CAT Exam Day Tips: The Routine I Ran Before 20 Mocks

I want to be upfront about what this post is and isn't. My CAT is on 29 November 2026 - about 13 weeks from today - so I haven't sat the real exam, and I'm not going to pretend I have. What I do have is more than 20 full-length mocks behind me, each one run through the same night-before-and-morning-of routine, including the mock where the routine mattered least (a 96, my best score to that point) and the one two days later where nothing about my routine changed and I scored 40 anyway. This is what I've actually learned running that routine on mock day, repeatedly, not a script for a day I haven't lived yet.

Two Days Before: Stop Learning, Start Consolidating

The 48 hours before a mock are not for learning new concepts, and I treat exam day the same way in my head. Here is what I actually do instead:

• Light formula revision: Skim my Quant formula sheet - number systems, time-speed-distance, percentages. No drilling, just refreshing recognition.
• Review my own analysis notes: I read back through what I wrote after my last two or three mocks. What's my default approach on inference questions? What traps do I fall into in tone-based questions? One read-through is enough.
• Check logistics: for a mock this means confirming the test window and login details; for the real exam it'll mean the admit card and photo ID, checked against each other for an exact name match.
• Plan the sitting itself: where I'll be, what's around me, whether anything predictable could interrupt the two-hour block.

The Night Before: Non-Negotiables

Sleep

Eight hours is not optional. Cognitive performance - working memory, attention switching, pattern recognition - degrades measurably after six or fewer hours, and CAT is almost entirely a test of those exact functions. I've taken mocks on too little sleep and taken mocks well-rested, and the difference shows up first in DILR, where set selection needs the kind of clear-headedness that a tired brain simply doesn't have. No last-minute revision compensates for that. Set the alarm, put the phone in another room, sleep.

What I Pack the Night Before

• Whatever ID/admit card the sitting requires, checked and re-checked
• A blue or black ballpoint pen, even when the venue says it'll provide one
• Water, plain and transparent
• A light snack for after, not during

Dinner

A normal, light dinner - something my body is used to. Not the night to try a new restaurant or eat something heavy. I cut caffeine after 6 pm. The goal is steady energy the next morning, not a spike-and-crash cycle.

Morning Routine: 90 Minutes of Calm

I'm up at least 90 minutes before the slot starts. That's enough time to eat, get there, and settle in without rushing.

• Breakfast: slow-release carbohydrates - oats, a banana, eggs on toast. Nothing sugar-heavy that causes a crash mid-section.
• No practice questions: I don't attempt anything the morning of. It adds nothing and risks a confidence knock if I blank on something trivial.
• Arrive early: settling in with time to spare beats scrambling in at the last minute, every time.
• Phone away before the timer starts: off, not silent. Nothing needs my attention in the last few minutes before a two-hour block.

In-Hall Strategy: The First 5 Minutes Matter Most

Which Section I Attempt First

CAT presents VARC, DILR, and Quant as separate timed sections - no moving between them freely, but within a section the order is entirely mine.

I start with VARC. RC passages need cognitive freshness - careful reading, holding the argument structure in mind, distinguishing between close answer choices. Attempting RC after 80 minutes of Quant and DILR fatigue is a recipe for careless errors I've made before. Within VARC, I do RC passages first, then the verbal ability questions (para-jumbles, para-summary, odd one out) as a quicker mental reset between passages.

The Skip-and-Return Rule

Mark anything I can't solve within 90 seconds on the first pass and move on. Staring at a question hoping the answer appears almost never works, and it burns time I could spend securing two easier questions elsewhere. I return to marked questions in the final 10 minutes of each section.

How I Use the Rough Sheet

• DILR: draw the arrangement or table out before reading the questions - it saves re-reading time later.
• Quant: write down the equation rather than holding it in working memory - fewer arithmetic slips.
• VARC RC: a two-word note on tone and paragraph structure, jotted before answering - it anchors me when the options get close.

Managing Time Pressure: What the 96-to-40 Mock Actually Taught Me

The single most common reason I underperform on a mock isn't a knowledge gap, it's time management. On 29 July I scored 96 - my best mock to that point, carried by a strong Quant section. Two days later, on 30 July, I scored 40, with just 2 marks in DILR. Nothing about what I knew changed in 48 hours. What changed was which sets I chose and how long I stayed committed to the wrong one - my own note from that week reads "could have definitely gotten 30 marks." The full comparison is in my complete mock log, and it's the clearest evidence I have that a bad score two days after a great one is a triage failure, not a sign my level dropped.

The rule I now hold myself to without exception: if a question has taken more than three minutes, mark it and move on. A question I spend five minutes on and get wrong costs exactly the same as one I spend two minutes on and get wrong - except the five-minute version also costs the two or three questions I could have answered in that time instead.

After the Mock: What I Actually Do

I don't try to reconstruct questions from memory or compare answers with anyone in the minutes right after. It changes nothing about the score, and a wrong memory of what I answered only adds anxiety before the result is even in. I log the mock, write down what I'd do differently while it's fresh, and give myself the rest of the day before I look at the analysis properly.

What I'll Carry Into the Real Thing

I don't know yet whether this exact routine survives contact with an actual CAT hall in November - I'll find out along with everyone else sitting that day. What I do know is that the countdown on my dashboard has been counting down since I set my goal, every single morning, through 20-plus mocks and every crash and every good day among them. The plan is to keep running this same routine until the number on that countdown hits zero, and trust that the version of it refined across two dozen mocks holds up better than one improvised on the day.

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