Shanttam hails from the educational city, Kota. He did his Dual Degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Madras in 2019 and has been working in financial services since 2019. His academics include 10 CGPA in 10th, 90.2% in 12th, and 8.2 CGPA in Undergrad. In this article, he shares his CAT preparation strategy and his advice for future CAT aspirants. Read on!
Q) Please Share Your Score And Percentile With Our Readers.
127.20, 99.93 %le | VARC - 34.09, 94.97 %le | DILR - 49.90, 99.98 %le | Quants - 43.21, 99.71 %le
Q) Please Share Your Journey In Achieving The Mentioned Percentile.
CAT 2020 was the first time I gave in a lot for this exam apart from personal struggles. After scoring 99.60 overall and missing out on the sectional cutoff in VARC, it was a thing difficult to digest. After months of thinking and no calls at all, I was all set to start preparing for GMAT in May 2021 but while ordering the GMAT book, I just gave Pre-SIMCAT without preparation in the last 6 months, that changed my outlook, and somehow I had the belief I can do it.
I cancelled my GMAT book order and purchased test series of IMS and later of CL, TIME, and Cracku. My entire preparation was about mocks and somewhere in the journey, I met some amazing folks roughly 15 in number. These guys were not just my study group members, they became family. All of us know each other in and out the way friends do and some of us are joining similar B schools in batches. Whenever I felt things are going south, I just spoke with them and that solved everything somehow.
Mocks - I analyzed each and every single one of my mocks and especially the VARC section. We used to have called after almost every mock and that changed my outlook to look at VARC. I started reading anything I could find and practicing as many RCs as I can. The lowest point was when in a streak of mocks, I scored lowest in DILR which used to be my strongest suit. I called one of my mentors and together we figured out that I had burned out my energy and decided to take a break for 3-4 days and that meant just reading things I like but not solving anything. During all this, I learned to babysit and prioritize my time better as well.
D Day - I had the morning slot and same center as 2020 so the flashback of screwing up VARC again came back to me. I just went to my mirror and told myself - whatever happens, today, I will be proud of myself and my journey. As soon as VARC started, I zoned out again and first 12 mins - didn't do anything at all. I ended up changing my strategy which is generally not recommended and went to VA, I ended up doing all VA and 2 RC. DILR went smooth for a while and in the last 5 mins, I realized the missed the easiest set which I could do partially later. After I came out of the exam, I heard mixed reviews of VARC and I was scared like anything for VARC but that family of mine supported me like anything.
Once the key was out, I was satisfied, and that insane practice of probably 300+ RCs or maybe more helped me in VARC accuracy. My suggestion to everyone out there aiming to crack CAT, make a small group who you can talk to and who can motivate you to work harder and push yourself.
Q) Please Share Your Month-Wise Preparation Insights For Upcoming Aspirants.
May - enrolled in test series and started reading some books for VARC
June to September - just mocks and analyse them without skipping analysis by a day or more
October - time I reached my lowest point and scores started dropping insanely but I kept practicing as much as I could
November - old CAT papers and pending mocks attempted close to 75 mocks including CAT 2020 papers and not a single VARC question was skipped to analyze which was my weakness.
Q) Please Share The Section-Wise Strategies Followed By You During Preparation.
VARC - My weakness was VARC and CAT 2020 always used to give me flashbacks of VARC. I joined VARC 1000 course this year along with mocks and made sure I practice every single RC and also discuss that with someone in my study group. I also tried to read for close to 30 mins on a daily basis. For reading - I started with material that I liked reading the most and then went to the material I wasn't comfortable with. For me, I think the fear of VARC was always there so the entire preparation was about becoming confident in the subject. I took close to 20 sectionals of VARC.
DILR - Practice and practice. This year including mocks I would have practiced close to 400 sets and I didn't use to look at solutions until I give it a shot for a decent period of time. Also, Sudoku helped me a lot in terms of having an open mind towards set solving and thinking faster. I used to solve Sudoku on a weekly basis and tried to challenge myself with that. I took close to 20 sectionals of DILR.
Quant - Practice and practice again. After getting done with the basics, I just went on a spree to solve questions. Here again, I used to look at the solution only after giving it a decent amount of time. I was always a person not comfortable with shortcuts so I never learned a lot of them but speed was getting compromised so I used to understand the shortcuts instead of just memorizing them and slowly over time I increased my speed as well. I took close to 15 sectionals of Quants.
Q) Please Talk About The Role Of Mock Tests While Preparing.
I enrolled for my 1st mock series sometime in June 2021. I've been regular with mocks since the inception but picked up more pace sometime around October. I enrolled for 4 test series - CL, TIME, IMS, and Cracku closing at ~75 mocks.
I used to write mocks in the morning on the last proctored day and analyze them the next day. There were some sets I just took a screenshot of and then solve them the same day itself. For analyzing, I used to do a self-analysis of all 3 sections by solving each question I couldn't do followed by questions that I was not confident about and got corrected by chance. After that within my study group, I used to discuss all my queries, especially VARC, and get perspectives of how people thought about that particular question/RC.
Mock tests did demotivate me for some weeks in between but my study group used to push me further and make me believe that I can do it. I used to consistently score low in VARC and it was huge up/down in DILR, quants somehow used to be consistent. Irrespective of my mock series, I never stopped believing in the process and slowly I could the results of the same. Towards the end, I was slightly better at VARC than earlier but I was way more confident in my preparation.
The frequency of mocks used to be 2 mocks/week initially and later it went to 3 mocks a week. In November, for some of the weeks, I pushed it to 4 mocks per week too but I kept in mind that I will try not to move to the next one without analyzing the previous ones. Since I had a morning slot, towards the end I used to write mocks in the morning and never used to discuss mocks before I wrote them so every mock was treated in a way like actual D-DAY. I was more worried about losing my focus so I tried to maintain a good sleep cycle and made sure I was fully focused while writing a mock.