NO. It has nothing to with the short sightedness of the black creature in our homes.

It has to do with our vision, which makes us see the tree and
ignore the forest, while preparing for the 19-Nov D-Day (Does it mean the Dreaded Day?) CAT exam.

Every CAT aspirant keeps wondering what to do about improving the performance. Forget the improvement in performance, even the improvement in "attempts" appears an uphill task. Fortunately, you don't have to climb Himalayas to find that 'Sanjivani". Just follow these simple steps: -

1. Don't bite more than you can chew.
   This is the season of free MOCK-CATs by every coaching institute. Taking all these tests in a frantic manner, without any qualitative learning would not serve any purpose. You will only end up running along 2p r.

2. Don't despair. Analyze.
   After you take a test, don't panic at the performance. Analyze the performance coolly at home. Try to do the test again, without the time pressure. See how many you can actually solve .Learn and re-learn the new points. Being slow and accurate would be always better being fast and inaccurate.

3. Love some chapters and of course, hate some. Develop a deep love for some favourite chapters and take every question from these as a challenge. Solve it yourself or take help from friends, teachers or whoever, but these questions must be solved. Also, no harm in being blatantly hateful about some chapters. Now, if after all the efforts, you can't understand where to use permutation and where combination, just forget it.

4. Don't switch on in the class and switch off outside.
   CAT is a tough nut to crack. Though it is a clichéd statement, yet developing attitude is must along with development of aptitude. E.g. don't confine use of maths to class and commonsense to market place and use both at both places. Learn to live like a CAT material. Treat the test like a Commonsense Aptitude Test.

5. Relax. This is not the end of life.
   Try to come to terms with realities. Not everyone who aspires to get into IIMs would be able to do it and not everyone who is left out would struggle in life. This is 'an' important exam and life is full of exams.

Concluded.

* Contributed by -
Parveen Pruthi ia an MBA from IIFM, Bhopal, Class of 1991. He is now a Project Head at Top Careers & You (www.tcyonline.com), the leaders in MBA, MCA, GRE and GMAT preparation in Punjab.