TIPS FOR CRACKING MBA EXAMS
MBA is a coveted degree for management aspirants. It prepares students for various functions and positions and is very significant in the business world. Preparing for the MBA entrance exams is a tedious task. It requires regular practice, time management and logical and analytical frame of mind. The principle institutions and universities, both government and private, take into consideration, the scores of exams like CAT, XAT, MAT, SNAP, IIFT. The article below will provide you with the ins and outs of the preparing for these tests in a systematic and effective manner. GENERAL TIPS Tip 1:If a student has planned to get a MBA degree from the very beginning then it is preferable to get into a bachelor’s course which has at least one of the business subjects. Although doing bachelors in a business subject is not a compulsion but it will surely add an advantage. Tip 2:Although, it is not possible to fully predict the question pattern of the MBA entrance exam, it is possible to guess the pattern of the marks to be obtained. A sum of 60-65 marks in each of the three sections will surely lead aspiring MBA students into renowned institutions. Tip 3: Practice a lot, it will enable students to identify the questions. Once they can identify the question type, it’ll be easy for them to answer and solve it. Tip 4: Don’t consider any type of questions redundant while practicing because doing well in one section only, won’t help to clear the cut-offs and getting admission into good college. Working for any exam makes candidates stronger than they were before. For many MBA exams, candidates are often advised to practice section-wise. Tip 5: The MBA entrance is not just looking for the student’s knowledge of any particular subject but it evaluates them on their overall ability. Hence, it is advisable to pay attention to the basic abilities such as, language, logical reasoning etc. Collect the books for the same and practice thoroughly. Choosing the right books is one of the most important CAT preparation tip. However, the list of books recommended for CAT preparation is very vast. Tip 6: It is very important to appear for mock tests. It helps students to understand the paper type and enables them to identify their weaknesses and strengths, so that they can improve. Most top scorers enroll themselves in two or more different mock series. Constantly practicing mock tests will improve their accuracy in each attempt. There are many mock tests (paid and unpaid) available online. Many coaching institutes prepare their own mock tests and make them available online. Apart from mock tests, candidates can also opt for the sample papers of the various exams which are easily available online. Tip 7: Once the candidate has started appearing for the mock tests, it is important to note down their mistakes and make sure that they don’t repeat them. In order to avoid mistakes, they should practice more and more.There are numerous resources for the preparation of CAT and other similar exams, which are available online as well as offline. Therefore, the decision for using these resources must be made well. Tip 8: The candidates must be familiar with the syllabus for CAT exam. The syllabus for CAT includes Mathematics and Data Interpretation, English & Reading Comprehension and Logical Reasoning. If the candidate is serious about CAT, then he must cover all these topics and practice them daily. Tip 9: For the training of MBA, candidates should keep in mind that studying tactically is what makes a distinction between the ones who make it to the IIMs and others. Therefore, they should not underestimate any section and should distribute equal time for practicing each subject. Depending on the time left for the exam date, they can set the priority for the section that they need to work on more. Tip 10: Candidates should not forget to time out for themselves while practicing because along with polishing their abilities, they should also learn time management. Taking too much tension about the exam is often a way for making things worse. It is true that performing under pressure is not easy and many may stumble down. Studying for long hours is not always possible; therefore, most top scorers of CAT suggest doing some activities that ease the tension and give peace of mind. Candidates should be relaxed on the exam day and should not fret about the level of difficulty of the question. The most important thing to remember is to concentrate on accuracy rather than overall attempts. TIPS FOR CAT Tip-1: Focus on what can be controlled as that is your preparation! The questions asked most often by students during this time is about the following: Cut-offs: how much they need to score for gaining admission in the IIMs. The desire to reach there is understandable but the action taken for it is more important. Scores and Sectional Cut-offs: A lot of students obsess about particular scores and sectional cut-offs. They wish to know the exact number of questions needed to solve to achieve a particular score. What they need to understand is that, their scores in mock tests are a reflection of their performance and that on the given day; nobody can predict the exact level or pattern of the exam. This means, with respect to the last year, there can be huge variation in scores or there might not be any variation at all. Considering this, it is not worth investing their time thinking about the possible score needed to crack a particular section. What is needed is good preparation to see them through. Normalization: A lot of students wish to know about the normalization process and how it will impact scores. The thing about this is that the IIMs have not released any great detail about the process and students do not know what they are going to get. Considering this, it makes sense for them to focus on other important things. The above stated three things and queries alike these, all represent a similar weakness which is to focus on information that is actually not going to impact their performance. Candidates should ask questions related to cut-offs and sectional attempts only once or twice. They should focus more on their preparation, which is the central driving force in many cases. Hence, they should focus on what is more important for the exam which is only their prepration and not anything else. TIPS FOR XAT XAT stands for Xaviers’ Aptitude Test. It is a national level entrance examination conducted by XLRI every year for selecting the most appropriate students for management education. Additionally, more than 100 other institutes for admission to their management programs use the XAT score. It is a paper-based test carried out on the first Sunday of the year in which the program starts. The paper can be divided into three divisions which are, concept driven, practice intensive and environment sensitive. Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation and selected topics of Verbal & Logical Ability are concept driven; Decision Making & Analytical Reasoning is a purely practice intensive section while General Knowledge is environment sensitive. The exam is strikingly different from the other MBA entrance exams as it has a section on Decision Making. This area checks their management aptitude by presenting different situations and cases, and asks candidates to spot the correct option for given situations. Overall, candidates have to brace up to handle reasoning based questions requiring strong analytical application. Preparing the decision making section and the essay writing task will help the XAT candidate to take on the test challenges with more confidence. Concept strengthening should be followed by consolidation of application orientation and subsequently by a sufficient number of practice exams. While attempting the paper, keep in mind the basics of time management, prioritization and striking a right balance between speed and accuracy. TIPS FOR MAT In the terminology of management aspirants, MAT stands for Management Aptitude Test. It is a standardized test conducted by AIMA to help B-Schools test candidates for admission to their MBA and allied programs. Candidates need to have a strategic MBA Preparation to crack MAT Exam. It is one of the most widely taken tests by the management community and serves as a ticket to over 600 B-schools in India. Aspirants can choose any one of the two options to take the test: Paper Based Test or Computer Based Test. The paper based exam is conducted on the first Sunday of February, May, September and December from 10.00-12.30 hours; while the computer based exam is conducted from Saturday onwards (6 days after the Paper Based Test date) and in various time slots. The paper can be split into three parts: concept driven, practice intensive and environment sensitive. Mathematical Skills and Language Comprehension are focused on concept where the questions are critically reliant on the test taker’s theoretical clarity on core fundamentals; Intelligence & Critical Reasoning, Data Analysis & Sufficiency and selected topics of English Language Proficiency are practice intensive where meticulous practice with similar questions plays an important role; Indian & Global Environment is environment sensitive where awareness of current affairs is often the winning stroke. Overall, the test taker has to understand that MAT is designed to assess you on certain core management skills like time management, prioritization, stress management, knowledge and balancing accuracy and speed.