Rishav Goel is a metallurgical engineer by qualification, he has done his entire education from Mumbai itself, which is why he believes Mumbai is the best city to live in. While academics are important, he believes in holistic development and has a huge passion for playing tennis, DOTA 2 e-sport and is an avid guitar player as well. He has joined IIM A's PGP Class of 2023 after securing a stellar 99.84%ile in CAT 2020. In this article, he shares how he prepared for CAT 2020, and his advice to future CAT aspirants. Read on!
Hi Rishav, please tell our readers about yourself.
I am Rishav Goel & I was born and brought up in the Thane district of Maharashtra and for the last two and a half years, I have been working in ICICI Bank. I completed my Xth and XIIth education in the CBSE board scoring 10 CGPA & 97.2% respectively. Post that I did my B.tech from IIT Bombay in the field of Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science.
It was during the 4 years at IIT Bombay, that I developed an interest in management through relevant internships and also as a member of ShARE (which is a global student think tank community). Apart from this I am a very passionate tennis player and have been playing tennis for the last 10 years. Also, I have a huge interest in playing e-sports and I am fond of playing the guitar.
This was my 3rd attempt at CAT, in the previous two attempts I scored 98.14%ile and 98.01%ile. However this time I improvised over the mistakes I made in previous attempts & managed to secure 99.84%ile and converted all of my B-school interviews including IIM BLACKI & FMS.
How much did you score in CAT 2020?
How did you prepare – Self-study or Coaching? Which one do you think is better?
Self Study worked for me. I think choosing between self-study or coaching is more of an individual choice, for someone who is not well-verse with the basic concepts / fundamentals, coaching would be a better medium to align the prep in the right direction. For myself, I had attempted CAT previously and with the vast material available for prep, I was confident about opting for self-study and I only enrolled for test series which I believe, is the most important aspect for preparing for CAT
According to you, what is the most important aspect of preparation?
Self-belief and developing the habit to handle the pressure while giving the exams is the most important aspect that an individual needs to develop in order to crack a mentally heavy and time-bound exam like CAT. Also, there is no one size fit strategy for CAT, so an individual needs to devote time & efforts to build their own strategies which they find most suited to them.
Which mock series did you enrol for?
IMS SIMCAT Series
How many full-length mock tests did you take?
25-30 full-length mocks
How many sectional mock tests did you take?
15 [5 sectional mocks for each of the sections]
What was your approach while taking mocks?
It is very important to consider every mock as an actual CAT exam, so having the right mindset before the mocks is very important. One particular practice which I used to follow and helped me was to close my eyes and take deep breaths in the last 10 mins before starting any mock. During those 10 minutes, I used to go through my plan for individual sections and rewind the common mistakes that I have to minimize in that mock.
How do you think the mock tests helped you in your preparation?
I strongly believe that giving mocks with a definitive plan of action both - during and post the exam [analysis of mocks] is the most important step in preparing for CAT. No matter how much hours you devote to a particular topic / section, when it comes to giving a time-bound & intensive exam as CAT is, it really boils down to your test taking strategy which you can only develop by giving mocks which replicate similar intensity [Always remember, the pressure of actual CAT is going to be 3X your toughest mock]
Which section were you strong in? Since you were strong in that section, how did you focus on the other sections?
I was pretty confident about Quants [primarily driven from my IIT-JEE background], so I used to devote most of my time preparing for VARC and LRDI.
VARC - Inculcating reading habit and to be able to eliminate options rather than choosing the correct one
LRDI - Practiced a lot of sets including sets of different varieties. Categorizing the sets as Easy, Medium & Hard basis my comfort zone, helped me focus on solving the simpler sets first
Which section was your Achilles heel? How did you overcome that?
VARC was the DO OR DIE section for me, since this is the first section with which paper starts so messing up this section can possibly impact performance over LRDI and QUANT section as well. In VARC section, I was able to attempt most of the questions but my accuracy was very low [<70% accuracy], so I decided to leave some questions as a compensation to spend more time for questions where options are very close; in order to at least improve accuracy to >80%. This way I could manage to clear the cut-offs and get decent score in VARC in CAT 2020.
How much time did you devote to preparation on a regular basis?
I had to manage my CAT prep along with a regular hectic job which used to stretch from 9 am to 7 pm. So I could manage to devote 2-3 hours on working days and 5-6 hours on weekends [usually including full-time or sectional mocks]
Tell us about the lowest point in your preparation journey and how did you overcome that?
The entire prep for CAT can be draining and time-consuming. So its very important to keep oneself motivated and focused on the end goal which is to BELL THE CAT. So even if you feel demotivated maybe due to low score in mocks, peer pressure, low consistency etc, continue working on weak areas dedicatedly and most importantly believe in yourself
Lowest point for me was when I was unable to improve accuracy in VARC section, so I chose to lower my reading speed and focus more on comprehension of the RC and starting first with RCs which are easier to comprehend with relatively less complex statements. This way I tried to limit my attempts while focusing on bringing the accuracy to more than 85%
What resources would you suggest to 2021 aspirants?
- TIME Study Materials [13-15 booklets] for covering the basic concepts across the three sections.
- IMS RC-100 & IMS CAT 500
- Old SIMCAT / AIMCAT mock papers
- Old actual CAT exams [2003-2008 & 2017 onwards]
What according to you are the DO's and DON'Ts of CAT preparation?
DO’s
- Good time management between studying, mocks and job / academic commitments if any
- Analyzing the mocks regularly and working on weak areas
- Having back-up plans for all 3 sections assuming they come extremely tough on D-day
DON’Ts
- Overstressing on low mocks score
- Not planning for adverse scenarios on D-day
- Compromising physical health for prep
- Submitting to pressure during the D-day
- Focusing only on comfortable topics / sections and ignoring weaker areas
Which mock series would you like to suggest to CAT 2021 aspirants? Is one mock series sufficient or do you suggest a combination of 2 different mock series?
I highly recommend the IMS SIMCAT series including sectional mocks by IMS. Access to one mock series will itself give about 20-30 full-time mocks, if an individual can manage the time for two different mock series it will definitely help.
What would be your final advice to CAT 2021 Aspirants?
On the D-day you have to give your best attempt, there is no room for any error especially in the two-hour format. The best way is to prepare for the worse and have a clear-cut strategy in mind that if let's say X section comes very tough -- ABC strategy needs to be followed [again the variables X & ABC completely depends on the respective individual and needs to be diligently practised in mocks so that any surprise on D-day can be handled].