Ananya Vasisht is a B.Sc. Mathematics honors graduate from Jesus and Mary College, Delhi University, and will be joining FMS, Class of 2024. She scored 99.75%ile in CAT 2021 in her first attempt by self-preparation in just 4 months. Her scores in 10th, 12th, and graduation are 95, 95.2, and 81.4 respectively. In this interview, she has detailed her CAT preparation strategy and her advice to future CAT aspirants!
Q) Please Share Your Score And Percentile With Our Readers.
OA, 114.25, 99.75/ VARC, 47.73, 99.33/ DILR, 41.47, 99.86/ QA, 25.05, 95.78
Q) Please Share Your Journey In Achieving The Mentioned Percentile.
The first thing I did when I decided to appear for CAT was give the previous year’s paper, so CAT 2020 slot-1 to gauge where I stood in terms of different sections and fundamentals, with a slight adjustment of taking 3 hours instead of 2 because I wanted to focus on my understanding of the basics instead of speed, which I knew would improve once I started preparing. This helped me realize what my strong and weak points were, My VARC was good thanks to the hours spent reading fiction during the pandemic, my DILR was average but I knew I needed a lot of practice and my QA needed a lot of work. With that in mind, I brought three books, Arun Sharma’s QA, LR, and DI, and tried to solve all of them in the limited time I had since CAT was less than 4 months away at that point. After about two and a half months, I was able to complete most of the books but did leave a few chapters as I was short of time. Keep in mind that CAT is not about solving the whole paper and around 50% marks will fetch you 99 percentile, so the focus should not be on covering all the topics but on playing your strengths.
Q) Please Share Your Month-Wise Preparation Insights For Upcoming Aspirants.
In the meantime, I was attempting one previous year's CAT every weekend from the inception of my preparation in August, as well. Those I believe are excellent ways to familiarise oneself with the pattern and intricacies of the exam as well as boost one’s confidence as they, more often than not are easier than mocks and very close to the level of the actual CAT exam. After that, around the end of October, I started giving one mock every day up until the day before CAT, which was a mistake in my opinion and would recommend you stop giving mocks 3 days before CAT, and after that just solve questions from whichever book you’re consulting just to retain the habit and speed of solving sums.
Q) Please Share The Section-Wise Strategies Followed By You During Preparation.
For VARC, I would suggest reading as much as you can, this not only improves your speed but also enhances your understanding of the written word. DILR, I feel is all about practice while QA is a mix of practice and knowing your way around numbers. I did not give any sectionals but did solve some of Oswaal’s CAT 23 years topic-wise solved papers which I felt were really good.
Q) Please Talk About The Role Of Mock Tests While Preparing.
I gave 9 CAT previous year’s papers and 24 mocks of Career Launcher and TIME. Both I felt were of great help in preparing me for a whole array of difficult and twisted questions while simultaneously improving my speed. CL’s interface was actually quite close to the actual CAT. After giving mocks in the stipulated time, I used to keep that aside and try to solve all the questions without a time limit, thereafter, I used to look at the solutions and see how they were solved, what tricks were used, and thoroughly go through each one of the questions again. Also with mocks, it’s important to keep in mind that they are in no way a reflection of how you will score on the actual paper. There were times when I scored 70 percentile in them and would just be devasted but with time, I realized that they were just practice and those scores should be taken with a pinch of salt.
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