CMAT exam: How to divide your preparation time

 

by Mikin Shah - CMAT Top Ranker

With the dates for CMAT February 2015 exam being announced, it is critical that the aspirants properly plan their preparation efforts to achieve optimum results. View CMAT Septmeber 2014 first day first slot analysis. The first test will be held from February 19 and that leaves the students with more than two and half months to slog for top honors at CMAT. Assuming that a serious candidate can put in at least four hours a day, there are at least 400 hours available for preparation. 

With the clock ticking, an average student would do well to concentrate first on the high impact areas of the exam. These would be Basic Maths (mostly arithmetic from standard 1 to 10), Reasoning and Reading Comprehension. As far as GK is concerned, students would be well advised to follow the leading newspapers.

A daily habit of spending 30 to 40 minutes on newspapers is a good long-term investment. The aspirants can also develop a genuine interest in business and economic affairs by following the relevant programmes on news channels (TV). For static GK, students can use any good reading material and try to memorise as much as possible. However, this effort should not exceed 10 – 15 hours.

A broad break-up of preparation hours would be as under –

 

If a candidate devotes time as per the above mentioned plan, s/he should be reasonably well prepared by the end of January 2015. For the month of February, a candidate can appear for a maximum of 10 mock tests. It would be a good idea to take a mock every alternate day. Aspirants would do well to remember that a thorough analysis of each mock is absolutely necessary. For a three hour exam like CMAT, the analysis should take at least the same time (three hours). Such an exercise would enlighten the aspirant about her strengths as well as gaps in the present level of preparation. 

The student must clearly work out a sequence of attempting various areas which works best for her. My recommendation is to go for GK, English, Maths and Reasoning together. The basic idea is to get done with English and GK sections within 40 – 45 minutes and devote the rest of the time for Maths and Reasoning sections. If we analyse the last CMAT exam (February 14, 2014), the level of difficulty for Maths questions was on a higher side. In such a scenario, it would make sense to allot around 60 to 65 minutes and maintain accuracy level of at least 90%. In the last exam, the Reasoning section had a lot of lengthy but doable questions and this again warrants a healthy dose of about 70 minutes for the section.

It is worth remembering that only about 33% of the CMAT candidates have been able to cross the 100 mark in earlier CMAT exams. By taking enough mock exams during the month of January'15, the candidate should be in a position to know her scoring potential and must tackle the actual CMAT accordingly.

From my experience, the following is the suggested pattern of attempts and scores –

	Maths	Reasoning	English	GK	Total Attempts	Probable Score
Survivors	10-12	14-16	8-10	6-8	38-46	120-130
Aspirers	16-18	18-20	12-15	10-12	56-65	190-210
Achievers	20+	20+	18-20	16-18	74+	270+

It is my sincere belief that hard work and a judicious approach will allow every aspirant to fulfil her potential and achieve success at the upcoming CMAT. Time to get going! All the best! 

About the Author 

Mikin Shah is the Founder & Director of foresight school – An educational institute which specializes in MBA Entrance & MBA Tuitions. He was ranked first in CMAT Feb 2013 and fifth in CMAT Feb 2014. He has also cracked CAT (99.11 percentile in 2004).