PREPARATION AND TIPS FOR COMMONWEALTH GENERAL SCHOLARSHIP

TEST / NTS GAT GENERAL

GAT General is a competitive test conducted by National Testing Service

(NTS) and constitutes the first stage of assessment for the prestigious
Commonwealth General Scholarship. Acing this test will give the aspirants a
good shot at bagging the scholarship and though the test apparently doesnt
look very intimidating, it can turn into a nightmare if insufficient time and
efforts are put in its preparation. In this document, I will share the ways in
which you can prepare for the test and some tips and strategies that will help
you give your best on the test day.

TEST STRUCTURE

First things first, lets start with the basic structure of the test. The test for
Commonwealth General Scholarship is structurally the same as a GAT
General test except for slight differences in the weightages of each of the
three sections i.e. Verbal, Quantitative and Analytical Reasoning.

- The Verbal section assesses your English language skills on an elementary

level (I say elementary because it is very easy compared to tests like GRE)
and is intended to test your vocabulary, grammar and comprehension skills.
Questions in this section would usually be grammar/vocabulary based fill-in-
the-blanks, synonyms/antonyms, analogies and one or two short passages
followed by related questions.

- The Quantitative section is a test of your mathematical abilities but to

accommodate test-takers from various fields of study, this section is limited
to only very basic mathematical concepts (if you did reasonably good in your
Matric/O-Level Maths, you should be able to handle this section). Questions
generally revolve around, but are not limited to, the concepts of ratios and
proportions, geometry, exponents and roots, fractions, percentages and the
like.

- The Analytical Reasoning section is a test of your analytical skills. It majorly

includes questions based on logic puzzles that assess your ability to
understand a few scenarios and organise individual elements in each
scenario based on a set of constraints. It also includes a few questions that
require you to draw logical conclusions from a given statement or a set of
statements.

TEST PREPARATION

The first obvious way to prepare for this test is to consult GAT General books
published by Dogar and Ilmi. These books are useful for familiarizing yourself
with the test pattern and

include samples of practice test papers and you can find them easily in any
major book store. If you are willing to put some extra efforts in your
preparation, I would recommend using the GRE Big Book (link given at the
end of the document) for the verbal section, especially the comprehension
and analogies in this book are very useful. For analytical reasoning, I would
recommend practicing LSATs logic games. In the links section, you will find
an LSAT strategy guide that explains how to tackle these questions using
grouping strategies and organizational diagrams. Moreover, you can google
LSAT logic games and try and practice as many questions as you can. For the
quantitative section, if you dont feel confident about your mathematical
concepts, I suggest you go through the mathematics review section of any
good GRE book (Barrons GRE can be found in the links section). Another
very comprehensive guide is the Collins GCSE Maths Instant Revision (link
given) which covers majority of the topics tested in the GAT test.

TIPS AND STRATEGIES

Although the passing mark of a GAT test is 50, it is a few tens short of a
scholarship-winning score. The competition for Commonwealth Scholarships
is fierce which means that just passing the test wont help the cause. You
should set your eyes on a score that is between 80 and 90. The nomination is
based on quota which means that the merit for provinces that have more
competition is usually higher. The usual merit cut-off scores are: Punjab 85-
87, Sindh(Urban) 82-84, KPK 82-84, Sindh(Rural) 78-80, Balochistan
78-80, FATA/GB 78-80. These are rough guidelines and actual cut-off scores
every year may differ. Nevertheless, your goal must be to score above 85 to
give yourself a good chance of getting nominated.

In my experience, there are two things in the test that would either make or
break your score; time management and the analytical section. The difficulty
level of the test is such that under no time limitation, you wont come across
many questions that you wont be able to answer but the trick is to be able to
make conscious attempts at all 100 questions during that 2-hour time
window. Majority of the people struggle with time management in the test
and end up blindly guessing a good 15-20 questions, at which point its highly
unlikely for them to get a winning score. Secondly, the analytical section that
is 40% of the total weightage constitutes a major percentage of the test. The
questions are structured such that around 5-6 questions usually relate to one
particular scenario which means that if you dont understand the scenario
clearly, there is a chance that you might end up answering most of them
wrong. So essentially, if you learn to deal with scenario-based questions and
you learn to finish the test in time (given that you already have a reasonable
command of the English language and basic maths), you can significantly
improve your chances of a high score.

I have accumulated a list of tips and strategies that have helped me do well in
the

test and that you can use too to improve your score.

During your preparation:

- Start early! Do not leave your preparation to the last minute. Identify your
weak areas and work on them first.

- Figure out the number of sample test papers available to you. Solve one test
paper at the start of your preparation (you can do it without time limit) and
check your scores for each section. This will help you to identify your weak
areas. Work on your weak areas and leave the rest of the test papers for later
when you are finished with your preparation. Do not randomly solve sample
test paper questions because that would defeat the purpose of leaving them
for later to practice under timed conditions. Use the GRE Big Book and LSAT
books if you feel the need to practice questions.

- Once you are satisfied with your preparation, open the sample test papers
and do each one of them under timed conditions. Make sure you are
undisturbed throughout the whole test. By the end of your last practice test,
if you manage to make conscious attempts at 95-100 questions within the
time limit, you are likely to manage your time well in the actual test too.

- One important strategy that has proved very useful for me is determining
the time allocation for each section and the order in which the sections are
attempted. In my opinion, these are two very important decisions that you
need to make before you sit in the test according to what suits you. After
sitting in several GAT tests, I have figured out that the following is best-suited
for me:

o Time allocation: Verbal 20 mins (0.6 min/question) Quantitative 30 mins

(1.2 min/question) Analytical 70 mins (1.75 min/question)

o Order of attempt: Quantitative-Analytical-Verbal (QAV)

- As far as time allocation and order of attempt go, there is nothing set in
stone and what might work for someone else might not work for you. One
way to figure out what suits you is to do each of your timed practice tests
with different combinations of time allocation and order of attempt and see
which one helps you score better and manage time well. However, one word
of advice is that in your time allocation, make sure you allow more than 1
min/question for the analytical section and in your order of attempt, try not
to leave it for last because the stress levels are high near the end of the test
and considering the nature of the questions in this section, you will be prone
to making plenty of mistakes.

While in the test:

- As soon as the time starts, just have one quick look through the booklet to
make sure that there are no missing pages but dont waste your time reading
questions in all sections or assessing the difficulty level of the test. Get to the
first section from your chosen order of attempt right away.

- Dont get stuck on a question. If you cant seem to find the answer but have
narrowed it down to 2 of the choices, mark small dots beside these options
so you can choose one of them when you get back to it later.

- Dont look at the time too often. A sensible way to keep track of time is to
check the time after you finish one-third and then two-thirds of a section. For
instance, if you have allocated 20 mins for the verbal section that consists of
35 questions, check after 12 questions if you have completed them in 6-7
mins. If not, then you need to compensate for this in the next 12 questions.

- All said, there is still a chance that you might run out of time near the end of
the test. Since there is no negative marking, you can resort to blind guesses
in the last minute and make sure you dont leave any question unattempted.

LINKS

GRE Big Book: https://www.crazyengineers.com/attachments/gre-big-book-pdf.395/

Barrons GRE: http://web.csulb.edu/~acarter3/course- carterlab/Barrons_New_GRE_19th_ed.pdf

LSAT Strategy Guide: http://www.lsat-center.com/LG%20Book%20Excerpt.pdf

Collins GCSE Instant Revision:

http://studyguide.pk/Notes/Collins%20Revision/GCSE_Mathematics__Instant_Revision_.pdf