The quantitative Ability section in CAT, is a pivotal component, designed to evaluate candidates' numerical aptitude and mathematical proficiency. Here are some tips for students aiming to perform well in the Quantitative Ability section. One of the most common questions students ask is: Which topics are important for CAT? Can we predict which mathematical topics carry more weight than others in CAT? The answer is both yes and no. Over the years, we have observed substantial changes in the weightage of some topics, while others have maintained nearly the same weightage as a decade ago. So, how should one plan? Let's divide the CAT Quantitative Ability syllabus into four groups and then devise a plan based on the weightage of various topics in the previous year's papers.

Arithmetic plays an important role in CAT exam, if you look at the pattern of recent CAT, approximately 50% of the paper is based on Arithmetic.  So completely revise each topic of Arithmetic and practice an adequate number of questions to get a deeper understanding of the topics. Arithmetic alone can fetch you the required marks to clear the cutoff. Any additional question is a bonus! Look at the topic-wise distribution of CAT 2021.

CAT 2021 Topic-wise distribution
Arithmetic: 12 Questions
Geometry: 3 Questions
Algebra: 3 Questions
Others (Higher Maths): 4 questions

How much score is a good score?

Though your performance in CAT is a measure of how you perform in comparison to others, yet on the basis of the previous year's papers it can be concluded that if you attempt 12 to 13 questions with good accuracy then you will be in the top 5% of the population and your percentile will be around 95. So getting around 10 questions correct should be your target. Most of these questions can be managed from Arithmetic, Basic Algebra, and Geometry. 

How to plan?

Planning to complete the syllabus may be different for students, a student who is good at mathematics, should complete all the topics along with Arithmetic and Geometry. While a student who is an average performer should focus more on Arithmetic and Geometry. You can expect 10 to 15 questions from these two topics and with decent accuracy, a student can reach a good score in the Quantitative Ability section. 

There are three stages of preparation for any topic :

• Study the basic theory and solve some examples of easy-to-average difficulty levels. 

• Solve questions from practice exercises and identify the weak areas in the topic, where you can possibly commit a mistake. Practice these types of questions again. 

• Revise and take online tests and analyze them, note that only taking a test is of little use if we don't analyze it in detail to identify the mistakes.  

Take Online Tests:

As mentioned above, taking a test is very important to identify weak areas. Don’t worry about the low score on the test as a low score on a test does not imply that your preparation is poor, remember that wherever you start, just focus on improving from that score every day. That’s the key.

Be consistent and practice daily. Develop the skill progressively with the help of practice questions. Consistency is the key.

Role of Alternate Methods in Quantitative Ability:

Some questions (but not all) can be solved using tricks and choice elimination. You will encounter various question types, with some solvable only through traditional methods and others easily addressed through choice elimination. My sincere advice to students is to be familiar with the choice elimination method, but avoid relying too heavily on it. There are instances where questions are deceptive and cannot be solved solely through choice elimination, leading to potential negative scores.

Look at the following example from CAT 2017.

At first glance, the question looks quite simple and we may try putting values of \(a\) and \(b\) from the choices and quickly we reach the first choice. But wait, the question says that both \(a\) and \(b\) are integers of opposite signs, so the first choice is not correct.  After solving this question traditionally, we get \(a = 15\) and \(b = -6\). And then the ratio \({a^2}:{b^2}\) is 25 : 4. We see that from the ratio, it is very difficult to reach values of \(a\) and \(b\).

Always read the question carefully:

Many times students overlook some parts of the question which can make the answer completely wrong. It is advised to read questions very carefully, especially when the question has a phrase of the type integers, positive integers, non-negative integers, odd/even numbers, more than, not more than, etc. Look at this example from CAT 2021.

By solving this we may quickly conclude that \( - 4 \le n \le 5\), so there are 10 values of \(n\), but this is completely wrong as the question requires \(3 + {3^{n + 1}}\) to be an integer. So we must select the values of \(n\) carefully. Here  \(n + 1 \ge 0\) or \(n \ge  - 1\). Therefore \(n\) can take the following values \( - 1,\,\,0,\,\,1,\,\,2,\;3,\;4,\;5\). 

Keep solving.. Keep learning, as skill in mathematics is developed by thinking and solving and not by just reading. 

With Best wishes!