Students’ Speak: Bounce back from early setbacks and make amends in other exams

CAT exam is not an easy nut to crack and many aspirants usually fail in the pursuit of a seat in elusive IIMs. Abhishek Desai shares a strategy to bounce back from early setbacks and prepare oneself to deliver strong performance in future attempts.

Preparing for an exam is entirely in the hands of students, but getting a good score in it isn’t. There are numerous cases wherein aspirants who diligently prepare for the CAT exam end up with a lower than expected score.

Well, one need not regret the result if they had put in the required efforts. There is no harm in failing in life, for it is a failure that teaches us more than success. A sincere candidate can surely bounce back from such setbacks and make amends by scoring well in the upcoming exams (or next year’s CAT if they plan to join an IIM only).  

• Upon getting the result, one should positively take it in their stride and aim to score well in the forthcoming exams such as SNAP, NMAT, XAT, CMAT, CET, etc. It is always recommended for MBA aspirants to keep a backup for an entrance exam and not solely depend upon it.
• There are examples of aspirants in the past who learnt from their CAT experiences and scored really well in the other exams. Since the aforementioned exams are comparatively easier than CAT, there are chances pretty good of a candidate securing a high score in them.
• Since the syllabus of all MBA entrance exams remains more or less the same, an aspirant just needs to alter the test-taking strategy (which can be done via mocks) and revise the basic concepts thoroughly. This evidently won’t take a lot of time.
• To shortlist the different colleges accepting various percentile ranges, you can refer to the information provided on Shiksha. Check for the cutoff scores from the past 3-5 years to get more clarity on the probable cutoff next year. Always keep the ROI and brand name in mind while choosing the colleges; a college having a better brand will always provide a great learning exposure in those 2 years of MBA/PGDM.
• As per the scores in the recent mocks, one can get a fair idea about which college to ideally aim for. Keep a wide range of good backup colleges. For example, the usual cutoff scores of SIBM and SCMHRD (the premier B-schools via SNAP) are 95+ percentile whereas the same for other good colleges (SIIB, SCIT, etc.) is roughly 90+ percentile.

When it comes to giving suggestions on increasing the scores, observe whether you are spending more time than the required on a particular question/section or not since most of the upcoming exams would test your speed. Keep a tab on the time as well as the accuracy during the mocks. Ask your peers and professors for more help and make use of articles and videos posted on the internet on how to use shortcuts and tricks to solve a particular type of question (in case you aren’t aware of).     

About the Author:

Abhishek Desai is currently pursuing Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) in e-Business from Welingkar Institute of Management. He has done his Summer Internship in the field of Market Research with 'TimesofMoney'. He's also served as 'Secretary of the Green Committee' at Welingkar.