Once CAT gets over, relief and lack of motivation follow. Hence you tend to overlook a few things during this crucial phase. From my experiences, I have a list of suggestions that might be useful to the candidates in the coming days:
· You would have always thought about reading newspapers but might not have started it yet! And now people might be suggesting you to read Manorama year book to prepare for GK! It’s great if you can do that, but if you can’t, then the bare minimum you can do is to start reading the Opinions and Editorials of http://www.thehindu.com/. Opinions are quite lengthy and you must read every opinion in one go as this will prepare you for the lengthy RCs of IIFT, provide you with excellent perspective for your GD-PI rounds and improve your GK. Keep following basic news so that you do not miss sitters from GK in the exams.
· If you are a Facebook addict, ‘like’ the Facebook page of The Economic Times and make sure you read something on that page every time you log on to Facebook. Read the page of ‘Indian Economy’ from Wikipedia. You will come across unknown terms while reading that page and you should search meaning of such terms and understand those. If you have a Smartphone, download the app for Mint (HT Media Ltd.) and get regular updates of business news on your phone.
· If you are very strong in a particular section and you did not perform well in that section in NMAT, then definitely go for a retake. If your score is somewhere close to expected cut-off, go for a retake.
· Although IIFT might have sectional cut-offs, these cut-offs are quite low. Hence worrying too much about sectional cut-off in IIFT would not help much. Make sure you attempt a few questions in every section to avoid mishaps, but then go for your stronger sections will full vigour.
· Vocabulary has a crucial role to play in the exams to follow. So improve your vocabulary by using the Vocabulary section in the study material of different coaching institutes and by giving mock tests.
· The Decision Making section in XAT can be a make or break section for many. It is not a difficult section at all if you have done some relevant practice through mocks and previous year papers. It is excellent if you can attend some classes for Decision Making by a good faculty or take help from a friend who usually aces this section.
· Unless you have absolutely messed up CAT, fill the form of FMS and do not skip it out of laziness thinking that you will anyhow not get a call from that college! Make sure you write the SOP (Statement of Purpose) in the FMS form with proper guidance from someone who has written SOPs before. Questions from your SOP are bound to crop up in your FMS interview later.
All the Best!!