Tips to Crack PGDM Entrance Exams

PGDM is one of the most preferred post graduation course by many of the students soon after the completion of their degree. The moment when PGDM course strikes in one’s mind many of the students completely shift their focus towards preparations of PGDM entrance exams and concentrate on how to crack these PGDM entrance exams. 

The first thing that comes to mind for many students, when it comes to PGDM entrance is the Common Admission Test (CAT) and also many other entrance exams that are available.

CAT exams are the most popular and attractive exams and everybody dreams to crack this exam. This is only because the CAT exams allow the students to get into IIMs which are nothing but the top B-Schools of the country. Just as JEE is for engineers to get into IITs, CAT is for any PGDM aspirant to get into the IIMs.

Similarly, there are numerous types of entrance exams like Management Aptitude Test (MAT), Common Management Aptitude Test (CMAT), Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT), AIIMS Test for Management Admissions (ATMA) and even some of the institutional-based entrance exams for PGDM admissions.

Although these exams are tough due to high competition, a smarter approach towards them can help one to come out successfully with flying colours and students can join their dream colleges for studying their PGDMs. It’s better to understand details about the different PGDM entrance exams that are available, so that the students can have a clarity on which exam to appear.

The present article tries to remove the myths that are prevailing around the PGDM entrance exams among the students. These tips can definitely help the students to reach their PGDM ambitions and also helps them to remove the misconceptions that are flocking around the different PGDM entrance exams.

Type of Exam

As already mentioned above there are a number of PGDM entrance exams like CAT, MAT, CMAT, XAT, ATMA and others. CAT is always the harder one, when compared to the other three exams. This may be for various reasons like unpredictable question paper patterns, severe negative marking, high competition, etc.

The same is carried to the next exam that is MAT, but it is comparatively less when compared to CAT. When we speak about MAT exams, it is comparatively easier to CAT. However, the MAT scores are considered by Tier 2 B-Schools and one can pursue their PGDM in these colleges. When talking about XAT and ATMA, these exams are much easier when compared to CAT and MAT. The students can pursue their PGDM in UGC and AICTE recognised colleges and universities by qualifying these exams.

The students are required to decide on which colleges they want to join for their PGDM course and prepare accordingly for the specific entrance exams. This is to be decided on various factors like budget constraints, location, type of college, etc. So, it is essential for every PGDM aspirant to make his/her decision about their desired colleges for PGDM programmes before attempting any of these entrance exams.

Be Strong in your Fundamentals

Fundamentals are the key for any success or achievement. Take an example of a building, unless the base is not strong, the structure cannot stand strong and high as a skyscraper. Similarly, the same holds good for entrance exams preparations. The students should focus more on their fundamentals and ensure to have a  full grip on their fundamentals before attempting any exams.

The focus should be more on fundamentals when it comes to cracking these entrance exams at the preparation stage. The more the fundamentals are strong the more is the chance to crack these exams with high marks.

Planning and Strategy

In order to crack any exam a proper planning and strategy is needed to reach the goal. The students who have made up their mind to join PGDM course should do proper planning and apply best strategies that will help them to reach success. The students should have an in-depth understanding on what exactly these exams are and how it can be cracked. A simple google search can give you tons of information about these exams.

Understanding them and applying proper planning and strategies that can help the students to reach their goals. The students should maintain a daily schedule for preparations by planning their study hours.

Proper strategies should be applied to understand the concepts of different sections like Logical Reasoning, Quantitative Aptitude, Data analysis and other sections of the exam papers. The best strategies for any exam are practice and time management. Time management and Practice will go hand-in-hand and the more the students practice the more they can conquer the control over time management.

Focus on Weakness

Now that the students have chosen their exams, the next step is how to prepare for these exams. The very first thing is to focus on the weaknesses. Work hard on the weaknesses and improve on strong points. There are different sections in the papers; some are easy but some are not. Quantitative Aptitude, Logical reasoning, data sufficiency, data analysis and data interpretation are the various sections that should be kept in mind for improving the weakness areas. They are inevitable yet unavoidable. Sorting out the weaknesses can help to create new tactics to counter any problems that one may face during the exam. One should not neglect the strong points; both the ends should be given equal importance when it comes to preparations.

Build Self Confidence

Self Confidence is the best path towards success. The students should not get distracted by competition and lose confidence in themselves; this is the biggest mistake that every student makes when it comes to preparation for entrance exams. The next biggest question is How to gain this confidence? Confidence can be achieved by having a strong grip on the fundamental knowledge. The fundamentals can be strong by doing through preparations. Along with this they also work on time management. The more the students practice during their preparations will help them to achieve better time management in exams.

Time management also plays an important role to gain confidence. The more the students prepare and practice, it gives them a strong control over time management. Time management is the only best way to achieve success in any of the high- competition entrance exams.

Observation

One must clearly observe what one sees. Cracking the PGDM entrance exams may be difficult but it is not impossible. The students should observe previous year question papers to understand the pattern of the questions. They are advised to solve these papers with stop clocks, so that they can have a better strategy for time management. The last 5-years question papers will give a detailed understanding of how the questions have appeared in the past and trends of the future. This observation roughly gives an idea of the questions and it can be easy to predict questions.

Practice

The famous proverb in English “Practice makes man perfect” can be aptly applied and effectively executed while preparing for PGDM entrance exams. The PGDM aspirants should practice a lot of questions from various sources before attempting the exams. The effective practice sessions will boost one’s confidence to a large extent. 

Choose the questions from different sections and practice them to the max. The practice of questions will also help the students for time management. Time management plays a key role in all these entrance exams. The students should solve the questions in a smart way such that time management is achieved effectively. 

The students are further suggested to solve the previous year’s question papers and many mock question papers that are available in both online and offline modes. They should try to solve all of them for better understanding of the question paper patterns. There are many online learning platforms that offer exclusive mock tests for PGDM entrance exams so enrolling for few of them can help the students. In due course of preparation, the students should try to solve all these mock tests, so that they get explored to a vast number of questions. This further boosts the confidence in students and they become more experts when it comes to paper solving.

Coaching and Self Preparation for PGDM Entrance exams

Coaching and self-preparation are required to ace the PGDM entrance exams. Some students may think that only coaching is mandatory for cracking the PGDM entrance exams, but many feel that self-study is far better than joining coaching institutes. But in reality, both are necessary for performing better in entrance exams.

Joining the coaching classes can help us to understand where we stand in the competition. It is a bitter truth that competition is very much high, but when it comes to PGDM entrance exams the coaching may help us with some clarity about our approach towards the question paper. 

Based on the inputs obtained from coaching institutes, one can focus on strategies and implement them while doing self-learning. But not to forget only strong determination and focused approach, can help to easily crack these exams without any hiccups. The coaching institutes show us a path towards success, but at the end of day it solely depends upon our preparedness and efforts and our dedication towards these exams.

Coaching and Self-preparation goes hand-in-hand; when it comes to preparation for these exams.  To perform better in exams, one has to take suggestions from coaching institutions and try to implement them in their self-learning procedures. The unique mix of coaching and self-learning procedures can certainly help the students to have a better focused approach towards these PGDM entrance exams. 

If this is followed correctly then no one can stop the aspiring students from getting successful in exams. As a matter of fact, the students who have a dedicated and focused approach with better preparations with the help of both coaching and self-learning procedures have passed these exams with flying colours.

Avoid Common Mistakes 

As humans we all tend to make mistakes in our life, but it is to be noted that mistakes should not be done at a cost of our careers by putting them in jeopardy. The students in a hurry tend to make silly mistakes that may cost them huge in these exams. Never forget that even the mistakes are counted, due to negative marking patterns. The silly mistakes may cost the students with negative markings from the main score and one may lose in the competition by ending up in gaining more negative marks instead of positive marks. 

The students should not take wild guesses and answer the papers. They should only attempt the questions that they are confident and capable of solving. Blindly answering all the questions will not fetch any marks but they can surely deceive the students. Try to answer only the questions that are known, for that a thorough preparation and practice is essential.

Determination, Dedication, Discipline along with some rest to your body

Last but not the least, the level of the determination and dedication is what decides the future fates of any students. One must have a single minded objective that he/she must pass these exams with high-scores and land in their dream colleges. One should be dedicated and determined only to prove that he/she is a better aspirant than anyone. Maintain discipline in what he/she is must do to be better than themselves

And not to forget the rest for the body. Preparation for these exams doesn’t mean that one should skip the sleep and avoid rest to the body completely, this is one of the common mistakes that every dedicated student makes to themselves. This is wrong and this habit may cost the health and may even hamper the preparations. The body needs rest, after tiring study hours it is essential to maintain consistency in preparations. 

Consistency is the key factor for any exams, many people get frustrated and lose constancy in their preparation. This is not a right practice for the preparations.So, it is strongly recommended to give proper rest to the body during the preparations and ensure to maintain consistency throughout your preparation phase. 

These four things are important to make anyone stand out from the crowd and lead the way towards success.

Final Words

PGDM entrance exam preparations can be tiring, but a proper and channelized approach can convert the tiring attitude into an interest that makes any student achieve his/her goal of pursuing the PGDM course in top colleges of the country. 

The above were the key steps that can surely help one to achieve success in their preparations and shows them a definite path of success.  The students are advised to follow these steps and prepare wholeheartedly with dedication. And success is definitely assured and they can reach greater heights in their careers with a PGDM degree in hand.