With CAT being the next thing up on students calendars, lets find out how a CAT aspirants life changes in the run-up to the exam

Ask a Common Admission Test (CAT) aspirant a jovial Wass up these days and the most likely reply you get will be nothing more than a long, sombre look, followed by some baffling CAT jargon. In some cases, there will be a sudden explosion of expletives directed towards the CAT exam in general, the tension surrounding it, the hype and hoopla and the godly status bestowed on this mere exam. On a serious note, this exam only pulls down an individuals performance, and does nothing better than frustrating the candidate.
Rajesh, student of a well-known business school and a former CAT aspirant, says, This CAT thingy, its not be all end all, I tell you. Its just because of our bandwagon mindsets that we bestow a whole lot of unnecessary importance on this thing. People need to understand that it’s just an exam. Haven’t we all been writing exams since our kindergarten days
People say CAT asks for some high-funda aptitude. Well, thats a fallacy, feels Vikas Bhalla, a faculty member at a CAT training institute. The fact is that CAT is more about attitude than aptitude. To crack this exam, you must have common sense and presence of mind, which stay with you even when your anxiety levels shoot up, even when you are under severe time crunch, and even when the exam is proving to be an utter surprise for you. Nine out of ten times, people who make it have exactly this attitude in life, Vikas says.
As found with most students who have high stakes riding on this exam, their social life, especially with those who are in a relationship, gets badly entangled between the intricacies of the rigid CAT and their partner.
CAT aspirant Sunil Verma says, From my girlfriend to the time I spend hanging out with friends, everything is affected badly. I cant take a stern decision on where to stand. Juggling social life with serious CAT preps can prove to be very tricky, more so with the oodles of parental and peer pressure that you are under.
Legend goes there will be around 3 lakh odd students taking CAT this year too. If one tries to figure out his chances of clearing the exam, say welcome to a quintal more of anxiety and a notch less of performance. As Vikas Bhalla adds matter-of-factly, Hard work coupled with smart work will take you through, not mulling over unnecessary stuff. Eventually, it will all come down to you and the CAT paper, face to face, and then it will be all about who outsmarts whom!