR too low?
Are you scoring high overall because of your question selection even if your speed is low?
If you’ve missed reading these earlier, you can learn more about how much of a difference can question selection make, or how you can increase your CAT scores by skipping difficult questions in related write-ups.
To summarize:
Identify the patterns that are working for you and keep them strong. Make them stronger, if you can!
Identify the patterns that are bringing you down. Kill them now.
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 