Four-Time Topper, Patrick D’Souza’s ProTips on How to Ace CAT

CAT exams can be really tough to crack and more than a fair share of Indian students sitting for the same, have usually spent months locked up in their rooms, hoping the hard work pays off.

But to Patrick D’souza, CAT has become a bit of a breeze. Having taken them 14 different times, he has succeeded in scoring a whopping 100 percentile for the fourth time in a row.

Speaking to The Quint, D’souza, who runs a coaching centre for students preparing for CAT in Thane and Dadar, says that the trick to acing the notoriously competitive exams, is not just to study smart and selectively, but to go beyond the textbooks and figure out fresh, new alternative solutions to the questions marking the different sections.

One important thing about the CAT examinations is that you need to enjoy it. That’s the first rule.

Patrick D’souza

While speaking about how it’s natural to feel pressurised before taking the exams, he also says that students who take time out to read, write or even solve puzzles, will always fare the best in the same.

This is due to the fact that developing these skills will help them think outside of the box, and tackle the standard questions of the paper in unique and alternative ways - which in all probability, will make them produce greater answers.

Try to come up with new, alternative solutions to the standard problems in the paper. When you try alternative solutions, something will always click and you’ll end up acing the exams. 

Patrick D’souza

In terms of taking mock tests before the exams, he said that instead of taking a hundred of them, which is the standard rule for the uninitiated, students should analyze the two or three that they have taken and chalk out a pattern in their answers and improve upon them.

He also said that they should discuss the answers that they have written in the mock tests with each other, because they would be able to learn new techniques and solutions from one another.

“CAT is also as much a psychological exam, as it is anything else,” he said, adding that once students recognise this, their approach to taking them could be altered, something which if they worked upon, would make them the next batch of toppers.

Edit: Veeru Krishan Mohan

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