 |
 |
| —
Strategies for CAT— |
||||
The
Art of Guessing |
||||
| Guessing,
like pacing, is more important on the CAT than on any other test you
have ever taken. You'll have to guess often on the CAT because: |
||||
You
can't skip questions. If you hit a mental block, you have to guess at
the question in front of you. You can't pass over a question and go
back to it later. Since all answers are final, you have to make sure
your guess is a good one. Most students waste more than 1/3 of their
time bogged down on a handful of tough questions. You have to learn
how to guess, move on, and cut your losses after spending more than
a few minutes on a question. |
||||
At
the end of the test, when time is about to expire, you have to hurry
to make sure to get to every question or else face the severe penalty
for not finishing all the test's questions. Many students have to do
this last minute sprint and are often left guessing on the last few
questions. |
||||
P.O.E |
||||
The
key guessing strategy is P.O.E (process of elimination). A big asset
going into test day is knowing that one of the five possible answers
must be right. If you can eliminate two of the choices, you can increase
your chances of getting the right answer by 65% (from 20%- 1 in 5 to
33% -1 in 3). Here's how to do it... |
||||
Eliminate
answer choices you know are wrong. Even if you don't know the right
answer, you can often tell that some of the answer choices are wrong.
For example, on the Data Sufficiency questions you can eliminate at
least two of the answer choices by determining if one of the statements
is true. |
||||
Avoid
answer choices that look suspicious. For example, on Sentence Correction
questions, beware of any answer choices that look completely different
from all of the other choices. In the Quantitative section, you can
usually eliminate any answers that are negative when all the other answers
are positive. |
||||
Once
you have narrowed down the list of answer choices, pick one of the remainder.
It is a myth that some answer choices, like A or C, are more often correct
than other choices. |
||||
Draw
a Grid |
||||
| If
crossing off answer choices on paper tests helps to clarify your thinking
(using the P.O.E), you might want to consider making a grid on your
scratch paper. By drawing a simple grid and labeling the rows A through
E, you can keep track of which answers you have eliminated by putting
an X in that box. |
||||
The
Importance of Scratch Paper |
||||
| Another
big asset you have going into test day is virtually unlimited scratch
paper. Use it and make sure you have lots of it on test day (Note: calculators
are not allowed). |
||||
You'll
need scratch paper because you are taking a test off of a computer screen,
and you can't write on the screen. The result is that you'll often have
to carefully copy much of the question down onto paper without miscopying
the information. This is awkward and difficult. It takes valuable time
to recopy information and it increases the chance of a hurried error,
so you have to be careful about what you copy and what you don't copy.
Try to use scratch paper extensively on your practice tests to get a
feel for this. |
||||
Experiments
on CATs |
||||
| About
1/3 of the questions on the CAT are experimental and will be randomly
mixed in with your normal questions. In these questions you are being
used as a guinea pig for experimentation to assess the difficulty of
the question. In the future, that question may be positioned at a difficulty
level depending on how students performed on it when it was an experimental
question. |
||||
The
consequence of the experimental questions is that you can't rely on
all the questions being at your difficulty level. In other words, if
you are a high scorer you can't expect all the questions past question
five to be difficult (at your level). Try to avoid obsessing over how
hard your questions are as a measure of your performance. |
||||
Don't
Panic |
||||
| If
you have a bad day, you have the option of canceling. When you finish
the test, the computer will offer the option of canceling the test or
accepting it. If you cancel the test neither you nor any school will
see your score. If you accept the test, the computer will display your
score and it will be available to all schools (official scores will
be mailed about two weeks later). Relax and make sure to schedule the
test far in advance of when it is due. Make sure you have adequate time
to cancel and reschedule the test if necessary. |
||||
 |
||||
| |
||||