Vivek has an academic record of 92.29% (10th ICSE) and 93.4% (12th ISC). He is a graduate of NIT Jamshedpur where he has a CGPA of 9.48/10. After graduation, he is working for one of the largest tire manufacturing firms in India in the Industrial Engineering role since 2018. He secured a CAT percentile of 99.73 in 2021 and is joining IIM Ahmedabad for PGP 2022-24. Read on to know his preparation strategy, and his advice for future CAT takers!
Q) Please Share Your Score And Percentile With Our Readers.
Overall: 113.79, 99.73 percentile VARC: 43.16, 98.57 percentile LRDI: 38, 99.64 percentile QA: 32.63, 98.53 percentile
Q) Shed light on why and how did you decide to take the exam in 2021?
I thought of doing an MBA soon after graduation and having the requisite work experience. Being in the Industrial Engineering and Management field, knowing about the local impact of Man, Material, Money, and Method, and the know-how required to have a global perspective of things drove me towards an MBA. I took MBA entrance tests in 2020, where I secured a 95.58 percentile in CAT where I converted to a few good colleges but that inner urge to study from the best in the best stayed with me and made me strive towards achieving a better percentile next year.
I took frequent guidance from various online platforms including the articles and videos of InsideIIM and a few faculty from various coaching institutes. I felt that treading on a path where I had some bigger goals to achieve required input from experienced people in the business. I took online coaching with ConceptsEra for revising the topics and most importantly setting up a routine amidst the workload from the office. I also purchased mock test series of IMS, TIME, and CL and sectional tests in the later stages from Cracku. Further, I was a regular in attempting the mini mock tests of InsideIIM.The most important hurdle for me was to maintain the balance between work and study.
The plant timings were from 10 am to 6 pm but the traveling time accounted for an extra 1.5 hours leaving me with 4-5 hours per weekday (Mon-Sat) and a truckload of weariness on Sundays. Further, there were days when I carried along with the stress to my home and couldn't focus at all. Still, the inner belief to do something was there. I had my desktop wallpaper changed to feature the best B-schools in the country to drive that motivation. I was a bit skeptical about VARC and LRDI as these two had let me down on several occasions in the mocks. But, I constantly devoted maximum time to ace these two sections. I utilized Sundays, public holidays, and the leaves to the fullest to prepare for the test. I feel the most important aspect of preparing is to be clear of your goals and the path leading to them. The schedules, do not necessarily have to be stringent but must be followed. Backlogs should be kept to the minimum and keep your family and friends close. Have proper discussions on forums, learn from your mistakes and strive harder.
On D-day, I was confident to make it count. Although the last few mocks weren't that appreciative, still I had that belief to do well. Mine was in Slot-3, so I had read about the analysis of the previous slots and got a hang of the pattern and marks. I didn't go into the section-wise analysis, in order to keep myself relaxed. I was aware of my strategy and stuck to it. I knew if the VARC section went well according to my expectations, the entire paper would go as I wanted. Indeed, my strategy to ace VARC worked and I had the confidence to take me to LRDI and QA. QA was a bit on the calculative side but I made sure to make my accuracy count high. After finishing the paper, I was confident to surpass 100 marks and score a 99 percentile+. It was a good feeling but I had kept my fingers crossed till the date the official answers were released.
Now, if I look back and think about what could've been done better, I feel to have devoted much time to the analysis of the mocks in 2020. It requires a lot of patience to analyze each and every question of your mocks including the correct ones. I followed this thoroughly for my 2021 preparations. My lowest point was in the second-third week of September mock season. The marks in all the three mocks tests were at an abysmal low. The forums boasted of some great scores by other aspirants and for once I had that feeling whether dropping for another year was a good idea or not. Nevertheless, I gradually analyzed all the papers and realized my mistakes, and was able to turn things around in the later mocks. For this, I took a break from giving mocks (say, 3-5 days) focusing on the topic tests only.
Q) Please Share Your Month-Wise Preparation Insights For Upcoming Aspirants.
For 2021, I started in July after making up my mind to appear for one last time. In the initial months, as my basics were clear, I straight away jumped into the chapter-wise questions or topic tests of QA. Additionally, attempting past year's papers. As for me, I didn't need more time to prepare as I sorted my schedules accordingly. My basics were clear, it was a matter of only practice and accuracy. I relied more on tests for my preparation. The month that was the most crucial for me was October as it was the month wherein you have to finalize your attempting strategy and have all your priorities sorted- chapters to give more time, topics to leave, RC first or VA first, etc. Further, admit cards were about to be released in the last week so that time of the day for mocks had to be set up.
Q) Please Share The Section-Wise Strategies Followed By You During Preparation.
Taking sectional tests is quite necessary. Sectionals provide that much necessary timed test of the particular section for any individual having specific preferences for a day or who wants to practice more of any particular section only. I took over 50 sectionals. As whenever I felt like not giving any mock, I relied on the sectionals. For me, from Mondays to Saturdays, reading passages and attempting them for 30 mins, and about 1-1.5 hours each to each section at the night. During holidays, apart from mocks and sectionals, VARC about 2 hours and 3 hours each to QA and LRDI.
Q) Please Talk About The Role Of Mock Tests While Preparing.
I started taking mocks regularly in July month. I took a mock every Sunday till the end of August, gradually giving 2-3 mocks per week till October end and a mock after every two days in November. I prefer the mock tests of IMS & TIME but all three are good and are prepared with utmost care. I took a total of 36 mocks along with some 50+ sectionals. For analysis, I went through each and every question right after the test and figure out the method, time taken, corrections (if any), and better alternatives. It took 2-3 hours for doing this. I carried forward the learnings in the next mock and track my improvements and old/new mistakes.
Meanwhile, if I came across some new formulae or methods, I noted them down properly. Mock scores for me were like a roller-coaster track. I would like to quote a few lines from Kipling's If, 'If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two imposters just the same, which stayed with me throughout. For low scores, I relied upon the analysis part and the topic-wise mistakes to which I solved questions and went through the methods again till I gained enough acquaintance. Also, I tried giving mocks according to the CAT timings till the time our admit cards were released. My Achilles heel remained in the VARC and LRDI sections. VARC I used to score low in RCs particularly, to which I solved passages while traveling from GMAT Buttler and for LRDI, I solved about 5 sets each day to build momentum on varied topics, because it had a simple funda- The more you practice, the more you are confident in figuring out the roadmaps. For RCs, I realized that it is not important to know all facts present in the passage but to understand what each paragraph meant and what it carried forward in the subsequent paragraphs. This provided me with a chain of events on which to base my memory.
Also, I read a number of articles on a number of topics are it including Psychology Today, WSJ, Scientific American, Aeon essays, editorials from newspapers, etc. The paper pattern as we all knew had to have 3 sections with 40 mins each, but the number of questions was not told. I was not concerned about this as whatever the number of questions was, I stuck to my attempting strategy, and the mocks which I gave provided me with all sorts of probable combinations of the number of question patterns. Till the D-day, it was not much of a surprise, as any serious aspirant would surely have attempted mocks that had these combinations.