Digvijay Singh, presently a student at IIM Calcutta, worked as a senior business analyst at Axis Bank worked for 30 months. He completed his mechanical engineering from BITS with a CGPA of 8.11, XII with 77.8%, and X with 9 CGPA. His CAT score is 196.72 with a 99.90%ile(A OS - 56.5 OP- 97.45 %ile DILR OS - 68.2 OP- 99.92 %ile QUANT OS - 71.98 OP- 99.67 %ile). As a working professional, Digvijay has shared some tips with us which helped him personally to ace the CAT exam in his first attempt.
There are many aspirants who will attempt for the second (or even third or fourth) time. What'd be your advice to them?
First and foremost you need to identify your weak areas and have a targeted practice approach to those areas. Analyze your mocks as well as actual papers thoroughly. One must ensure through this analysis that mistakes committed once shouldn't be repeated. While analyzing mocks as well as while attempting a paper try and categorize questions into three categories,
1.Easy- attempt right away and shouldn't make any mistake in those
2. The medium difficulty might take some time, attempt after attempting all easy ones
3. Difficult, leave these for the last attempt.
How did you prepare – Self-study or Coaching? Which one do you think is better?
Although I was enrolled in coaching that didn't help me in my preparation a lot. For me, it ensured discipline in terms of preparation. Mock test from the coaching did help me a lot
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According to you, what is the most important aspect of preparation?
1. Discipline: Can't stress enough about how much of a pivotal role discipline plays in the preparation, from covering the syllabus to attempting mocks and analyzing them. I tried sticking to my schedule that I had prepared. Also, for working professionals, it is even crucial cause there is very little time left after office hours to prep.
2 .Practice: practising a different variety of questions helped me in identifying approaches to solving an LR set, and minimize error in quant section
3. Strategy: instead of going in with a fixed number of attempts in mind, I decided a number of attempts basis difficulty of sections and my strong/weak areas. Depending upon whether paper ranged from easy/medium/difficult, I would decide on a sufficient number of attempts
Which mock series did you enroll for?
TIME
How many full-length mock tests did you take?
16
How many sectional mock tests did you take?
VA- 19 DILR- 12 QA- 20
What was your approach while taking mocks?
My first goal was to reduce avg time taken to attempt the questions, this involved leaving out tough or time-consuming questions. I was attempting all questions in a sequential manner, so by the time I used to reach 24/25 questions I was almost out of time. I had to learn to leave questions first. Once I was hitting a decent number of questions I started focusing on improving my accuracy. I tried to ensure that I never make an error in easy or medium level questions. Analysis mocks for at least two hours helped in that. I tried making a habit of categorizing questions by difficulty and time taking. Then, it was all about hitting those sweet spots.
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How do you think the mock tests helped you in your preparation?
Mocks helped me in identifying: 1 weak and strong areas in each section 2 types of questions I was making errors in 3 if I was wasting time in some particular type of questions 4 in what areas can I improve my accuracy as well as if I'm leaving out any easy questions Stats given for each question about difficulty, how many people attempted it and avg time taken by those people vs me, helped me benchmark my performance at a very granular level
Which section were you strong in? Since you were strong in that section, how did you focus on the other sections?
I did not have any as such strong section, VARC and DILR were moderate and QUANT was slightly weak. I used to score around 120 in my initial mocks with a breakup of 45/35/40. For VARC, VA accuracy and attempts were decent but in RC I was attempting a lot of questions and accuracy was around 50% which was quite low. I consciously started attempting less number of questions in RC also whenever I was unable to answer a question I was quick to move to the next question and come back to unattempted questions in round 2, it helped me tackle those questions fresh, and I used to attempt 3-5 questions from these lot. If the topic was a familiar or a common topic, I also used to read questions beforehand so as to focus on critical areas of passage. For DILR, Accuracy wasn't an issue here, selection of set was crucial for me. Initially, I used to attempt all sets sequentially but that proved to be a horrible mistake. I got stuck in some of the sets and they would waste 10-15 minutes and I wouldn't even attempt all questions of that set. I would go through sets and only solved those which I have seen before or those which looked easy in the first round. My goal was to first complete 2-3 easy sets in the first 35 minutes. And then take on one or two sets in the remaining 25 minutes. This strategy worked for me in mocks and even in CAT'19 Quant was comparatively weaker for me, I was attempting only 15-16 questions and scoring 40-42 marks. So accuracy wasn't an issue here it was question selection and time management, I was wasting a lot of time in some difficult questions and as a result, easy questions were being left out. Mocks helped me in identifying these type of questions which I should avoid. My target was to reach at least 25 attempts and with each passing mock, I gradually started attempting more questions. Also, three rounds of attempting questions helped me, easy questions in round one, slightly lengthy in round two, and if time permits attempt difficult questions last.
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Which section was your Achilles heel? How did you overcome that?
Quant was comparatively weaker for me, I was attempting only 15-16 questions and scoring 40-42 marks. So accuracy wasn't an issue here it was question selection and time management, I was wasting a lot of time in some difficult questions and as a result, easy questions were being left out. Mocks helped me in identifying these type of questions which I should avoid. My target was to reach at least 25 attempts and with each passing mock, I gradually started attempting more questions. Also, three rounds of attempting questions helped me, easy questions in round one, slightly lengthy in round two, and if time permits attempt difficult questions last.
How much time did you devote to preparation on a regular basis?
I was clocking 2-3 hours daily on weekdays and 5-6 hours on weekends. My weekday would start with a sectional test before I leave for work, and post returning from office I would either give one sectional test or do practice questions. The weekend was for full length mock, and then 2-3 hours for analyzing the mock and reattempting questions I didn't attempt or were incorrect
Tell us about the lowest point in your preparation journey and how did you overcome that?
I always kept small and achievable goals for each of my next mock. So, I didn't have an as such low point.
Do you believe that an engineer gets an added advantage in the management entrance exams?
The advantage if any would be in quant, and its High school maths which can be easily covered in a month or two
What resources would you suggest to 2020 aspirants?
I was referring to material provided by time and that was enough practice, for mocks I was giving aimcats
What according to you are the DOs and DON'Ts of CAT preparation?
Don't hoard a lot of material, keep one source, and stick to it to the end. Give a sufficient number of mocks and analyze them.
Which mock series would you like to suggest to CAT 2020 aspirants? Is one mock series sufficient or do you suggest a combination of 2 different mock series?
AIMCATs, it was sufficient for me. Enough number of people attempt it to give you a realistic standing
What would be your final advice to CAT 2020 Aspirants?
Practice smart, give at least 15 mocks, and analyze them.