Ashish Deopa hails from Dehradun, He completed his class 10th in 2013 and class 12th in 2015 from Summer Valley School, and emerged the School topper with 97.2% and 98% respectively in the Science stream. Ashish went on to pursue Electronics and Communication Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra. He balanced his studies with extra-curricular like quizzing and debating while also holding multiple positions of responsibility in the clubs of the college. Having graduated with a CGPA of 7.97 in 2019, he joined PwC as a Technical Consultant and worked there for almost 2 years working as a SQL Developer. He is currently pursuing his MBA from IIM Ahmedabad (Class Of 2023). In this interview, he has shared his CAT preparation journey and his advice to future aspirants. Read on!
Hi Ashish, please share your score and percentile with our readers.
Overall Score - 132.87, Overall Percentile - 99.91 | VARC: 57.73, 99.98 | DILR: 34.36, 99 | QA: 40.79, 98.6 99
There are many aspirants who will attempt for the second (or even third or fourth) time. What'd be your advice to them?
CAT is a beast that can only be tamed if you have the right attitude. Look at every year as a fresh start and begin your preparation without any baggage of your past failures. Of course, our past failures exist to teach us about our mistakes and missteps but do not let them consume your present so much so that your future becomes doomed. Do not unload all your aspirations and dreams on this exam, because this puts unnecessary pressure on you during the actual test. Prepare as much as you want to prior to the exam, but once you sit in that chair, just approach it as another one of your mocks. Never let the idea of CAT overpower you. It is just another exam that can be conquered with some good strategy and the right mindset. Always remember what Rudyard Kipling says in his Poem If "If you can wait and not be tired by waiting... And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss;"
How Did You Prepare For CAT?
I began my preparation in the month of June. I opted for a Self-Study regime simply because I was not sure if I would be able to adhere to the class schedule of the coaching institutes. Also, I felt that my basics were good enough and what I actually lacked was practice, something that I would in any case have to do on my own.
Choosing between self-study and coaching is a very subjective choice. Although, I would recommend coaching to aspirants who feel that their fundamentals, in any of the sections, are shaky as well as to those who find it difficult to stick to self-study plans and need constant monitoring. Several aspirants also connect with each other and form study groups which is another great way of preparation.
According to you, what is the most important aspect of preparation?
Looking back at the last year, I can easily say that the most important aspect of my preparation was the time I spent analyZing my performance in the mock tests. I maintained an excel document with all the scores of my mock tests, the mistakes that I committed, the wrong decisions I took while attempting the paper, and the shortcuts and tricks that I could have used to reduce time. This gave me a fair estimate of my performance and my progress. I constantly tried to improve upon my weaknesses while keeping my strengths intact.
According to you, what is the most important aspect of preparation?
I enrolled for the AIMCATS from TIME and the SIMCATS from IMS.
How many full-length mock tests and sectionals did you take?
I must have given around 35 Full-Length Mocks and around 10 Sectional Mocks during my preparation.
What was your approach while taking mocks?
CAT as an exam is very fundamental when it comes to its syllabus and hence the only aspect that differentiates the CAT toppers from the other candidates is the strategy that they employ and the time they put in for practice. I started my preparation by giving mocks because I believe that there is no good or bad time to give a mock. If you believe that you will only start giving mocks once you have completed the entire syllabus, trust me, that day shall never come.
How do you think the mock tests helped you in your preparation?
Mocks allow you to evolve your exam-taking strategies, highlighting your strengths and weaknesses and giving you a reality check that can act as a solid motivating factor.
Which section were you strong in? Since you were strong in that section, how did you focus on the other sections?
Unlike the common phenomenon of engineers being very strong in QA but weak in Verbal, I exhibited the opposite end of this spectrum. I was reasonably good at Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension, largely because of the many books that I have read or the online articles and reviews that I read, and this strength majorly helped me to focus on the other sections. I watched as many videos as I could for the Logical Reasoning section, trying to solve as many types of questions as possible and getting a hang of all possible patterns and set types. For QA, I simply solved a mixed bag of questions from old mocks and sectionals daily. There were a few chapters where I only had rudimentary knowledge and hence for those, I looked up online videos and created a formula booklet.
How much time did you devote to preparation on a regular basis?
Since I was a full-time employee during my preparation phase, I had to give in around 8-9 hours to my work during the weekends. Initially, when I was living in Kolkata, I also had to do the household chores since there was a lockdown imposed and we were all left to fend for ourselves. That definitely acted as a deterrent in making room for studies. As soon as the travel embargo lifted, I decided to move back to my home in Dehradun. Because of the unwavering support of my parents, I could now focus on my CAT preparation after clocking in the requisite time for my office work, not worrying about cooking or cleaning, or grocery shopping. I gave around 3-4 hours daily during the weekends and spent around 6-7 hours during the weekends, mostly giving mocks.
Tell us about the lowest point in your preparation journey and how did you overcome that?
As far as my performance in the initial mocks is concerned, I was never a very high scorer. But I was okay with that since I knew I had a long journey to take. Only when I had already traversed half of this journey did I realise that my scores had plateaued and I wasn’t really showing much progress. That was a low point for me when I started questioning my capabilities quite irrationally. But then, I looked back at all the good things that I had done in life, and thinking about all those accomplishments helped me garner the rationale and the confidence to then analyse what I was doing wrong. I realised that I was repeating my mistakes across mocks, never really adapting myself. This marked a turning point in my journey, and ever since then, I was more focussed, more confident, and definitely more adaptive to change.
Your Advice To Future CAT aspirants?
- Begin your journey by attempting old CAT papers or mocks. This shall give you an idea about how good or bad you are in each of the three sections. This ultimately helps you to formulate your strategy for the next few weeks. Constantly check your progress and analyse whether you are improving upon your weaknesses. Never be hesitant in changing your strategy and in asking around for help.
- Subscribe to at least two good test series and give those tests regularly. I took the ones from IMS and TIME. Make optimum use of Youtube and Facebook. There are several channels and groups which share knowledge for free.
- If you are studying with a group of fellow aspirants, never give in to inferiority or superiority complex. Always hold your head high and learn from others around you. And finally, you have to be your best motivators. Conjure the image of your dream college in your mind and get busy studying.