CAT 97.84%iler: The exam is all about overcoming weaknesses

Shrivats Singh

Cracking management exams is certainly not a piece of cake, but knowing the right preparation strategy can simplify things. Having a dedicated study plan, identifying your strengths and weaknesses, and attempting as many mock tests as possible is the key to excel in the exam. Shrivats Singh appeared for CAT 2016 and XAT 2017, and scored 97.84 and 99.74 percentile respectively. 

A student of XLRI Jamshedpur, Shrivats’s hobbies include playing Tabla, swimming, and Community Service. Shiksha spoke to him and he shared a few tips and tricks that helped him crack management entrance exams.

I think it depends on your level of preparation and self-involvement. Someone with some particular shaky topics can definitely rely on quality mentorship for speedy improvement on the area. At times, a competitive classroom environment drives you to perform and keeps you focused. It also depends on your routine; a working professional might not get time for getting class room contact. Some sections need self-perusal: for example, working on RC section. Some need external inputs: an example in my case being tackling LR section. Coaching I would say is helpful, but self-study is sine-qua-non.  

The moment you realise that MBA is the path ahead. Ideally, even if you know that you need an MBA program, after say 2 years of work experience, initiating small steps on that path will be really useful. Preparations can go full swing when exam is around 6 months away.  

It is again a very subjective question. It all depends on the focus areas and areas of strengths. Cracking an MBA entrance exam is all about capitalising on strengths and overcoming weaknesses. Few essentials which I feel are a must to everyone on a regular basis are:

• Scanning a quality newspaper
• Practicing a couple of RC sets
• Solving LR-DI sets in a timed test
• Revisiting Achilles-heals’ concepts and formulae of Quants   

Study materials of any renowned coaching institute suffice. Emphasis should be on online study materials: sectional tests, timed questions and mocks. This year even XAT is online, so focusing on online preparation gets more edge. Also, online materials are generally timed, so it helps improve time-management skills. 

Apart from continuous working on the basics, sectional tests come really handy. Knowing which set to attempt is an art which can be honed only in sectional tests, especially in a LR-DI sectional. Spreading the attempt is a must as many often get stuck over initial questions. Navigating through the questions, picking up the easiest first and then progressing towards tougher ones is the key.

When I started the preparations, my LR-DI section was in a dire state. I remember I got around 50 percentile in the section although my overall percentile was 97 in the mock. I started with past year papers, solving each set one at a time. I also worked on mental maths and basics additions and multiplications, kept on brushing up the squares and roots and these small steps helped me in a big way. For LR section, I started using visuals, picturising sets on paper, developed conventions for representing data and gave a lot of sectional mocks. This helped me improved my performance over the time. LR-DI set is knowing which set to leave, because we solve the set we choose with 100% efficiency most of the times. Never giving up is the key in this section. 

It all depends on topics one is comfortable with. Essential is knowing which questions are there because at times we miss the easy ones just because we could see those questions or saw them late.

Practice a lot of sectional tests and do your SWOT analysis before attempting any mock or exam. Work on the strengths first, opportunities later. Skip the threats and attempt the weaknesses only if you have time.

Two things come up: one is psychological fear that given this topic, I will fall flat. Example: If a question comes from Binomial theorem, I won’t be able to crack it. This needs to be worked upon especially because at times, really simple questions come from these dreaded topics. Another weakness is real weakness: one can judge this with his/her performance in the mocks.

First step towards working on weakness in filtering your second weakness from the first. First fear I mentioned is just a bias not a weakness. Working on weakness might need external consultation apart from relentless efforts on it starting from improving the basics. 

Depends on the confidence level of a candidate. Given the volatility of CAT, a candidate can give other exams and keep options open. I had given IIFT, CAT and XAT.

Do’s:

• Practice
• Mocks with  Analysis
• Balance study with leisure
• After CAT results, convert the call: getting healthy percentile is first step, it doesn’t mean you have got a seat

Don’ts:

• Give Up
• Burn Down
• Get nervous on D-Day: take CAT as another mock

CAT scores are used for admission to 20 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and various other top B-Schools. Are you eligible for the IIMs? To know more, click on the image beside.

Also Read: