Action Plan for CAT 2023 Preparation
With less than a month to go in CAT 2023, it is important to be extremely clear about how to prepare for
CAT 2023 in this 1 month.
- Pay special attention to weak areas
Determine the list of topics you need to practice and sort them as per the topic-wise weightage provided in
the CAT syllabus. You can also refer to the previous year papers for the same. After analyzing the mock,
practice only those weak concepts that are important from the exam’s point of view.
- Do not neglect Reading Comprehension
Reading Comprehension is a non-negotiable part of the CAT examination. It is the root of the VARC section
which contributes more than 65% of its questions. In fact, it would be most appropriate for you to coin your
RC preparation at the start of the month.
Read more: How to improve
VARC for CAT?
- Segregation of time
Over the period of 1 month, the time to be spent on each section has to be carefully divided so that each
section receives adequate attention. After all, each section in the CAT 2023 exam also has its own sectional
cut-off.
- Mocks & Mock Analysis
Giving a mock exam regularly will ensure that you have the maximum amount of practice and exposure when you
actually sit for the CAT 2023 exam. An analysis is essential to keep track of your progress and identify the
areas where some additional efforts might be required.
Read more: Why are CAT mocks important?
Pre-checks for 1-month CAT 2023 Preparation
Before delving into a rigorous month of CAT preparation, students have to conduct some pre-preparation
checks. To frame an effective 1-month CAT 2023 preparation strategy, here is a list of everything you need:
- Make sure you have completed the online CAT registration and have a printout of the CAT registration
form with you.
- Do not stick to one section while framing the timetable. Give adequate time to all the sections with
consistent breaks in between.
- Aim to study for at least 5-6 hours every day (if you are a working professional) and 8-9 hours (if you
are a student).
- Take care of yourself throughout the month. Take breathers between your perpetual studying hours and go
for a drive, play a sport, or get enough hours of sleep.
- Attempt full-length mocks to familiarize yourself with the examination inside out and make a list of all
the questions you answered correctly and incorrectly.
- Analyze the question you solved incorrectly, go over the solution, and list all the concepts you need to
revise again.
Phase-wise Preparation Schedule of CAT VARC
Here is how you can furbish your CAT VARC strategy in 1 month:
1 month to CAT: First Phase (Day 1 to Day 7)
- Practice different types of RC passages.
- Learn about all the basic techniques on how to solve a passage.
- Time yourself while solving a particular passage.
- Learn about how to actively read a passage.
- Learn to identify the central idea of the passage.
1 month to CAT: Second Phase (Day 7 to Day 14)
- Learn the tone of the passage i.e. whether it is subjective or objective. Read between the lines to
identify the tone of a passage
- Pay more attention to informative RCs and Analytical RCs in the beginning.
- Make sure you practice at least 25-30 RCs in this week
- Take a topic mock for practice.
1 month to CAT: Third Phase (Day 14 to Day 21)
- Shift your attention to Persuasive, scientific, and critical RCs.
- Focus on solving Paraphrasing questions at this stage of preparation.
- Take one CAT sectional mock every day for proper practice.
- Solve another 25-30 RCs in this week and analyze the solutions.
1 month to CAT: Fourth Phase (Day 21 to Day 28)
- Keep on practising the RCs. Complete your goal of 100 RCs before CAT.
- Make sure to attempt VA questions for at least 2 hours a day.
- Revise all the techniques you have learned so far and give a full-length mock to scale your VARC
preparation.
- Read novels, newspapers, and journals to strengthen your vocabulary and learn new idioms and phrases.
Phase-wise Preparation Schedule of CAT DILR
Here is how you can furbish your CAT DILR strategy in 1 month:
1 month to CAT: First Phase (Day 1 to Day 7)
- Make a list of all the DILR topics and segregate them into three categories i.e., most important sets,
tough sets, and most selective sets.
- Focus on the most important topics first. These topics will constitute sequence and series, matrix
arrangements (linear and circular)
- Get started with the basics first. Flex your problem-solving psyche.
- After you have covered the important basics, start answering review questions, first priority is to be
given to easy and solvable sets.
1 month to CAT: Second Phase (Day 7 to Day 14)
- Solve a sectional LRDI mock to find out your areas of incompetence.
- Keep on practising as many LR sets as you can, not worrying about the time limit initially.
- Explore different LR topics such as coding-decoding, blood relations, directions, syllogisms, etc. Make
sure you learn the basics first.
- If you feel you are unable to solve a particular problem even after learning the concept, visit the
concept again. There would be some loophole you are missing out on.
1 month to CAT: Third Phase (Day 14 to Day 21)
- In this phase. Take a sectional mock every week to dig out your weaknesses and work on them.
- Practice as many as 20 LR questions in 1 day. Mark the questions you are not able to solve and do not
let that come in the way of your practice.
- Solve various puzzle questions. Conventional LR questions are usually ambiguous to solve and only
concept-dependent.
- Solve past year CAT papers and analyze your performance.
- Shift your focus to the DI questions. Solve at least 5 DI sets in one day. Time yourself while solving
each set.
1 month to CAT: Fourth Phase (Day 21 to Day 28)
- Learn about speed-enhancing tricks and jot down all the important approaches and formulas in your
notebook.
- By now, you should know that 1/9 = 0.11 and other fractions. The same goes for percentages, cubes,
squares, and square roots.
- Take a sectional mock every day and analyze your performance.
- Take a full CAT to mock some days before the last day to gauge your DILR performance.
- If, during the mocks, you feel you are not able to understand a particular question, DO NOT ATTEMPT IT.
Some questions can be classified as tricky or uncertain.
Phase-wise Preparation Schedule of CAT QA
Here is how you can furbish your CAT QA strategy in 1 month:
1 month to CAT: First Phase (Day 1 to Day 7)
- Focus on major topics first, starting with the Number systems, modern mathematics, and Geometry.
- Learn the concepts and solve questions related to these dominating and broad topics.
- Take a sectional mock to figure out which concepts are currently out of your knowledge
- Enlist those topics and take them down one by one.
- Remember having a “wide-to-narrow" approach in quant. As the syllabus is intensive, it would
require quite an effort from your end to cover the topics.
1 month to CAT: Second Phase (Day 7 to Day 14)
- For each day of the week, continue taking sectional mocks.
- Focus primarily on questions related to Algebra. Lean towards learning concepts of linear equations,
quadratic equations, special equations, and surds and indices.
- Practice as many as 50 quant questions per day. If you feel stuck at any point, do not refer to the
solution immediately. Seek advice from your mentors to solve a question you do not understand.
- Read the question properly. Many a time, the answer lies deep within the question.
1 month to CAT: Third Phase (Day 14 to Day 21)
- For this phase, focus on commercial mathematic topics i.e. allegation and mixtures, ratio and
proportions, investment and partnerships, income and expenditure, profit and loss, percentages, averages,
simple and compound interest, etc.
- Practice at least 20 questions from all the topics and take a topic mock at the end of every commercial
math topic.
- Prepare a cheat sheet of all the formulas you have learned so far.
- Make it a thumb rule to time yourself every time you solve a question.
1 month to CAT: Fourth Phase (Day 21 to Day 28)
- Bend towards the easier topics at this point i.e. Geometry, Trigonometry, Probability, Permutations, and
combinations.
- Take a full-length CAT to mock for all the days of the week to observe how far you have come in your QA
preparation.
- Analyze the solution of each mock and enlist questions you left unattended.
- Team up with your fellow CAT aspirants and other friends to share your doubts with them and validate
your preparation strategy.
- Revise all the learned concepts at least 2 times to make sure you have a strong grip on them.
Post Preparation Check: Last Month to CAT 2023
During the last few days before the CAT exam, it is important for you to reaffirm your strengths and have a
calm mindset for the examination. The rigorous preparation has not only prepared you for CAT but for a
plethora of other competitive examinations in just 1 month. Here are some last-day checks for your CAT 2023
1-month preparation plan:
- For the remaining 3-4 days of the preparation, practice previous CAT papers. Check your preparation
methods and the types of questions covered in CAT.
- Take each section of CAT and write important pointers related to them. These pointers can include
formulas, identities, and weightage of a topic. It will help you identify important subsets of the exam.
- Revision is a very important step to be performed at this stage. For revision, randomly sample the
topics of all three sections and go through them briefly.
- Ensure you sleep at least 7 hours before the exam and eat properly every day leading to the exam. A
healthy and peaceful mind can concentrate better during the examination.
Prepare in 1 month: CAT D-Day
Put all your handwork together and let loose the inspiration. You have drilled yourself so far, now is the
time to quietly soak in the exam day thrill and assure yourself that you are not walking into that
examination hall with little knowledge and a shaky mind. Ensure you have all your documents and admit card.
A two-hour arduous examination, and the flushing happiness on your face when the trial ends, can make up for
all that you have sacrificed so far for your CAT preparation.
Things that can deter your CAT 2023 Preparation
There are some things that one needs to guard against during their CAT 2023 Preparation in the last month.
Some of the major deterrents are:
- Do not mock results affect you
There will be some mocks where you will perform extremely well and some quite badly. It is important not to
get carried away due to the good results and equally important to not get bogged down by the bad results.
The Mock results are simply meant to be the milestones in the path to the CAT exam and should be analyzed
but not affect you emotionally.
- Do not burn yourself out
Several candidates are so zealous in their CAT 2023 Preparation at this time that they tend to burn
themselves out as they approach the actual CAT 2023 exam. Therefore it is necessary for you to pace yourself
well over the last month so that you can take the CAT 2023 exam in a good state of mind.
- Do not deviate from your preparation plan
It is necessary for you to stick to your CAT 2023 preparation plan so that you can actually cover
everything important over the course of the next month. This is how to prepare for CAT 2023 in 1 month.
There can be other pitfalls that one might face during their journey towards the CAT 2023 exam but these
must, in particular, be avoided so that the CAT 2023 preparation over the last month goes smoothly.
Suggested Readings