CAT 2019 Preparation Plan for 100 Days – Quantitative Aptitude
Wednesday, August 14th, 2019
It can be argued that Quantitative Aptitude is the section that makes the most amount of difference in the CAT results every year. If you look at the data from the past few years, you would realize that the Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation section has remained the toughest section. You normally need to do only 9 questions in it to score a 90%ile. Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension has remained the easiest section over the years where you have needed to score around 16-18 questions to get a 90 %ile. Quantitative Aptitude, on the other hand, varies a lot. You would need around 10 questions in CAT 2018 and around 15 questions in CAT 2017 to score a 90 %ile. So, if you are planning to be prepared for the best-case or the worst-case scenario – Quantitative Aptitude has to form the bedrock of your CAT preparation plan.
CAT 2019 Preparation Plan for 100 Days – Quantitative Aptitude – Video:
Structure of Quantitative Aptitude in CAT Exam
The chart given below should give you a fair idea of the relative importance of topics in the Quantitative aptitude. As you can see, clearly Arithmetic is the most important section with 12 questions from it and Number System is probably the least important one.
CAT 2017 and CAT 2018 papers are available in the public domain. I used the same to do some deep topic level analysis and my findings are given below. This should help you plan your preparation properly for the 100 days that are left for the CAT exam.
Arithmetic
| Topic | CAT 2017 Morning | CAT 2017 Afternoon | CAT 2018 Morning | CAT 2018 Afternoon | Total |
| Time Speed Distance | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 11 |
| Mixtures | 2 | 2 | 3 | 7 | |
| Profit & Loss | 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 | |
| Time & Work | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
| Pipes & Cisterns | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | |
| Percentage | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 | |
| Average | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |
| Ratio | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 | |
| SI & CI | 1 | 1 | 2 |
Algebra
| Topic | CAT 2017 Morning | CAT 2017 Afternoon | CAT 2018 Morning | CAT 2018 Afternoon | Total |
| Functions | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 9 |
| Logarithms | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 9 |
| Simple Equation | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | |
| Polynomial | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |
| Maxima & Minima | 2 | 1 | 3 | ||
| Inequalities | 2 | 1 | 3 | ||
| Quadratic Equations | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
Geometry
| Topic | CAT 2017 Morning | CAT 2017 Afternoon | CAT 2018 Morning | CAT 2018 Afternoon | Total |
| Circles | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 7 |
| Polygon | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 | |
| Triangles | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| Mensuration | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | |
| Co-ordinate | 1 | 1 | 2 |
Modern Math & Numbers
| Topic | CAT 2017 Morning | CAT 2017 Afternoon | CAT 2018 Morning | CAT 2018 Afternoon | Total |
| Sequence & Series | 2 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 11 |
| Permutation & Combination | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 7 |
| Set Theory | 2 | 2 | 4 | ||
| Numbers | 3 | 1 | 3 | 7 |
Preparation Plan for Quantitative Aptitude
Your Quantitative Aptitude Preparation should ideally begin with Arithmetic because of two reasons:
a) It forms the base of a lot of other topics
b) It has the maximum number of questions in the CAT exam
You can also start with Number Systems but the issue with that is – a lot of students end up spending a lot of time on topics/type of questions which do not deserve that level of attention. It ends up wasting a lot of time. If you can be disciplined, Number System is a good point to start as well.
Your preparation should ideally be divided into two parts:
1) Building a basic understanding
2) Practice and Testing
For part 1 of the preparation process, I would recommend that you go through all the concept videos in the CAT 2019 course. If you are using a book or a coaching institute’s material, this phase 1 should consist of going through the entire theory and all the solved examples that are given in the book. Ideally speaking the time allocation for various sections is given below.
- Arithmetic (2 + 1 weeks)
- Numbers (1 + 1 weeks)
- Geometry (2 + 1 weeks)
- Algebra (2 + 1 weeks)
- Modern Math (1 + 1 weeks)
As you can see, I have mentioned the weeks in 1+1 format. This means that you should try to finish it in 1 week but if you feel that you are not so confident with the topic, then you can take an extra week for that section. I am assuming that you are dedicating 10 hours a week to Quantitative Aptitude for your preparation. The plan given above should not take you more than 10 weeks and by mid-October, this should be done and dusted.
In this 10 week period, you should definitely finish the following:
- Concept Videos
- Solved Example Videos
- Previous Year Question Videos
- Level 1 & Level 2 questions from a book (if time permits)
If there is a topic that you are struggling with and/or a topic that you are not very comfortable with even after going through the videos in the online CAT course, I would strongly recommend that you use the books for CAT and go through some questions from it. Remember it is better to be confident in 70% of the syllabus rather than be average in 100% of the syllabus.
In phase 2 of your preparation, that is the last month of CAT – you should focus completely on improving your score. One of the best ways to do it is to attempt mocks. Please note that attempting a large number of mocks is of no use and it is much more important to analyze the mocks properly rather than attempting more and more of them. Special attention should be given to the easy questions that you are not able to solve. Maybe you would need to go back to the basic concepts in those areas.
I hope that this post would have been helpful to plan your preparation in the last 100 days for the Quantitative Aptitude portion of the CAT 2019 Exam.
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Best of luck!
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