CAT 2024 Topper Interview: 100 Percentiler in CAT, Vagish Nangia, Shares his Preparation Journey

CAT 2024 Topper Interview with Vagish Nangia

Shiksha: Congratulations! Are you satisfied with your CAT result? How much score were you expecting?

Vagish: Yes, I am very happy with my CAT result overall. I was anticipating 99.98+ percentile based on the previous year trends and my scores in CAT mock tests. However, getting a 100 percentile is beyond what I expected. The new pattern helped me outscore my usual scores in mocks by 20-30 marks. This ensured I safely got the 100th percentile.

Vagish: For VARC, there are two components: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehensions. This section is tricky, but with enough practice, a high score is achievable. The key is to manage reading and attempting the entire comprehension within 7-8 minutes, which can be tough due to the length and requires a lot of practice. For Verbal Ability, understanding the general structure of paragraphs is crucial to identify odd-one-outs and determine where a particular sentence fits in a paragraph.

For Quantitative Aptitude and DILR, I used a similar strategy, focusing on a wide variety of practice questions. Given my background, these concepts weren't new to me, so I concentrated on improving my speed to maximise my scores in these sections.

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Shiksha: Did you join any coaching institute?

Vagish: I took online preparatory materials from a couple of coaching institutes and feel the curated material by many of them is sufficient for a person to do well in CAT. Practice questions and mocks designed by coaching institutes help a lot during CAT preparation. The prep material helped me get accustomed to the typical CAT examination.

Shiksha: Any specific books that helped in your CAT preparation?

Vagish: No specific books outside of the online preparatory material but I feel books like Quantitative Aptitude by R.S. Aggarwal can be a good starting point for such exams.

Also Read: Best Books to Prepare for CAT

Shiksha: How many mock tests did you attempt and how important is a mock test series?

Vagish: I gave 10 mocks in total owing to the time constraints I had during my pre-final semester and I was fairly satisfied with my scores in these tests so didn’t feel the need to attempt more.

Attempting mocks is very important as it helps you understand the general time constraints and structure of the examination.

Also Read: CAT Exam Day Tips

Shiksha: What was your exam day strategy?

Vagish: On the exam day, I focused on reaching the centre on time and keeping calm as it was an early morning examination as I had given most of my mocks in the evening. I woke up extra early to ensure my mind was fully activated during the examination and tried attempting as many questions as I could in each section.

Shiksha: Any tips for future CAT aspirants?

Vagish: For an aptitude exam like CAT, one should focus on two things, speed and accuracy, both of which come with practice. Speed is important as the exam typically has 66-68 Questions to be attempted within 2 hours with sections like DILR and Quant in particular being fairly time-taking. Accuracy is also important as you need to avoid taking negative marks while looking to maximise your score as much as possible. So doing 20 questions with 75 per cent accuracy is actually worse than doing 15 questions with 93 per cent accuracy. One needs to find the right combination of speed and accuracy to score well in exams like CAT.

Shiksha: Which IIMs /Institutes are you targeting?

Vagish: I will be looking at all the top IIMs and other top management institutes like FMS.

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