Need Guidance on Balancing CAT Preparation with a Full-Time Job

"I am a good and fairly fast reader, but I often struggle to retain what I have read." That is called poor reading beta. What use is reading if you can't retain it?? I am sure a 5th standard kid can read a PhD research paper pretty quickly without retaining anything. That retention is the only thing that matters, no?? So, this was a highly overconfident answer. If you can't retain what you have read - it means you are artificially reading at a speed which is way above your level. You can boast of it to win arguments, but it is useless for all practical purposes. "My comfort with numbers is quite average, although I can solve most Arithmetic Level 1 and Level 2 questions across different topics. " While the first answer was overconfident, this one is extra humble :) If you are able to solve most LOD 2 Arithmetic, then your QA is good. Question is - how can we make it amazing? Let me come to the answer now - 1. You need to take a mock. I can understand that you froze, that was mostly because of the time pressure. So, take a mock without time limit - download a pst year paper (you can use 2021 slot 1) and solve it without any time pressure. That will tell us where you stand truly without the bias and pressure introduced by time. Do it and let me know your score. 2. Slow down your pace of reading. CAT's VARC is a test of comprehension. SNAP is a test of speed and plain English. You can not go blindly chasing speed in CAT dear. 3. Since you have time constraints, I won't ask you to play chess. You can jump to LRDI sets directly. You are comfortable with Maths, which means you already have a logical mind. With a bit of a push, you should be able to master LRDI within a month. You can keep LRDI for weekends. Solve 5 sets on each of your two weekly offs. Leave your weekdays for VARC and QA. 4. For QA, don't try to cover everything - Arithmetic, Algebra and PnC are enough to crack all tests. Geometry is huge and time taking. First finish the above mentioned things - try to solve 20-25 questions everyday (you can do it while you are traveling to/from office. That way you will be able to save time.) Reading for VARC has to happen daily as well. You should be giving it 2 hours surely for now. With time, you can decrease it.