This CAT 2016 99.48%iler shares his success mantra

Vaibhav Singh

Vaibhav Singh holds a Bachelors in Engineering, and appeared for CAT 2016. With his sectional scores being VARC - 99.70 DI/LR - 99.20, QA - 92.97, he obtained an overall percentile of 99.48. His father is a Civil Servant and his mother is a homemaker. 

Shiksha spoke to Vaibhav to know how he prepared for CAT 2016, and this is what he told us: 

Q. Was this your first CAT attempt?

Answer: No. 

Q. How satisfied are you with your score?

Answer: I am kind of satisfied, though some small mistakes cost me around 0.2 percentile. 

Q. Tell us something about yourself.

Answer: I would say that I like challenges, and CAT was a challenge waiting to be conquered, at least in my mind. I did my Bachelors in Engineering from BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus. I usually spend my free time reading, playing the guitar or hanging out with friends. 

Q. What area of specialisation you intend you choose?

Answer: I would be choosing Finance as my area of specialisation. 

Q. Tell us about your preparation strategy.

Answer: Preparation strategy for me boiled down to giving mock tests regularly and analysing my weak areas initially, and working on them during the weekdays. I usually studied for about 2-3 hours every day after work, and attempted about 30 mock tests in all, mostly those provided by top coaching institutes. In the end, I attended online coaching classes that helped a lot in drilling down concepts in my head. 

Q. What is the minimum time frame needed to prepare for CAT, and when did you start off with your preparations?

Answer: I started early, about 5 months before CAT. I would say that 5 months would be the ideal time frame required to give a decent amount of mock tests and not feel exhausted during the preparation process.

Q. What did you do to improve your weak areas?

Answer: I solved a lot of questions for DI/LR which seemed to be my weak area, mostly from previous year CAT papers and some online forums and Facebook groups. 

Q. Is it important to join a coaching institute?

Answer: It is not really required if you feel comfortable with the subject material, have the discipline to give mock tests every week and analyse them regularly. However, if you feel you lack in any of the above areas, it is best to join a coaching institute. 

Q. What’s your dream institute?

Answer: IIM Calcutta for sure, as it has the best Finance department among all the IIMs. 

Q. Tell us about your hobbies.

Answer: I like learning new things, I travel a lot and like playing guitar and reading. 

Q. Any tips for future CAT aspirants?

Answer: Give regular mock tests, they are the best means for you to gauge yourself and find out what your weak areas are and work on them. Most importantly, do not lose hope as a lot of times mock tests are designed to be way harder than CAT.

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