CAT Topper Interview 2019: How Shubham Sharma cracked CAT with 99.51%ile

Renewed spirit and avoiding already committed mistakes led Shubham Sharma score 99+ percentile in CAT 2019. Check out what helped him to become one among the top CAT scorers in 2019.

Overall Percentile: 99.51

VARC: 98.54

LRDI: 99.12

QA: 99.8

Shubham Sharma who scored 99.51 percentile in CAT 2019 says, “It is the mind blocks and anxiety to fare well that most often does not allow test takers to give their best while writing an exam.”

“This is a journey and enjoy every bit of it; do not take it as a burden”, he adds. Shubham, having done his engineering from Manav Rachna University is now working in TCS.  This was not his first CAT attempt. In CAT 2018, he scored 95.64 percentile. Therefore, this time he was sure to avoid past mistakes and that is what helped him surpass his own expectation. Read on, to know the section wise strategies Shubham adopted to crack CAT 2019 and what is his message to future CAT aspirants.

Also Read: Check the List of CAT 2019 Toppers Here!

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

A: Thanks a lot. I was expecting around 99.20 but ended up getting much more than that. So, ‘Yes’ I am very satisfied with my result.

Also Read: CAT 2019 Syllabus

Q: Was this your first CAT attempt?

A: No, this was my second CAT attempt. I scored 95.64 in my first CAT attempt in 2018 when I was in my final year of Engineering.

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

A: I started preparing for CAT 2019 from around mid of March. Overall preparation strategy was to practice as much as I can from various sources and strengthen my weak topics.

Also Read: CAT 2019 Analysis

Q: Please share with us your section- wise strategy

A: VARC-I have always struggled with this section because of no reading habit in the past.

Therefore, I started reading at least one article a day while travelling and practiced Reading Comprehension especially before sleeping in the night and after waking up in the morning. I just kept doing this on daily basis and later on started giving sectional mock tests.

DILR-Last year I struggled a bit in this section so my strategy this time was quite clear.

My focus was on solving two to three sets daily in a limited period of time. Practice is the key because in CAT you need to know which sets you will attempt first and which you will attempt in the end. While giving mocks, my strategy was the same, to solve sets according to their difficulty level and with higher accuracy. Even while solving sets daily I used to rate them in my mind whether I will solve these sets earlier or will solve them at the end.

QA-I always liked this section no matter how bad I scored in this section. I started with solving arithmetic. I was not good at them but I just kept investing my time in these questions. I tried developing my own ways of solving them in ways that are more efficient and at the end, it really helped. I never followed any set of formulas or something like this. I just made mistakes, kept a note of them, and tried to avoid those mistakes in the future. While giving mock test too, I set the target that I will try to solve more than  20 questions with more than 80 percent accuracy once I achieved this I increased my number of attempts and it really helped me a lot.

Also Read: CAT 2019 Cut Off

Q: Which books did you refer to for CAT preparation?

A: I did not refer to any book or any material as such. Most of my preparation was done on Facebook groups especially IQUANTA.

Also Read: CAT Preparation Strategy

Q: Did you join any coaching institute? How does coaching institute help in CAT preparation?      

A: Yes, I joined IQUANTA. I joined this to be regular in my studies. It helped me in revising every concept required for CAT and best thing was VARC revamp course, it really helped me in how to approach the reading comprehension and how to eliminate options.

Also Read: CAT 2019 Mock Test

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

A: Mock test series is the most important thing for any CAT aspirant. I took three test series. Giving mocks is important but analyzing them is more important because only after analyzing you will be able to work on your weaker areas and improve your score. Moreover, strategy is very important in CAT and one need to finalize their own strategy by giving N number of mocks.

Q: What was your exam day strategy?

A: My exam day strategy was simple - just take this as any other mock. Remain calm and confident and trust your instincts.

Also Read: CAT 2019 Answer Key

Q: Any tips for future CAT aspirants?

A: This is a journey and enjoy every bit of it do not take it as a burden. Help each other learn from one another and just do not give up. It does not matter how much you score in your mocks, so just take it as a way to learn from your mistakes and nothing else.

Also Read: CAT 2019 Counselling

Q: Which IIMs /Institutes are you targeting?

A: I am targeting top six IIMs.

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