Khushboo is a 2021 Mechanical Engineering Graduate from Rajasthan. She scored 10 CGPA in class 10th, 84% in class 12th, and a 7.5CGPA in under graduation. She has worked with ZS Associates for almost a year as a Business Operations Associate. With a steller 99.73%ile in CAT 2021, Khushboo has joined IIM Ahmedabad PGP'24 cohort. Read on to know how she ace the CAT in her second CAT attempt. Read on to know more!
Khushboo Rao has detailed her CAT preparation strategy in this video. Check out here!
Q) Please Share Your Score And Percentile With Our Readers.
Overall: 113.67, 99.73%ileQA: 38.17, 99.36%ile ; DILR: 27.78, 97.26%ile ; VARC: 47.73, 99.33%ile
Q) Please Share Your Journey In Achieving The Mentioned Percentile.
This was my second attempt at CAT. My first attempt was in my final year of engineering and was a non-serious one without much question practice. I ended up scoring a 96%ile which gave me some confidence that with adequate practice I can do well in this exam. I was sure that I wanted to attempt CAT next year but did not want a gap year on my resume so I decided to start the preparation along with my job.
A batchmate of mine had scored well in CAT in the final year and hence I reached out to him for various resources and advice. I was also a member of THEOMI (an initiative by IIM alumni) which was basically a telegram group with CAT aspirants as well as students from various B-schools. It was a good platform to ask for advice and prep-related doubts.-I used a self-paced course in QA for attending topic-wise lectures and then solved questions from TIME material. For DILR I relied solely on question practice from various YouTube channels along with attempting sectionals. I did not put in a lot of effort in VARC apart from reading newspapers every day and solving mocks.
The biggest challenge for me was taking out time for preparation and staying consistent. My job required 10 hrs/day on an average on a weekday and I would be too exhausted to prepare for CAT at the night. I decided to dedicate the weekends to attempting and analyzing mocks followed by revision of a few topics. I would take out 1/2 hrs every day in the morning before work to cover new topics-For me the most important aspect of preparing was setting realistic goals for myself. There were times when I was scoring very low for consecutive mocks or was not able to study for an entire week due to health issues, the reason that I didn't lose motivation was that I had pragmatic targets and I knew that growth takes time. It is important to be kind to yourself in difficult times.
It was particularly chilly in north India and I had caught a cold just days before the CAT exam. I had the morning slot and they made me sit in a separate room because I was coughing and my body temperature was high. Looking back I still don't know how I had the strength to even go for the exam with a high fever. VARC was balanced overall - RCs were tricky but the VA section was easy. DILR only had 4 sets and being in the first slot I wasn't mentally prepared for the lack of choice. I couldn't finish the first two sets that I attempted and it hit me that I might not be able to reach the sectional cutoff. 20 minutes into the section and teary-eyed, I attempted the one easy DI set and in the final minutes, was somehow able to finish one of the first two sets that I had initially attempted!
QA was arithmetic heavy and I felt quite comfortable attempting this section. So all in all, CAT 2021 was nothing short of a roller coaster for me-There is an ocean of resources available out there and it is very easy to get overwhelmed. I was so confused initially and was constantly switching between resources, as a result, I was not able to extract value out of any. So pick one or two resources per section that work best for you and stick to them. Please don't fall for the 'FOMO'.
Q) Please Share Your Month-Wise Preparation Insights For Upcoming Aspirants.
I started preparing in early July 2021 for CAT. I had attempted CAT before so I had an idea about the paper pattern as well as my weak areas. QA was my biggest area of opportunity so for the initial 1.5 months I focused solely on covering the topics through video lectures followed by question practice. Once I was comfortable in major QA topics (Arithmetic and Algebra) I started attempting full-length mocks around mid-August but the frequency was only once a week.
In November it was becoming difficult for me to manage work and CAT pressure so I took 3 weeks' leave from the office. This is when I had enough time to clear my head, apply what I had learned in the past few months, and polish my strategies. I started attempting a lot of mocks followed by thorough analysis and strategizing. My scores increased rapidly in these 3 weeks and I believe it made a lot of difference even on the D-Day!
Q) Please Share The Section-Wise Strategies Followed By You During Preparation.
QA: As someone who had scored an 80%ile in QA in her first attempt, I was very underconfident. I did not remember any of the concepts used so I decided to take the traditional approach of viewing a lecture on every topic and then practicing questions from a handbook. I knew wasn't aiming to solve the entire paper in QA so I only covered the basics for high effort, low return topics like P&C number systems, etc. I focused on easier topics like Arithmetic, Geometry, and Algebra (in that order) and this worked out pretty well for me as I was able to score a 99.36%ile in QA in CAT
DILR: I didn't have enough practice and confidence in the DILR section and it reflected in my final performance as well. It requires practicing because the decision-making during the exam should be almost intuitive in order to score very high marks in DILR
VARC: I've always believed that VARC is less about English and much more about comprehension and reasoning skills which make sense because CAT doesn't select candidates for some English literature course.
It has been said before and I have to reiterate, there is only one way to improve the VARC score: Read, and read mindfully (not learning tenses or memorizing 100 words in the name of vocabulary building please do not do that). I am not an avid reader hence even reading the newspaper every day felt like a lot of work but I pushed myself to it (it was the only VARC prep I was doing for months). I was attempting 3 out of 4 RCs in mock but could only attempt 2 in the final exam which was very disappointing. Thankfully because of a decent VA score I got a 99.33 overall in VARC.
Q) Please Talk About The Role Of Mock Tests While Preparing.
I started taking mocks around mid-August-I had only one test series from TIME (the basic one with video solutions)-I took around 20 full-length mocks-For analyzing, I would attempt the entire QA and DILR sections again the next day itself without a timer to gauge if I am able to crack questions without time pressure. Within a few days, TIME used to release a full mock analysis along with the percentiles which was very helpful.
The video solutions were enough for any doubts I would have because I wasn't enrolled in any full-time coaching. My major focus used to be on questions in the 'Easy' and 'Moderate' categories which I ended up leaving or solving incorrectly. I would go back to each and every topic for these questions and my focus on identifying and solving just the easier questions contributed a lot in improving my overall scores.
In the final 3 weeks before the exam I was attempting at least 4 mocks per week and focused on finding the best strategy for myself. My percentile moved from 94 to 98.5+ in just these 3 weeks hence I truly believe that mock taking and analyzing the attempt are THE MOST IMPORTANT part of the CAT preparation journey.
CAT Notification release is around the corner, now is the time you take your preparation seriously and go the extra mile. To aid CAT aspirants, we have compiled a few sectional tests as a giveaway. Take them now and see how your accuracy turns out!