CAT 2019 Topper Interview: Know how Ankit Desai scored 99.91 percentile

Ankit Desai made an entry to the 99 percentilers club of CAT 2019. Know what he has to say about his preparation strategy for CAT exam 2019 and his success mantra in the article below.

Ankit Desai

CAT 2019 Overall Percentile: 99.91

VARC: 97.01

DILR: 99.99

QA: 99.29

Ankit Desai hails from Kanpur and is pursuing Computer Engineering from Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune and is in the last year of his graduation. He completed his 10^th and 12^th class from Aurangabad. Ankit said that his goal is to get admission into IIM Indore, IIM Ahmedabad or IIM Calcutta. Shiksha spoke with Ankit to know his CAT 2019 preparation strategy and his success mantra for CAT 2019. Read the article to know more.

Q. Congratulations Ankit! Are you satisfied with your CAT 2019 result? How much were you expecting?

A. Before the result, I was targeting a score of 210 but I got 10 marks less, but after the exam, I am really satisfied with the result because I was thinking I might not score more than 170 or 180. I am happy with the result but if I get admission calls from the colleges I am targeting, I’ll be really happy.

Q. Was this your first CAT attempt?

A. Yes, this was my first attempt.

Q. When did you start preparing for CAT 2019 exam? What was your overall preparation strategy?

A. I joined TIME institute, Pune in November 2018 and attended the classes from November 2018 to May 2019. I had to discontinue the classes after May because I had my college exams at that time. I also had an internship after my graduation exam till July. So, August onwards I started doing self-study. So for three to three and a half months I was preparing for CAT on my own.

From March 2019, I started attempting mock test series from TIME and focused on what I studied in the classroom lectures. I would analyze how the mock [test] went and what were my mistakes. I worked my way through using the solutions book and was focusing on the mocks and on that basis I discovered my weaknesses and strengths. So, when I started preparing in August, I knew that VARC is my weak point and DILR is my strength. Hence, I devoted more time to VARC and equal time to DILR and Quant. When I was sure about my DILR, I started solving only three to four questions which were really difficult. And, till August I was doing very well in Quant section but in October my performance went down. But I again gained the momentum as I went back to my basics and worked on strengthening them.

Q. Was there is a section-wise preparation strategy? Please share.

A. I struggled throughout my preparation for VARC section. I focused a lot on RC and solved as many as possible. I’ve heard a lot that you must read regularly to ace this section but I didn’t and I focused on TIME study material. I tried solving every question given there and I had star marked a few questions which I found difficult. And then I focused on them in my November preparation. The months of October and November were mostly dedicated to mock test series. I also read four to five articles from Eon.co and I used to read one article a week form The Hindu.

I was good at Quant at the beginning. I prepared for Quant topic-wise. I started with the most important ones. I started with Airthmetic, chapter by chapter, solving 30-40 questions from each chapter, then when I fished all the 23-24 topics I went back to the difficult topics like Geometry and Numbers. I tried to memorise the formulae and then again solved 30-40 different questions. So whenever I thought that I am missing out something, I used to go back to the topic and revise it. I used to write down the formulae and then solve the questions based on them in one go.

To practice managing time, I used to solve the sectional tests. That helped in maintaining my speed and save my time.

Q. What books did you refer to for CAT 2019 preparation?

A. I just stuck to TIME study material.

Q. Did you join any coaching institute? If yes, how did it help you in preparations?

A. I joined TIME institute. It helped me because, with TIME, I started my preparation in November 2018. If it would have been self-preparation, I would have never started in November. The basics of Quant and DILR were strengthened. The biggest help was in VARC section. I was weak in vocabulary and they used to help us with tips and tricks to solve RC and para jumbles, etc. So that helped from November to April and I was also able to focus on my college. In the weekend classes I used to get an insight into my CAT preparation and for the rest of the week, I was able to prepare for my college exams. Hence, I did not miss out on much for those five months and rather it acted as a catalyst.

Q. How important do you think mock test series are?

A. Actually they are very important. They formed a major chunk of my preparations. I solved almost 35 mock tests by TIME and I also solved the pre mocks provided by other institutes. Other than that I solved the previous years’ question papers and mock tests from 2017 and 2018. All in all I solved around 45 mock tests. Also, attempting mocks is important but what is more important is analyzing them. Analyse where you are going wrong and what made you do that mistake. For example, in VARC there are inference based questions, if you are confused between option ‘A’ and option ‘C’ and if you choose A there is a high chance that the answer is C. Now you need to understand and analyse why is that. That is where mocks help. In the case of the Quant section, sometimes you make a calculation mistake and sometimes you use a different formula altogether, and sometimes you are not aware of the shortcuts, so solving questions becomes easy with mocks.

Q. What was your exam day strategy?

A. I went with a slight preconception, but the suggestion would be not to. I thought I’ll be able to crack DILR section with the highest marks and VARC was very easy from the past five years, so I thought it would be easy this time too. But it took me around 11-12 minutes in my first RC which I usually take hardly eight minutes. So that was a panic situation. Since I was finding the RCs difficult I went to the Verbal Ability section, so after 30 minutes I started solving the VA section and then came back to the RC. Since VA was a bit easy, it helped me calm down. I calmed myself for 10-15 seconds and then started with DILR section. I thought that even if I might have messed by VARC, there is no point in messing up the next section because of the stress. Quant is the last section, and by the end of the exam you are already stressed, so it’s better that you take a short 10-15 seconds break and then start solving the questions.

Q. Do you have any tips for the future CAT aspirants?

A. There are a couple of things that I would like to tell the future CAT aspirants. One, whenever you start your preparations, it is necessary that you start early and daily at least solve one topic or a section. Reading daily and solving at least a few questions daily helps you build your momentum. Secondly, every CAT aspirant must treat the mock test series as the final exam, because if you can’t feel the pressure in mocks you will eventually feel the pressure in CAT. This way you will be able to manage the pressure in the final CAT exam. Hence mocks are very important. Also, never keep a preconception about the difficulty level of the questions. Lastly, prepare well and be confident.

Q. Which IIMs/institutes are you targeting?

A. I have applied in the top 6 IIMs and FMS, Delhi but my target is to get into IIM Indore, IIM Ahmedabad or IIM Calcutta.

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