CAT 2024 Prep Strategy, Learnings from CAT 2023 by Arun Sharma

right I think I'm qualified to do it because I've cracked it 21 times of 22 pretty much every time that I have given it uh I have cracked the exam 9993 95 9799 always I've got 99.99 three times but never touched 100 right so uh been very close to 100 three times at least 99.99 but anyway that's a thing I don't sweat too much about it because I just give going give the paper without any practice or any any preparation and as you know uh being being being a coach for something and and actually playing that that match is very different so you have to have that perspective which which I don't obviously do I've made peace with myself it's okay I'm not doing too bad so so so let's I mean of course when you talk about the at the three Broad it right uh I started taking it passing out of bang my first attempt was to get into am myself and I got in to am Bangalore and Cat used to be very different at that time it was completely a speed test if I remember correctly uh my first cat was uh um my first cat me uh there were 1 75 questions in 120 minutes and uh I had solved something like 170 of them and not just me the the general people who would qualify would solve anywhere between 15 to 170 questions and if you look at now where it is reached if you solve 35 to 40 good questions into US you are almost uh going to go into an IM so so you can see basically the ratio of how many people it's not that we were much smarter at that time and hence we could solve so many questions just that the questions were straight one liners reading the same same length of Passage but you're getting four questions on it right the Quant questions was straight one liners Etc so so obviously the the the Dynamics has changed a lot in that context and uh the cat has also evolved a lot in terms of it it has kept shifting in terms of how many sections there have been in the paper paper so there was a time when they Reed four sections in fact time veral ability I mean the card I took in that verbal ability reading comprehension the first card I took verbal ability reading comprehension conss to three separate sections and D was the fourth section so so there were 50 questions on this 50 questions on this 50 question on this and 25 questions on this this was the pattern of the C at that time then it moved to two section exam uh late '90s mid90s early 90s mid90s it became a two section exam so one section was this and the other section was this then 1999 said it became a three-section exam and after that it's always remained a three-section exam so so from cat 98 1998 say it became a three-section exam and you have you essentially uh split the section to verbal ability reading comprehension then you split it to uh data interpretation logical reasoning and third was of course quantitive aptitude so so this has been the pattern for the last 25 years now and it's been set and that in three sections of course the number of uh questions and and the number of uh uh the the time the time limit has keep kept changing from time to time so it used to be 120 Minutes 98 99 2000 somewhere around 2003 2004 they made it 135 minute exam then it came down back to 120 minute exam then it became 180 minute exam 3our exam between 2017 2020 and then finally it after covid it came down came back to a 2our exam and hopefully they have now settled down into a pattern which is a two exam so broadly as I said people are interested to know how how do I crack the cat so there's no there's no rocket science in tracking the cat it's it's about controlling the controllables and the controllables that you I mean the the the events you want to create it's it's very simple there are just two things that that matter when you go into the exam one is how many attempts you make and the second thing is how many corrects out of that do you get is as simple as that there's no rocket science of how you crack the cut you get I mean uh all of you when you come here based on your U knowledge of this exam or you're having seen your elder brother sister uncles cousin Etc whatever having taken this exam it it there's a comfort percentile each one of you has what do I mean by Comfort percentile is okay I think I believe I can get this much so what is that number for for you I mean I've heard different numbers 80 70 90 50 so there's some number that is there in your mind okay I think I can get this based on what you have seen your seniors in college doing and all also right so that number is there in your mind all of you have that number when you start off right so so so what is that that number can I hear a you 98 good based on what are you saying 98 uh I know a few people like I have this brother he is from I'm Amad itself so after talking to him I got so much know knowledge about the exam like what things these people are looking for and good good there certain things like you feel 8 is doable doable good yeah other numbers there's no no right answer no wrong answer answer to this 90 the only wrong answer I heard is 100 because 100 nobody can guarantee right that is something then I tell so so 90 what else any other representations is any anybody at 70 right or anything else any other ranges 95 h i mean I'm not talking about fine tuning it to to anything does this broadly look at the numbers you looking at to get here you need to be now three lakh people are giving the exam so to get to 70 percentile it means you're in the top 990,000 people here you in the top 6,000 people and here you're in the top 30,000 people so broadly this is the this thing right and so so so what is the what is the mechanics of getting these percentiles right and then the holy gra number is 99 99 I've done really really well right and then of course you've got the 99.9 plus which kind of guarantees you entry into one of the top B schools and I I'll talk about about why you should you should give it your best shot when you're talking about a b school I'll just come to that but Spectrum the only thing that I mean you you don't get these percentile what you do is you do this and this happens automatically you don't have to do anything for this to happen right so what is the the Spectrum estimate 90 percentile will be what 50 marks sure 45 50 45 48 50 marks so 90% I mean I hope you know that's a plus three minus one exam and zero marks for non for TAA TAA questions and not attempts TAA is where there's no options right so so if you want to score 50 marks and currently there are 66 questions across three sections we'll try to look at the sectional breakup later let's first focus on theall global perspective okay if I want to get 0 right so the other factor that depends okay what is your accuracy rate accuracy rate depend to get uh 90 50 marks to get 50 marks in a plus 3 minus one exam if your accuracy rate is around 85 to 90 that means every five questions you do four of them are right right approximately four four of them are right so what do you need you need to solve 20 20 22 23 maybe 25 questions all 25 questions get 20 right five wrong you the 50 55 range extra 50 plus Tom so so somebody who's scoring 90 percentile is attempting 25 questions and getting 20 of them correct right what is the number for 98 98 would be at around 70 marks this time approximately [Music] last 90th so 98% this year is expected to happen at around 65 70 marks 70 marks last year maybe 75 marks to broadly we are talking about 70 marks yeah it became very much tougher than than last year comparatively right so comp I mean for the unprepared student especially it was quite tough there's nothing to stop you from scoring a 90 or 100 in the exam uh this thing I'll come come back to that so to score 70 marks you need around 35 attempts with around 78 errors 27 2 8 81 plus so this is 35 attempts with with 80% accuracy right why I get my percentiles is because my level is 45 attemps I think I attempted 52 questions this year so but 45 plus attempts with 90% 85 90% accuracy you will end up with a 100 110 score which will be a 99.7 99.8 99.9 percentile right so so the story is here the story is here if you think you can do this let's say you are confident of solving if I div if I make an assumption okay you equally you're going to do equally in all the three sections you're confident of solving eight questions each on each each of the three sections jumping to this is 11 to 12 questions just three questions extra how many we are talking about in in veral we are talking about out of 24 questions in data ination we're talking about 20 questions in in quants we are talking about 22 questions not out of 10 questions or 12 questions that you want to do all 12 there's a lot of leway to leave questions out so we are talking about just a jump of three questions extra and that shifts you from 90 to 98 right and when the stakes are so high the stakes are so high for your career I mean I don't think right as a year old if you ask your D Daddy respon actually when when that four-year-old you is entering the education system you are entering a tunnel right per right you you the difference is what take you are 96 perent intense versus you are a 78 per intense student that's it that was the difference in which you are entering the education system but when you come to the cat uh this thing we are talking about a 6month to one year effort that can completely change your outcomes in life inside out completely change who you who you can become right and and I I don't know Tom you have been u i mean a lot of lot of uh people I meet at your age group they look at the the the starting packages what am I currently being offered what say if I do an MBA what will I get to right so JP that jump is depending on what your current this thing is a minimum 3x jump to maybe if you do it from a top B school it's a 3X jump to maybe a 7x through through normal growth paths it will take you maybe 10 years to get there right so one education degree is going to give you in two years what you will normally get out in terms of money outcomes in 10 years but this is not the just the story the biggest story here which your generation maybe does not know it because you've not been exposed to it but being from from the IMs and having this privilege to be to have lived this life where I've have guided hundreds and thousands of students into those colleges and also I have my batchmates and close friends who are from there when I when I when I look at this story 25 years later how does it change where does it go so a St one one guy starts his career at X and grows in life another guy takes this jump from the X Point gets to a 5x 3x 4X 5x level and grow starts growing from here right now I hope you know that I often start a lot of my my speeches with a question like who's the CEO of Microsoft or who's the CEO of Google I get those answers Satan Sund Pai Etc and then I asked them this question ke okay let's change the date we are in 2023 today who's the CEO of Google you will tell me Sund p is the CE of Google I say let's change the date to 2053 who will be the CE of Google in 2053 so the answer would would be of course not s he will he will have happily retired by that time so the question then comes okay 2053 Google at what age does Google Elevate executive to become the CEO 70 n no 4550 that's the age group so let's say there's a person M who's the CEO of Google in 20 who's going to become the CE of Google in 2053 so he'll be around 45 to 50 years old at that time which means if you can somehow trace him today he'll be in your age group and if you ask him his answer will be similar to what your answer is so what happens every company all the top positions in the world in 2043 they all open and this of which you are the part of to start with right now you you know what their job description is job responsibility is why I'm telling you all this is because of the fact that I don't when you when you prepare for this exam you want to give that extra effort and you have that that that internal at that time you should not lack motivation but as I said one premise should be very clear to you it did not happen in the last 18 years of your education career it's going to happen now right which is why one of the premises of cat prep especially at mind works for me is I mean we we are of course our thought process is very clear that Etc but it's about performance it's about creating the performance out of the people who come to us and performance perance inspired you has a very different outcome so I was telling you the story what are the job responsibility of the guys who are at the top pess what is he trying to do he has to protect Revenue he has to protect growth all that is there he has to strategize for the next 5 years 10 years he has to build a company to that level where the company wants to go Challenge and very importantly he also has to create the next level of leadership Next Level leadership and that's where the salaries and the packages become astronomical you can't even imagine it right and and we saw this in our batch through our journey up the corporate ladder the corporate very early but I've seen it very closely in a lot of my friends through the Journey after being I'm graduates when they actually hit the top when they actually hit the top they in two years after reaching the top they earned five times what they had earned in 20 years because the packages are are completely you can't even imagine it so what is the problem with with the X Guy versus is the opportunity the Fest guys when I am the I'm one of the top five people of my company trying to decide my my next level of leaders I look at my U rank okay what are who are the people in my in my channels who are the people coming up up through the various departments in my company I keep looking at them I keep interacting with them and for the ex guy to reach this point and and and from so so for the five people five seven people here there'll be a pool of maybe 80 to 100 people here so only if you reach this pool do you have a chance to get elevated you be one level just below that and the problem with x the carrier path of x is by the time you reach this you're 5055 and the big when you 50 55 and you reach this point they will only plan your retirement they will not plan your elevation what a 5x does is you reach this point at 40 and that's the point if you want to plan a career in today's world that's what you have to plan and of course you never think about money you never focus on the money the money happens by itself you focus on the impact you do with the work you do just just keep doing that and everything else will happen so if I was in your place today my perspective or my target why I want to get to a b school where do I get the energy from to to do the preparation that is required broad bottom line you want to perform in the cat you want to be excellent for those two hours inside the cat the week before cat if you not been excellent and youve not been executing excellence in your mock test Etc you can't be excellent there certainly 30 so bottom line this if you keep going back on time it starts boiling down to how how productive and how inspired you were in the week that you spent from 3rd December to 10 December the quality that you started executing hair if you don't execute quality hair and you are casual about what you're doing like you have been through the through through your past life because nobody's told you if you continue that that casualness for the next 50 weeks you'll reach the cat as a mediocre student who does not know how to control what is happening inside the exam so if you want to take this up you have to start changing how you are behaving in your study sessions and one thing I I look very closely at my students and I try to advise them to do this and that's why in our course apart from the Quant D Etc I do a lot of personality and study courses study Improvement courses which I focus on to important right and and you you can you can I'll give you an analogy suppose old AB c d completely focused intense session or a C or D or E casual so the chances of B success in that game is much higher than others of course he has to execute it over 10 years what factors we which which further needs to be there but by default the guy with more focus in I mean how do you become a great cricketer will it will it happen without focus in your practice sessions when you go to the Nets Focus will it happen right so so if you are trying to advise an 8-y old kid as aach first requirement that's a starting requirement then there are requirements he has to be consistent over over years Etc but every practice session intensity so the chances that he'll do anything in cricket is zero why is SC any different why is cat prep any you'll be sitting down tomorrow morning tomorrow evening for a study session where you define okay next two hours I'm going to study what are the chances that you will do in the exam every session that you're having but the basic building block is an intense high quality 2our s sit down study session and it's actually a very differential skill not just uh not just in studies even in work he'll always be in demand or normal and you have it in you do you have that intensity in you the answer is yes you have it in you it's just that you are not able to bring it to yourself and I'm telling you this because myself I was a very mediocre student right through school and college it was not because I was not intelligent it got proven that I was quite intelligent later when I started taking the cat it was just that there's no focus and there are a lot of self-doubts Inside the Mind doubts and this is one thing that that is very I mean I I think it'll resonate with a lot of you the 18yar old me if somebody told me that you will go to I Etc I would have said right there's a back background of 15 years of academic underperformance results to the 18 20 year old me thinking about Cat the first hle in my mind was and I could track the exam only after cross that hurdle my first hurle was student forget school and and what happens is through our academic life we have executed mediocre study sessions medoc study sessions execute Med performance so this is a loop I continue executing mediocrity in my study sessions I'll keep getting medoc performance I'll keep getting video results unending when I pick up that kind of challenge I look at this I and this becomes kind of a sentence for me this becomes a belief sentence for us med student and and tell me forget forget everything else forget the the Jing bang about CAD being a very tough exam if somebody can solve eight questions why can't he solve 11 questions out of 22 except the fact that he's not done Justice to the way he worked what is the difference let's again let's go for an analogy I playing tennis I'm on the tennis court my opponent hits the ball and I want to go to the corner and I want to hit a winner the difference between a winner and a ball going out is just a small fraction on my racket how my racket swings right so feder is Federer and Nadal is Nadal or jov is jov because they can do that 10 times out of 10 I can do it maybe two times out of 10 right similarly inside the cat when You Face a question whether it's verbal quants or data interpretation logical reasoning question when You Face a question there's a very small line between being able to solve it and somebody who can't solve it the three kinds of events you try to solve it you hit you you solve it wrong second event is you try to solve it and while solving it you hit a roadblock you don't know what to do next first G third result is you try to solve it and you get to the answer every study session from now and this exam is not an exam like your there not like an exam like that with every question you have one opportunity question will come in front of you you'll have maybe 20 to 30 seconds to decide to to to think about it in those 30 seconds you have to take a call Key what am I going to do with this question how I'm going to solve it and all the training you do is for those 30 seconds I should make the right decisions about what is going to be my solving process to this question so vat Koh is vat kohi because not because he looks good or he has got a great uh great moves while he dances or whatever he's verat kohi because when the ball is leaving the baller's hand to the point where it comes to his hand to his Bat in this time he's better than you me and he's better than everybody else in the world maybe they only five people comparable to him so when does VAT kohi become verat kohi when the baller ball the leaves the baller hand in that fraction of a second how he reacts to it the training that he takes is for this so when you are trying to train yourself you have to try to train yourself and your intensity I often tell people that your cat prep when you prepare for C you to think like an Olympic Athlete is thinking you think like n is thinking you extra half 89.5 and every practice session is towards that everything it does around is that you don't please don't please stop thinking of yourself ex please change that attitude and you have to be thinking about yourself as the hero of the story yeah I'm going to be a big hero because I'm going to do something that I'm really proud of don't bother about the results results will come by themselves you switch on the AC I think results will come by themselves you take care of you take care of your control levels the results will happen by themselves so this is the first conditionality that when you when you start preparing for the cat this is the first conditionality that every study session has to be inspired take a clean break but when you come back to it that's again a misconception 35 you solve 35 question this year if you solve 35 questions with around 25 27 correct you will get 99 percentile question done and opportunity is that only if you rise up to this Challenge and you start picking up the inspiration for yourself things are going to happen put on AC so so it's going to be I mean so so this is the the perspective then that that we need to bring to the table and I'll remind you this again no no time in your life ever have you had this opportunity give it a Best Shot for six months and suddenly you your your expectations out of your outcomes change completely in generation in our generation the differential I'm not talking about somebody who succeeded and and became huge in terms of becoming a billionaire or whatever but the differential between making that jump versus not making it in money terms was somewhere between maybe one to two crores of net worth to 50 crores of netw worths 500 it could be more than that this was our our generation's Delta out of creating that in our in our careers life is very different once you reach this point I mean in fact I often talk about this to people the moment you hit 10 crores plus asset wise after that you're not bothered about money you don't need to be but even if your assets give you 10% return they'll give you one a year 8 lakhs a month is huge in today's world pretty okay so in our generation this was the Gap in your generation it's going to be a 10 versus 200 maybe 500 because the way India is growing the way the economy is growing you're going to have people somebody who does who who who who breaks into the top the top of their company of their organization of their careers the the net the net outcome of that is going to maybe three 3 to 500es and that should be a challenge I should I should become someone where where people start waiting so so you create that and you have the opportunity and you know there's more fun there's more fun in this life once you reach that point all the photos you don't bother Nal holiday will cost you maybe a lck of rupees a Paris holiday will cost you 5 S lakh rupees you're not even touching your interest income completely to do a Paris holiday for 3 days why will you not do it when you want it simple simple strategy losing the motivation ask yourself this question where do you want to do you want the freedom do you want the freedom I'm going to not because I don't have the money it's a choice so so coming uh out of this if you want to make it big from this point and and cat is going to be that opportunity I want you to make sure that you are inspired and and the only condition I tell my students this condition if this is picked we are good end of the year whatever the result happened you should be happy with the way you work that's it that gives you the best chance to actually make this exam so the next part comes okay now what are the mechanics and and what what do we what do we learn about this so I told you about this this I already talked about three hour pattern pre-o and after covid it has become a toour exam uh this cat 17 to 19 was 1 Hour 1 Hour 1 hour on each of the three sections this year it has become now it has become 40 minutes 40 minutes 40 minutes there is a big difference between the two big [Music] difference so you don't have much you just have 25 minutes more to recover in a 1 hour exam you had 50 minutes more to recover so there's no recovery time now so the quality of your I mean ultimately it's here the question comes from in front of you you have 20 30 seconds to take a decision about how I'm going to solve this and then you have to execute the steps to get to the answer the 99 percen tiers the 99.5 percen tiers the 100 percen tiers create this event as I told you 45 times I I create this event 45 to 50 times in the exam somebody you can create 35 achievements if you can create 35 achievements you're going to be 99 plus all those of you are confident are confident of creating 25 such events you know that I can create 15 such events right so so coming back as I said one factor that has happened is is that the 40-minute exam has reduce the bouncing back possibilities which is good and bad because good part bad part it's become more difficult for you the good part is that it's become more difficult for your competition also if you can learn to manage the 40-minute exam then more people are falling by the wayside because they not they have not learned to do itam you have to basically think of I always talk about this you have to think about how do I what what differential skills do I create and not just competitive exam anywhere in life it's about differential skills apud exam how do you create competitive advantage there are two ways to do it fundamentally there are two ways to do it one way to do it is I can solve the question he can also solve the question but I solve it faster so that's one source of competive Advantage right in an exam where questions are easy where questions are easy to normal this is a huge source of compet advantage the other source of compe advantages others can't solve these questions I can solve them C this year especially in quants gave a very clear signal that this competive Advantage they're going to reward even in D so going for cat 24 you'll have to prepare for both these advantages right and and I I'll come section wise onto this I'm better than others because I do it faster so what does it mean what does it mean verbal let's say VC storyed VC story broadly 22 or 23 it's not changed much if anything 23 was slightly easier wec Story the preparation structure the preparation objectives remain kind of sameel or RC current structure pattern 24 questions paper which is split into four RC passages of four questions each and eight questions of verbal verbal ability questions specifically they're asking four kinds of questions question par jble par which is the correct order for Meaningful paragraph you to put in it's a it's a TA question without options Paras you have a paragraph of around 80 to 150 words 80 120 words normally ideasm you to try to choose which of the summaries the summary might be 10 to 15 words you to decide from the four options which of the summar best represents the same idea that the author is telling him that's the second question type the third question type is what is called as odd man out odd man out the five sentences four of them make up make a paragraph and one of them does not fit into that paragraph it is about the same thing it's but but it not fit into the being able to spot that which one is that sentence and then marking that as the answer is the oddb out question and the fourth question type in verble is uh what is called called as it's it's basically fill in the blank but fill in the blank is not one word two words substitution the so let's say there's a paragraph of eight sentences eight sent paragraph what are doing blank but they also created the same blank here another blank here and a fourth blank here and then that sentence they WR here the will spot it should go here not here not here and not there because if you go to these places it's wrong so this is the Fillin the blank question type comprehension veral ability requires more comprehension than reading comprehension reading compr compr so the verbal ability questions why I told you about these four question types because they are testing your comprehension your ability to understand what's written so when you're preparing for for the verbal ability reading comprehension section it's a it's a high scoring section mind you because if you can Master it you can easily score 4550 in this section but where it matters is the accuracy rate when you start building a blocks for verbal ability and reading comprehension you have to read of not come to me for that advice so what is the Crux that's of course that's the that's the study session today I'm going to sit for 2 hours and I'm going to read read but for what perspective what is the key skill required two key skills are required the first key skill is the ability to understand a sentence or of course the sentences are not ramu goes to school right sent so when you go into you can you can pick up cat passages and you can just do one thing do activ [Music] random 600 800 which is a very clear quantitative measure that sentence understanding sentence comprehension of a 40w sentence the average sentence length is 40 words object subject within a sentence unless you know how to read those how to break those down and and you practiced it you'll be completely lost and that's the first problem with comprehension that most people have the cat is chasing the MTH Mouse is chasing the C nobody can help you so this skill the ability to understand sentences is a key skill in the building of of your this thing because once you this is the Crux this I told you there are two Crux skills the ability the second skill the second skill is the natural outcome of this what skill had the ability to understand paragraphs paragraph understanding of construction structure is built based on sentence understanding because the paragraph is a group of sentences paragraph I can understand four paragraphs I can understand the passage so when you are trying to start your reading for for your cat you have to skill-wise you have to learn how to decode an 800,000 word passage because I'm telling you this because this key question comes should I start reading books and all the book reading you can do if you want to have a secondary outcome of that secondary outcome you able to present yourself that I read so many books so on your profile on your biodata you want to show to Showcase those books he student academic background a a call and she had nothing on the B so I I started asking her what uh to give me something give me something concrete which I can help you present in the interview interview is very strategic decision making what do I what do I showcase luckily for me and for her you will get through writing discussion she was a non-engineer I am Kata is a very engineering oriented College 95% 90 95% Engineers I'm she was a non-engineer and she got through based on that so book reading is only for that for the for the exam your the skill you want is thousand words the day you have have the ability to read a thousand words on any topic and understand it and from the mental idea framework in my mind that day you are you're done you're ready for cat because once you learn how to comprehend I mean it's a two two-part structure the ability to comprehend and the ability to solve you can't work on this unless this is working ising the is chasing the mouse why has the author mentioned this which of the following if falls will contradict the facts or the opinion stated by the author auth cat is chasing the mouse is chasing the cat you got no chance of answering a question like this right so so getting the the framework and the and the cross crosshairs as they say in shooting that ready IDE presented completely right and and we in our course we teach I teach a technique which I use which I call param mapping the ability to map a par paragraphs idea good readers have this ability and which which is one of the things you'll have to do the the movement to becoming a better reader and I do take courses again our course is a mix of the physical classes that we have here and of course the online classes that we have which even though the the people who come to our CP Center and do our classes we tell them to do some of those online sessions because every time it's not possible to if if I want to just do the cat course straight off and and just limited to that a course on communication a course on on study techniques study methods a course on motivation personality growth personality change which I do personally myself right a course on reading improving becoming a better reader so these we we we Implement through through short modules okay next week Wednesday Thursday class lay around I'm taking a module on this so you'll get the instructions then you to start to follow it and please remember for us for me it's very important most of the classes I will take with you guys will always be about instruction you have to do this prce that you reach this point broadly what what has to happen as I told you attempt accuracy rate is the key factor Right video you open available last year Z January sh third or fourth January I don't remember exactly which day first Sunday of January they don't give the answers they release your your response sheet YouTube everybody solves the maths and the DI and all because plus questions I took up the challenge last year after the Z exam or answer so I taken this live session on on that that wble I took the challenge solve people are requesting me question on live YouTube broadcast I had Sol 21 questions and my net outcome out of 21 Questions was 19 correct one wrong which I later realized was a oversight on my part which is why it went wrong and one question I I had mentioned this question is ambiguous our session L while discussing and and this thing I Sol those three questions also so all the 24 questions I solved I did not mark this because I said it's ambigous for me I can't see C your answer I got 22 correct out of them why I'm telling you this is because the key skill is everybody can solve the questions in attempts the key skill is what is the accuracy so what happens is what people the mistake people do in in preparation for comprehension especially and comprehension strong 16 questions maximum weight to comprehension your verbal cannot be strong unless your comprehension is good to preparation structure wise a skill and that's what I tell people your first three months has to be on this skill I mean once your comprehension part is done solving [Music] because I mean the the logic is very simple you learn to do something correctly first before you learn to do it first people across the world acoss do you learn to walk first or do you learn to run you learn to walk and once you learn to walk learning to run is a natural consequence nobody can stop you from learning to run so the first key point and most people don't reach this go to go to people who prepared for card this year ask them this question did you reach the skill you could get all four out of four right you could Sol 16 questions four passes get 14 15 correct in unlimited time so when you once I mean when you focus on the comprehension you're focusing on sentence comprehension and paragraph comprehension sentence comprehension buildings sentence comprehension May what are the what are the hurdles why does why does somebody not understand a sentence goes to schol to one is the vocabulary part but vocabulary itself so vocabulary is a building block to sentence comprehension but vocabulary itself is not just limited to vocabulary this again a mistake we make right vocabulary has three components I'll give you this through an example again we all know Hindi so this is the building this is one of the parts of the building block these are called phrasal verbs and idioms so every language has a has a group of phrasal verbs and idioms English also has them which meaning one meaning two three word EDM three three words meaning one meaning two meaning three you add the three meanings it is not the sum of those three meanings that what it means so if you have a lot of problem at this level then I suggest I mean there there are two ways to work on vocabulary one is active active work on vocabulary the other is passive work on vocabulary what is the difference active waby work is where you where you're actually doing something goes to otherwise you can I mean for 90% students I have seen that passive work on vocabulary also does whatever you're reading when you come across new words keep noting I'm down in a register a new word the first time you read it you should not if you don't know it second time you read it you might still not recol thir but it's happening by itself because of your reading all you have to do is not the word word important normal writing over three months six mons of of course there are other ways to to build vocabulary we have classes which where minaki Ma takes based on audio visual aids Etc what up but but broadly this is the most effective way to do it and then this is the comprehension part and the solving part you are trying to First focus on what is my time frame I have to first become a 30 minute solver of a reading comprehension passage take the answer key from me I'll give you the answer key give me 25 30 minutes I'll will not take 30 minutes on every passage but that's my upper limit that is the first part of the Journey of learning solving once you become a 30 minute solver of RC then you start improving efficiencies so typically if you look at the the flowchart I mean if we if we divide we are in December let's divide and this is I'll close verbal with this then we'll move to the other areas the D and the quants March June September and November these are four let's say these are four time markers for the year so this phase has to be on those two things the comprehension and the learning to solve 100% correct so till March the first three months of your three three and four months of your preparation has to be built on just these two things there are specific exercise for it right just comprehension step process step process Cricket I'm comfortable with the speed of 80 kilom per hour but my objective is to play 140 km per hour will be swinging ball step up 85 used to then I step it up to 90 then I step it up to 95 and I step up that way 105 times 1T 140 things are just uncomfortable for me and then I pick up the second one comfortable then I this thing so five steps I reach the point where I need to be able to read the kind of stuff that cat gives that's the Step Up approach the other approach is this if I go step up I to crash this so what I do is I go tomorrow to the Nets and I put the ball at 150 I'll be hurt I continue that I'll start hitting it for sixes also so adopt both these approaches one is the stepup approach the second is okay I straight away pick up the most difficult reading when I read it today I don't get more than 10% fine but I'll go back to the Nets every day and I'll keep reading those things so that I'll keep increasing my awareness and my ability to understand it point and as you start getting more and more of what you read the last part goes much faster 40 to 70 will be much faster than 20 to 40 so adopt both these processes and these are all down to your study sessions okay I'm doing a reading session I'm picking up a a passage from The New York Times these kind of passages are difficult for me I'm picking up a passage on a difficult subject which I don't understand exam that's the basic premise intensity has to be there back so so your focus should be here if you can reach this point by March then march to June will be efficiency Focus can need to become a 15 minute solver off a setc passage 100% without losing accuracy I I want to do it in 15 minutes so I I was showing my students section test before the cat which was a previous year paper and I had scored in that section I in that P in that test I had scored 57 marks typical when I solve I solve all the questions C maybe I Sol all the 24 questions typical I do the RC's in around 27 28 minutes so and I've got 12 minutes for the eight questions of WBLS and 16 minutes 16 questions of uh 16 questions of RC I do in around 20 27 28 minutes this is my breakup so when I was soling that paper the first passage took me 12 minutes which is and since I was solving a paper after almost a year after two years almost so I Rusty so I this four days before the c 2 pass normally I'm doing four passes in 28 minutes if I go at that rate I'll do two more if I do all three then I'm not got no time for my verble so I I showed this on on our test center to my students that my next passage was 4 and a half minutes with all correct so that's the ability you build you have to have that ability so the way it happens is you you by June if you can become a 15 minutes solver of a set June to September Focus will become how do I become a 7even eight minute solver and in need I should be able to do something in five minutes also slightly easier for me I should have that seventh year solving right one of the mistakes people make is timeline context the mistakes people make in preparation which I want you to avoid because you're starting early is they they back end the preparation YouTube students to people who are starting thinking about cat 24 in December I tell them that be ready in June put that as a benchmark June I'm ready don't don't expand your time to November this one of the key mistakes we made in in throughout our schooling the difference between me and the Toppers later I realized when they became friends of mine March exam fin board exams Etc it's just the thoroughness and the planning plan has to be okay I'm ready in June with the basic work that I have to do so coming to the next section which is the data interation logical reasoning section now this is two subjects but the way the two the two subjects are built is data interpretation is interpretation of data you start building the subject logical reasoning is the ability to solve puzzles and different various kinds of reasoning questions which can be described as reasoning so you start building the skill when you enter the exam and you start solving a question when this skill keeps going up last it's a merger of these two SKS requirement to get the question through or simple as I told you there are two sources of compe Advantage second so the moment you can build that point okay no matter how much Twisted you give me the set I can do it so point when you're solving those sets become a merger so preparation structure wise and one key difference the drr story till 22 versus 23 I typically rate a d question based on what kind of time frame do people like me would take to solve their set that's one of the reasons I take the exam because then I when a student tells me easy set set when I see a set and I try to solve it comp then I can make out whether it was a for me it was an 8 minute set or 11 minute set or a 15 minute set or a 17 18 minute set the DI story till 22 was one set of this two sets of this and one set of this range so there was always a pressure release set available this me the uncertainties were not so much uncertainties suppose I tell you data and logical reasoning is about variables numbers which numbers numb salary of a and salary of B right and I said that sum of this is 10 whatever 10 lakhs now if I a Sada question Setter I'll give you one more equation question you'll not be able to see it in 8 10 12 minutes so D when you're preparing the ability I can get through a set set I can get what happened this was this was the story till 22 23 two sets of this one set of this maybe two sets of this there's no set here so what happened to most people or time passes you keep getting sucked into the set or minute you got no control of what's Happening got no control on those remaining seven numb they start asking questions number value exactly eight seven or eight six or seven or eight and you the only way you can deduce is through by using the clues he's given so this is going to the story next year next year cat is a important day for you I'm going to tell you that this is going to happen to you point this either make make or break next five minutes you are differentiating your score Delta on your score is 15 marks three five questions into three question and take the take the reward so you're want to face the situation and during your year you to challenge yourself in every study session every practice session every session that you that you work on and this challenge will be through maybe as I told you you prepare your di separately you prepare LR separately and then towards the end you merge both of them so the challenge will be to I mean for for December St starting students I'll tell you it's going to be about 400 sets of solving this is going to be the process Char di LR this is has to be the challenge okay I the day You' have done this much you've seen all kinds of difficulties that have been created inside the exam question second slot there are total of 27 sacks and every sack had a number of marbles inside or something like coins inside and the questions were how many sacks have nine nine uh and every every sack has between one to nine qus question so basically you're dealing with 27 numbers in 27 numbers and they've given you Clues to deduce each of those numbers and some numbers are left so you had to play your game or or or deduce the clues to the point where you can completely have clarity about this7 ma number game controlling those 27 numbers so these kind of going to face right basic [Music] dedu again or may this is all the solving area there are two kinds of questions one kind of question in quants and D also is questions that are predominantly solved by obeying instructions question the second kind of question is the second so obeying instructions opposite inside a solving question obey instruction opposite self generated thought where you to generate the thought from your from inside yourself from the situation by reading the situation next step I say I'll give you a small example of obeying instruction obeying instruction May the average of a group a family family of average age of a family of five members is 30 one person dies at age 60 and a new child is born in the same time instruction the average age of family of five members is 30 instruction 150 total age 150 right then then they say ke one person dies at the age of 60 and a new child is born so child five people total age 90 3 years later category question 3 years later the reaction now the moment they say this your reaction is five years 3 years later take 3 years later so total 105 a 30-year-old man dies and a new child and a new child is born question and then they ask you what is the average of family after after that so there's no self thought you're just obeying instructions you're getting to the answers take and then the opposite of this is so so obviously these two kinds of questions obeying instruction questions and questions with self generated thought this is I'm talking when I'm talking about this I'm talking quants as well as d d steps instruction so how difficult a question is is determined by the ratio of these two in quants if it's a four-step question normally quants three or four step question if one step is obeying instruction two steps three steps are self generated thought it's a tough question a question which has all four steps obeying instructions is an easy question question data ination logical reasoning D question so set that has 8 to nine questions 8 to nine steps of obeying instructions two steps of cell generated thought cellgen you might miss it completely press of course practice again the will tell you practice but what I I mean so basically it's this and and the differential also but even the I mean I could see a lot of sets even though there were 10 12 minute sets last year lot of them eight nine steps obeying instructions two steps of self self especially 17 minute sets six seven steps of self thought steps of opening instructions and you're dealing with 27 numbers you completely lost you your mind is like like a jelly bean that's what happens and it is going to do that to you and I'm not unhappy about it and I should if I'm a student I should not be unhappy about it got differential if I'm prepared I'm I'm looking for a for a difficult paper because that's where my differential come timeline wise data what they do so please remember one thing inside on in next year you're going to have 40 minutes of wble 40 minutes of Di and 40 minutes of qu if your wal cycle of preparation is 50 weeks every week during the 50 weeks from now you have prepared for wobble it'll pay you a fair if youve done your job with intensity if your cor cycle is 50 weeks you'll pay off here if your di cycle is 30 weeks0 minutes SE 90% student make this mistake so have a 50 we cycle of drr preparation also and in that context what you should do again let's break it down March June September and November when I'm talking about long-term 50e preparation if I need need to do anything about learning how to solve a question type or some crisis work if I to give you advice my focus should be that June June should be your end point and for June to be your endo learning how to solve something has to be done by March because this march to June April May June is the efficiency period I told you same thing in RC also and wble also become a 30 minute solver of of for this period is the testing period and little little bit of fineing period September you should be scoring 100 plus marks that should be your Target because again one of the four answers will be right if it's option based question or there'll be a value that will be coming out in the answers you have to build a skill to do it the differential is the Nal versus the Paris why will you not do it why will you not give it your best shot there's no excuse there's no reason there's absolutely no reason so so build this this structure so if if let's say we Define a target of 400 sets and when you are solving do solving solving the learning one is assisted problem solving problem solving with assistance and the other part there two tools basically tools assed problem solving and self problem solving right so if I if we Define 100 sets of assisted and 300 sets of self so let's try to say okay what is a comfortable number how much can I practically achieve by March March is four months four months is around 18 weeks 18s I need to do around 20 20 to 25 sets of Di and 20 to 25 sets of LR every week D them of each because 25 I don't want you to do now the pace I want you to do is 15 sets per week of Di and 15 sets per week of LR exam very important part I'll come to that this March can can be April for you but not beyond that so complete this part of the work 300 plus sets of di 300 plus sets of LR by April and then the work you'll do will for efficiency how do I now learn to be more faster with my solving how do I improve my efficiency how do I improve my exactness of my solving how do I remove the errors I'm making 90% of your competition is going to be doing this part here so if you can achieve this you got a huge advantage over your competition that's what we are looking for I told you may prep I get that competive Advantage inside the exam so my ability to solve RC passage in five minutes when I want it it's a competitive Advantage unfair competitive Advantage because nobody else has that has that ability I can maintain my accuracy and still do a passage in five minutes so if if I fall into time trouble I'm out of it I can come out of it I know others can't right so this is what the D process is and as I said quants may be important here part when you pick up your let's say 300 sets for self problem solving part assisted problem solving and self problem solving what is assisted problem solving popc problem soling means you look at what the said teacher is solving first try it on your own how you start thinking that way so then you will actually grasp it so essentially this 300 can be split into 100 of assistant and 300 where I Sol 100 plus sets in Di and 100 plus sets in L so what happens when you once you start doing this let's say your your preparation cycle is for the first uh 50 OD sets you do 30 assisted and you try 20 sely datation logical reason there'll be a solving ratio and this will happen in quants also there is theory there is assisted problem solving and there is self problem solving there are three three tools when you want to improve your ability at a chapter there are three tools you have you can study the solving 20 questions for me I'm looking at those questions and learning from them yeah s problem solve so if I do these two and then I go to a 250 question exercise for sell problem solving I'll not be able to solve all of them because if I'm able to solve all of them it means that I'm ready if I'm not ready I'll not be able to solve all questions so what will happen there'll be a ratio question so during this especially during this March and June and and cons me basically it's 20 chapters I'll come to how the exam was but there basically 20 chapters and the pace you need is one chapter per week for the first coverage of the of the of the chapters or both simple strategy I've got some people Zer negative Mar I've got them to compete with I in their exams by the time they took the exam the simple strategy in qus is you plan minimum three rounds of every chapter the first round is one chapter per week and one chapter week and then you come to the self problem solving let's say you pick up 250 questions there'll be a ratio of what you can solve what you can't solve is 250 questions upper time limit 10 minutes question minut it means I'm not ready for it I'm not good enough to do it unlimited so let's say you have a solving ratio of 50% what you do is you keep going chapters one chapter a week typically quants the syllabus is arithmetic or key differential there no chapters which were not important numb question and they were obeying instruction questions at least two questions I saw in my slot which was just obeying instructions but people who are not studied it will not get it so CL con basically PCH blocks arithmetic number systems algebra geometry and modern maths is chapter average mixtures and allegation percentage ratio proportion profit loss time and work time speed distance and interest is Chapters number systems of progressions functions inequalities logs and Equations chapter geometry mensuration and coordinate geometry chap peration combination probability and set theory this is your breakup so what happens this is SC qualifying level if your level is here when you go through one round and and you're able to solve let's say 125 questions not able to solve 125 questions there is definitely some growth in your ability okay he's gone above requirement so this student has now reached this point so let's say there there are four students a b c d a prep [Music] will reach this point only after round two and the pressure to learn everything is also gone when you know that I'm going to come back to this chapter three times minimum the pressure to learn everything is also one first in any chapter you learn the obeying instructions instruction because you have to ripen up your mind to be able to take this so in every topic every chapter you first focus on the core obeying instructions part functions question line y equal 0 xal 5 and x + y = 3 and x - y = 1 en are oby instruction reaction are en you to be able to draw the graph for this and then you start building your structure okay X plus yal 3 Etc so that that part becomes self generated thought there so every topic what happens I mean let's say there are three students XY Z that is the 100 percenti x is the 95 to 98 percenti so he's also decent and X is the 50% Ma and D questions triggers question tells you what to do and the difference between Zed and X and Y is that Zed knows how to listen to the question X and Y knows some to some extent X does not know it at all and when you want to listen to a question what happens every chapter has certain standard things that have to be done take just for example if I tell you in time speed distance a man is going up a moving escalator which is moving at 20 steps per second he's walking up a moving escalator at 20 step equation standard reaction X is blank so every chapter has a set of triggers and reactions and these triggers and reactions can be broken into obeying instructions triggers and self generated thought while triggers take nobody can count this number but suppose chapter instruction what is the difference between X Y and Z he knows all of them and they deeped inside it why why has 50 of those obeying instructions maybe he's got all 60 obeying instructions but self generated thought top instu what is Z's brain Z all 60 are there and all 40 are there that's why is the 100% question deep deeply emed 2 plus reaction reaction not possible what will happen is this will augment mind is not receptive enough to learn because some of these thoughts are so complex 2 plus2 reaction complex reactions so they are so complex your mind has not got the capacity to learn it which is are the multiple rounds the safest way to prepare fors so if you take the timeline and and and this year's paper in Quant especially as you must have heard has gone completely off the boil completely L3 how the question already three this year and it's is to be built you to build your ability to to get to the L3 questions so the timeline process will be March April 20 weeks timeline weeks one and first maybe you can you can add four weeks to it if you want round one 2 or first 8 weeks arithmetic round one next five weeks next four to five weeks number system round one number s progressions and during these four five round to arithmetic but what we are doing is we have to do it solid Anthony or V is the policeman [Music] original solid that's critical for you take a little bit of extra time there are two reasons for it one is let's say you had a very bad solving ratio 30% solving ratio out of 250 questions you only solve 75 and you could not solve 175 so when you go to round two you will see that a lot of these 175 will get solved reason is because when you're doing this for the first time your solving skills were here it's not possible 70% okay you can still get through cat take it on the chin and come back to it because next time you here you're not no longer the same person I've never got a zero answers I said 20% win automatically that's one reason second reason why second because there lot of cross chapter questions sub chapter so there are two reasons and this I've tried this I'm not experimenting with you I've tried for the last 20 years with my students second round solving rate first round 30% second round 60% and 30% solving rate first round is somebody who very poor normal solving rates 50 70 80% first round level of difficulty depend just just because when you do a question I told you the three modes you can study Theory you can do assisted problem solving you can do self problem solving Theory May you don't learn problem solving when you do assisted problem solving you learn you learn skills but your belief does not go up the belief is there when you do a problem on your own when your self problem solve your learning ratio is higher and your belief growth ratio is also higher assisted problem solving dependent on your exam throughout your preparation exam question you don't have a doubt clear resolution mechanism inside so ultimately the challenges in every chapter the challenge is going to be can I sell problem solve 250 questions so challenge is just that getting stronger taking assisted problem solving as much as you want not the questions you could not solve you don't you want more assisted problem solving watch more classes we have been online last five years most most powerful mod with their questions and what they have taught Unlimited on top of that we keep adding more content 100 must questions vide for my 24 students problem so go back go to those and then come back to your self problem solving because you are saying okay let's say Arun Sharma book is my self problem solving question B interference that has to be an attitude of yours I don't want any help in this book because this is the book which I'll solve and then I'll go to the mock and I'll be ready and I if I required what I've seen is most people round one round two round three almost every do you have the time answer is yes because the first round is seven days per chapter one week per chapter when you go back to a chapter second round you're not going to do the theory again problem Maxim so second round might be half the time maximum three days first round 25 30 hours preparation second round 6 to 8 hours 10 hours third round might just be 5 hours fourth you might have a situation Monday say if we timeline this if I'm taking 24 weeks for this and during this 24 weeks I'm also doing round twos of let's say 7 to 10 chapters so 24 weeks will be five months approximately so we are talking about April April end so April end situation May June May you're completing your round TOs June round complete you're starting your mock test here July you're doing round three your chapters clear question okay now Focus question and then on requirement around four five six on other chapters during this time this is a challenge this is a process but be very clear about this one thing I told you this question bank is my question Mar I'm going to solve this without interference of Any teacher or any friend because problem set of questions set of questions built for my growth when I take the normal students approaching grow learning assisted problem solving a learning is fraction of the problem solving of the learning you get in self problem solving learning missing bigger problem now is be mixed with which is why they are not even able to solve four question in the exam full stop okay this is my question Bank I'm not going to go outside this question prev question I'm ready you will have the thoughts in the exam all the thoughts inside the exam that you need you'll have them tempting that's why I told you 10 minutes you right now this is a real problem keep moving just say Okay second round I'll come back because the philosophy is very simple I go to the gym suppose let say arm strength instruct objective fulfill objective is to get stronger am I getting stronger I have not gone to I forget that I've not gone to the gym for that so struggle with this don't don't avoid the struggle phop again in the coph I'm willing open to taking sessions for I taken sessions like that so we are philosophy a SE oob our philosophy changes we'll give you we'll give you doubt clearing for every question yeah we will give you because as s but for the real students I tell them don't attend them don't go into the those with doubts because you keep your doubts see or if you don't want to listen to me listen to Einstein how did you create so much knowledge in one lifetime his answer was I stayed with the problems longer it's a classic statement which gives you everything that Einstein but I he said that I could see so much because I stayed with the problems longer WhatsApp generation we don't want to stay with problems immediate immediate Solutions we don't we don't think through right you're playing remember you're playing for a 10 CR bank balance versus the 200 CR bank balance remember that it's possible it can happen in your lifetime in 20 years flat the the core the uh the core requirements are hitting one level below the top at around 40 if you reach that point you'll pulled up you'll be one of the leaders and to they'll be firing people they'll be not giving salary raises they take that decision you can't tell them that's that's how the world is they firing hundreds of people Etc both non unprofitable but they don't touch their salaries so you want to reach that point right and to reach that I mean the positions are open none of these positions are going to be by the incumbents Modi G will not be the prime minister in 2050 so all positions are open right so I hope you enjoyed this and this was eye opening and whe whatever you take from it just remember that first point I told you because that I think is the most important when you're doing something do it well make that a precond conditional life I have seen my life change completely to the point that I'll do it to the best of my ability so I think 7even months ago eight months ago I can show you my photograph in March I was completely over it last I had been over it for almost 20 years eight months ago my tennis course told me that you have to lose 17 kilos if you want to play tennis I said N I want to play so I lost 13 yesterday night from 9:30 to 11: I had seen a real uh in the afternoon of Nick K service so 9:30 to 11 I was practicing myself I was trying to replicate his action in myself I know I'm not going to be a tennis player or anything it's just the fact that that attitude that if I want to do something I'll do it well why should I not do it well right so I have my ambition in my tennis also there there's an IT of M Master circuit which I go to play but that's a different factor it's not related to my career or anything my I already tell people that my main objective was Fitness which I already got so I've seen this 18 year old was just struggling in life no future nothing nothing happening your guard will change your house will change everything around you will change but you remember the the core your life will only go up because in today's world you're only valued for what you do and how will you do it this is not against fun this is not about not enjoying your life enjoy it more enjoy it even more than what you do but when you're doing your work just bring an enjoyment into that and do it well thank you so much right I'm open to any questions otherwise my counselor will come in and talk to you questions urgent I think online people I did not see your chats today at all but I think this was yeah what what how to manage college with cat when you're doing College do college when you're doing cat do cat that's it the simple answer right C I told you you don't need to study more than 30 40 hours a week I told you 5 five hours of Di and LR 10 to 15 hours of wble 10 to 15 hours of Quant 15 20 hours of Quant maybe 40 hours Conn maximum you got 168 hours in a week yeah a gap year uh is I mean a gap year is not taken very positively but they'll ask you what you're doing in that time if you got a credible story that you can talk about then it's taken it's this thing so my my answer to Gap Your solution is always that if you can work you should work if you can't for some reason or you want to don't want to do that then in that case around your reading build build some build a couple of passions build a couple of passion subjects right manag marketing digital marketing history I'll give you an example very close friend of mine he was from it Delhi we both of us asked the same question that Arun Sharma was asked this question in his interview at I'm am Bangalore Who's Your Role Model my answer was my father is my role model they asked me why and all amitab Singh my friend was asked this question who's your role model in the same interview he said ROM is my role model the German general now imagine when you're interviewer listening to these two people speaking father is my model R mod there's a superior intelligence in the room you at least get that feel R Ro model through any intervie okay so that's the hint of how you answer that question yeah not it's about problem solving skills and building the reactions so what you do is when you solve the questions you'll automatically the reaction start building in your mind so hence there are no notes it's just facing problems and and this thing they say see I'll give you an example when you when you learn things there are two kinds of learnings in Life Theory based subjects skill based

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Id: 9emeDXMxdw4

Length: 139min 1sec (8341 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 09 2023