PREPARATION AND TIPS FOR 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 doesn’t 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, let’s 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 LSAT’s 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 don’t feel confident about
your mathematical concepts, I suggest you go through the ‘mathematics review’ section of
any good GRE book (Barron’s 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 won’t 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 won’t come across many questions that you won’t 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 it’s 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 don’t 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 don’t 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.
- Don’t get stuck on a question. If you can’t 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.
- Don’t 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 15 mins for the verbal section that consists of 25 questions,
check after 8 questions if you have completed them in 5 mins. If not, then you
need to compensate for this in the next 8 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 don’t leave any question unattempted.

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR TEST!

Zain Hassan

LINKS

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

Barron’s 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