Ankan is a fun-loving person who loves to play, watch a lot of TV series, travel, and eat out whenever he can. He has always done well in his academics, scoring 95+ in both 10th and 12th. He went on to do B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from NIT Durgapur. Not only academics, he actively played cricket throughout his school life and led college clubs too.
After scoring 99.93 percentile in CAT on the very first attempt, he has joined the red building of dreams, FMS Delhi this year. In this article, Ankan shares how he aced CAT 2021 without any coaching. Read on to know more!
PS: Don't miss out on the video, where he shares his detailed tips on cracking the DI-LR section!
Q) Please Share Your Score And Percentile With Our Readers.
Overall 127.96(99.93) | VARC 42.43(98.37) | DILR 35.2(99.37) | QA 50.34(99.93)
Q) Shed light on why and how did you decide to take the exam in 2021?
I always had the plan to do an MBA but I wasn't sure when. Being actively involved in managing and leading clubs in NITD, I knew my calling. Initially, the plan was to work for 2 years and then go for MBA and I worked towards it and got placed in PwC in a technology consulting role. But then I was sitting at home for a year now due to covid-19 with lots of free time in my hands and then I thought why not start preparing for CAT and see how it goes. I started and saw that I was doing decently. So, I researched more about the pros and cons of doing an MBA as a fresher and took the decision to go for it this year itself.
Q) How did you prepare? self-study, self-paced courses, or coaching?
From my childhood itself, I was never a fan of coaching institutes. I always felt that whatever I need to study, I can do it by myself. Even during JEE, I studied on my own and CAT was no different. I found some materials here and there on the internet and did them and then it was all mocks which I gave regularly to prepare myself.
Q) While preparing, what were some regular hurdles in the way and how did you overcome them?
I gave a lot of mocks, people would advise not to get emotional seeing the scores but if you are a human being, you are bound to be affected by those. There were days when I scored very low. Those days, I talked to friends about it, and they made me realize my high scores too and what I am capable of and it's just a bad day. The most important part after that was to analyze what happened that day, where did I go wrong, what mistakes I did, and try not to do them again.
Q) What is the most important aspect of preparing?
Since CAT is an aptitude exam, there's no testing of knowledge here. It's a test of how you handle situations you never faced, be it a very difficult LR set or a random philosophy RC that you didn't understand at all after reading. So, the most anyone can do is keep practicing, never lose motivation to do those consistently, and face those difficult situations every day in different mocks so that you are ready to handle anything that comes your way.
Q) Tell us about your D-Day experience and how you felt about your months of preparation after the exam?
The day before D-Day, I had a call with a few of my friends and we were chilling, singing songs together, making jokes, and trying to keep our nerves calm because I knew that a lot of mocks has prepared me enough and the only thing which I can prevent me from scoring well was unnecessary pressure. This lesson was learned the hard way when I took too much pressure during JEE and had a horrible D-Day back then. So, I tried to be as calm as possible. I had the 12.30 slot, I woke up late so that I don't have much time to think about CAT, listened to some songs, got prepared, and went to the center.
Though I was trying to be calm, when I saw people around me tense looking at the screens, it got to me too. The exam started. VARC was my weakest section and I just prayed to God that my exam shouldn't get worse from the start itself.
Surprisingly, VARC went pretty smooth, thanks to the 70+ mocks and 10+ VARC sectionals. DILR came and it was only 4 sets. This was my strongest section but CAT never ceases to surprise you. 20mins got stuck in a 6Q set and didn't attempt anything. I calmed myself down and went to a new set and things went very well after that. In the next 13mins, I solved the other 3 sets, and 14Q were done and I was relieved. Tried the 1st set again and still couldn't solve that, hard luck. Then came QA and I just went on solving, that 13min sprint in DILR gave me confidence and I could solve all 22Qs in QA.
Q) Today when you look back at your journey, is there anything you would do differently or advise the upcoming aspirants against it?
No, I wouldn't change a thing but one piece of advice from my side would be to chill because CAT is an aptitude exam and for which you don't need to study long hours. Just make sure you have enough practice regularly and you are good to go.
Q) Please Share Your Month-Wise Preparation Insights For Upcoming Aspirants.
In which month did you start preparing for CAT? What did you do in your initial months of preparation? I started around Feb-March. Initially, my strategy was just knowing the basics of everything and understanding the type of questions asked in the exam. So, I took a topic, found some basic questions from the internet, and did those at the start.
Q) Which month was most crucial for you during the preparation season?
I feel August, and September was the most crucial part because that's when all serious aspirants take mocks which gives you an honest picture of where you are standing. This is the time when you got to finalize your exam strategy after lots of experimentation, finding out your weak points and getting them right. I feel the months of October and November should just be casual practicing and more of chilling and proper rest so that you don't burn yourself out before CAT.
Q) Do you think taking sectionals is necessary? How many did you take?
I don't think sectionals are very necessary, because they don't give you an accurate picture except for the VARC section. An exhausted mind after a difficult VARC and a DILR section solving QA is never the same as solving a QA sectional with a fresh mind. So, I believe it's better to write more full mocks. But, if there's any particular section troubling you much and you need more practice, then obviously you go for sectionals. Since VARC was my weakest section, I wrote around 10+ sectionals for the same, 1 per week in the last 2/3months.
Note From The Editor: Ankan Has Shared His Secret Of Cracking The DI-LR Section Here! Watch To Know How You Can Also Score A Stellar 99.37%ile In The DILR Section!
Q) How much time did you invest in each section every day?
I didn't have any fixed time as such. On the days when I wrote a mock, I did nothing more. On other days, I made sure to touch each section and practice even 1 question too not to lose the habit of it. For VARC, I tried to solve at least 1/2 RCs, 3-4 sets of DILR from YouTube playlists(a lot of free playlists of good quality can be found), and a few QA questions here and there.
Q) When did you start taking mocks regularly? How many Mock Tests did you take?
I started taking mocks around May when I gave 1mock per week and moved towards 2 per week around July and then 3 per week in Sep and Oct and then relaxed mostly in Nov, giving 1 mock a week sometimes solved past years CAT paper for confidence. In total, I managed 74 mocks but I had lots of time being a fresher. For anyone else, 30-40+ is a good number of mocks to take. Which Mock Test Series did you prefer? (CL/IMS/TIME/Others) I took mocks from 3 institutes - IMS, TIME, and Cracku. IMS and TIME should be taken by everyone as it gives you a sense of your competition as most of the people take these two at least.
Q) How did you analyze your mocks and apply your learnings in the next mock?
My simple strategy for QA and DILR was to reattempt whatever I left in the exam and questions which I got wrong and then tried to find a pattern after 4-5 mocks if there were any specific weaknesses. Moreover, I used to check out the solutions to questions I solved correctly too if I could find any better way to solve them.
For VARC, I used to read passages again to understand any nuances in the passage which I may have missed in the mock aiming for speed at that time. It is very difficult to understand the solutions for VARC since options are close and you always feel your understanding is correct. So, I used to discuss the same with my group, and an hour or so after every mock helped me understand if I understood anything wrong or so.
Q) How did you deal with the uncertainties in terms of the paper pattern and the timespan of the exam? How did you prepare for “surprises”?
Since we didn't know the exact pattern till CAT, the mock test providers changed the pattern for every mock too and I tried that I didn't get any spoiler regarding the pattern so every mock was a surprise for me and this helped me adjust to anything that comes my way as now I used to make a strategy at that instant only.
Since you have come to the end, here is a small giveaway from Team InsideIIM. You have access to free sectional tests of DILR!