CAT 2009: Tips to beat stress, stay focussed

The CAT is just about a week away and it is to be expected that your tension levels are shooting through the roof. To help you keep your focus and stress levels under control, try these stress-buster tips.

Positive visualisation
Take a moment to sit with your eyes closed and visualise yourself achieving the ideal outcome. You have to convince yourself that your hard work will pay off, and this includes convincing your subconscious. Repeated negative thoughts seep into your subconscious and eat away at your energy and confidence. This is not the time to do a postmortem of what you have studied so far. Rather, tell yourself that whatever you have studied will help you in the test.

Re-strategise
You are your best study coach. You know your weaknesses and strengths, and, if you feel the need, this is the best time to use that knowledge to rehash your strategies. Take a few mock tests, applying various strategies, so that each paper enables you to achieve better results. This might not be the best time to start with new topics. Instead, collate your thoughts and organise your approach patterns. Gravitating towards such "can do" possibilities will also generate genuine confidence.

Tune your sleeping pattern
If your sleep pattern is topsy-turvy and you find yourself burning the midnight oil too often, your brain will get accustomed to shifting into alert mode during the night and relax mode during the day. For this year's CAT, you will need to be at your sharpest at the time you have chosen as your test slot. Regulate your sleeping pattern accordingly and remember that your body will take a while to get used to the new pattern. So it's best to start off with adjusting your sleep pattern it at the earliest possible time. Yes, that means tonight!

Believe in yourself
Right before a paper, some people feel convinced that they wouldn't do well, in spite of their hard work. But there are plenty of cases of people who 'logically' thought their efforts wouldn't amount to much, but continued in their endeavour anyway, because they trusted that they did have a chance. Thanks to their faith, many of them are now in the IIMs and other top institutes. Trust your intuition. Allow yourself to imagine what it would feel like if you achieve your goal --cracking the CAT and coming out with flying colours.

Body and mind
This is a crucial time to take care of your health -- physical and mental. No, we aren't going to suggest a gym subscription. It's simple things that count, like drinking enough water in the day to relieve tension or eating light food to keep your mood and energies up. The day before the test, keep your cool by listening to songs, calling up a friend who motivates you or watching a movie. If possible, do some relaxation exercises to keep your mind calm.

Re-focus
Take a break when you find you are losing focus. Forcing yourself to focus for too long can have a detrimental effect on your overall performance if it generated unwanted pressure, boredom or fatigue. When you find your mind wandering, take a short break. Schedule regular intervals, but in these breaks, do activities that keep you relaxed and don't engage your mind too much, since it's important to keep your mind free of distractions when you get back to your studies.

Avoid distractions
It is not the best time for a new video game, TV or redecoration. Anything that will keep your attention distracted, be it a new computer or rock band in your city, try to keep your mind clear of it. It's just a short jog till the end of the race, but it counts a lot. No matter how tempting the distractions, remember, losing your focus at this time could mean ruining the months of hard work you have put in so far!

Last minute to-dos
Avoid last-minute tension by finding out the exact route to your CAT centere. Go through the CAT 2009 FAQs and ensure that you are clear all guidelines and are carrying all the required documents. Be at the centre well in advance and stay clear of negative or tension-generating discussions. If you find yourself feeling anxious, sit in solitude and practise deep breathing. Keep your attention on your test and put up a fight till the very last minute.

Connect with a mentor
When in need of guidance, you could turn to a mentor. A person whose advice you trust, who will listen to your problem and help you work towards a constructive solution. This might be a friend, a parent, relative or even your CL mentor. There are plenty of people who have successfully steered through CAT, and their example may be of help to you. Meet such people around you or online and listen to what they have to say. Sometimes, another person's perspective adds to our own.

FMS Entrance Exam 2009 Results out !

The results for FMS Entrance Exam 2009 are now available online. Click here to see the results.

FMS Entrance Exam is the entrance test conducted by Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Delhi for admission to its MBA programmes.

TestFunda.com Summer Internship 2009

Hey guys testfunda.com is conducting summer internships apart from their regular placements.Read below to know more..

Job Profiles
All positions are based at our Lower Parel, Mumbai office
1. Programming(very good for all bsc specially comp science)
Role Description:
- Object oriented programming concepts
- Product development in JavaScript, HTML, C#, .NET, Flash ActionScript and SQL server
Specifications:
-Logical and analytical thinking skills
- Affinity for programming
- 2 year Bond
Pay Package: 3.3 lakhs CTC
2. Content Authoring (CAT)( very good for those good in English or maths)
Role description:
- Research, collate & write compelling content for e-learning projects
- Analyze the subject matter
- Create practice and assessment questions
- Work with graphic artists to develop visual elements
- Review final course prior to delivery
Specifications:
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Superior attention to detail and follow-through
- 1 year Bond
Pay Package: 3.3 Lakhs CTC
3. Business Development
Role description:
- Developing sales in assigned areas and targeting new markets
- Identifying industry & business with a potential for marketing company’s product
- Handling customer inquiries received through various channels and ensuring timely replies
- Extensive traveling
Specifications:
- Proactive orientation
- Good negotiating and influencing skills
- Strong collaboration & teamwork skills
Pay Package: 2.4 + 0.9 Lakh incentive


4. Relationship Executive
Role Description:
- Relationship building and client servicing over voice and web
Specifications:
- Good negotiating and influencing skills
- Proficiency in spoken and written English
- Possess working knowledge of computers
Pay Package: 1.2 + 1 Lakh incentive
5. Summer Internship
Role description:
- Based on the requirement and competence of the candidate, the candidate will be assigned a job amongst various job profiles available at that point of time.
- The Candidate will be exposed to various functions during the course of internship and if found suitable, he/she may be extended an offer of full-time employment.
Specifications:
- Strong Communication, Creative and Problem-solving skills
- Strong collaboration & teamwork skills
- Lots of initiative- willing to learn new concepts and apply them
- Superior attention to detail and follow-through
Salary: 20,000 + 10,000 incentive
Internship period: 6 to 8 weeks

CAT 2008 results declared

As expected, the CAT 2008 results are out today(9th January 2009).

Here's the link: CAT 2008 Results

Increase Reading speed Trick -Reading Comprehension (RC) for CAT

Many of us struggle with Reading Comprehension mainly because of the time constraint that these competetive exams put on us. Given sufficient time we could leisurely read and comprehend. So the main thing is speed reading along with comprehension.

Speed reading trick :

Take a Reading Comprehension passage and invert it. You read it right. Invert it ! Now read in between the lines. Sounds strange?? Yes it might. But i promise you a greater reading speed. Do it ! Run your eyes through the white spaces between the lines while the passage is inverted. Run your eyes as quickly as possible.Once you've run your eyes through the white space between two lines, move to the space between the next two lines. Keep doing this till you reach the end of the passage. All this while your passage is inverted. Did you comprehend anything? The answer is a big NO ! The answer to this is a bit below. Read on !

Do the above excersise 2-3 times and make sure the passage you take contains about 600-800 words.

Now get the passage uninverted as in the normal reading manner. Now run your eyes again along the white spaces between the lines. Repeat the entire process as above (2-3 times again) .

After doing this exercise you might feel slight heaviness in the head. That's normal ! This is because you ran your eyes so fast(hope you did it- do it as quickly as you can...just run your eyes swiftly) , something that you never did before. So relax your eyes for a few minutes. You will be fine.

Keep doing this exercise for a minimum of 30 days continuously. You will not gain without continuous efforts. No one gains from any exercise without continuity, let it be sportsmen, musicians,body builders or anyone else. Your aim is to build a consistently quick reading speed so please be consistent in your efforts too. 30 dayz at least !

Comprehension:

Now comes the comprehension part something I din't talk about uptil now. I did this deliberately. Remember I told you you wouldnt understand anything the first time you read in between the lines along the white spaces that is. Yes ! Why would you? White spaces contain no information. But Hey ! Wait a minute. As dayz go by, you will start to realise that the letter below the white space start gettin into your vision, slowly that is, but they will. The reason why you must run your eyes through the white spaces is because there would be no obstruction of any form.Its plain white space ! Within a few dayz the words will start getting into your sight and you must continue to read in between the lines itself. But you might still not comprehend. This is mainly because brain is bombarded with information at such a fast rate something your brain wasn't used to all this while. If this wasn't the case you wouldn't be reading this right now. Slowly just like the words started coming into your sight even comprehension will take place. But you must continue to run your eyes as quickly as possible along the white lines. Don't compromise on speed. The idea is to read damn fast and to train your brain to understand the passage at that speed. Your brain needs time for this. That's why you need to check yourself after 2-3 months after using this technique. The first few days will yield nothing.Its mere training your eyes and brain. Please comment below about the results you find for yourself. I'm sure it will help. If it doesen't I'll willingly help you out. But please don't just conclude anything without trying for yourself. And with trying i mean trying for 2-3 months for 10 minutes everyday. Don't miss even a single day , because if you don't you will surely see results for yourself. If it helps you please comment down below and spread the word too. Good luck with your efforts !