Roshni Bhattacharya is an avid reader, and a biotechnologist turned software professional. Always striving for the best, she had scored 10 CGPA in class 10th and 93% in CBSE Class 12th (PCB) boards. She is a gold medalist at various environment sciences and mathematics olympiads at school. Post high school, for her love for research she opted for her B.Tech. in biotechnology from Shoolini University and graduated with an 8.65 OGPA. However, during her summer research fellowship at CSIR-IITR Lucknow, her love for technology took over while working at the Computational Toxicology Facility where she got the opportunity to get her work published, twice! Hence opted for a job in the cloud domain at Accenture Technology, India where she worked for 2 years and 5 months. During her time at Accenture, it became pretty clear that MBA was the way for her to work her way up.
Q) Please Share Your Score And Percentile With Our Readers.
Overall Score - 61.2, Overall Percentile - 90.85 | VARC Score - 35.14, VARC Percentile - 95.61 | DILR Score - 15.14, DILR Percentile - 81.18 | Quant Score - 10.92, Quant Percentile - 78.13
Q: Shed light on why and how did you decide to take the exam in 2021?
A: During my time at Accenture, I was able to get a firm grip on the work in no time. Being tagged as a global client, I had the opportunity to work with people from all over the world. This made me realize the confidence that was deep-seated within me and never had the chance to explore. Even though I have spent most of my life on stage performing music, interacting with people from varied nations is something else. That led to an early promotion at the workplace and made me realize that for climbing up the rungs of the corporate ladder, I needed the correct ammo. This led me to believe MBA was the perfect decision for me and hence decided to prepare for CAT.
Q: While deciding to appear for the exams, who did you take guidance from?-How did you prepare? self-study, self-paced courses, or coaching?
A: I had spoken to one of the alumni of our team who made it to IIM Calcutta. Her guidance was priceless for she motivated me to the core and guided me on the nitty-gritty. However, working for a global client with 24/7 support, as much a boon it is, can also be a curse. I did not have a fixed working schedule and was expected to provide support Monday-Sunday; Morning, day, or night shift. I had researched heavily but no distance learning course seemed suitable for me and my situation, leaving me apart from offline classes/weekend classes. All I could do was purchase mock test series and use coaching materials and work through it at my own pace.
Q: -While preparing, what were some regular hurdles in the way and how did you overcome them? What was your lowest point during the preparation journey?
A: While I decided to take upon the herculean task of teaching myself, I got infected with COVID delta strain during the second wave in the country and was bedridden for 2 months. Accenture was kind enough to help me with the required leaves and all I could do was the practice in bed. It took me 6 months and lots of diet control and exercise to recover completely, be it the life-draining fatigue or the blood work. That time, the test series seemed like a really great idea, for I could attempt the topic tests (which were short) and judge where my weaknesses lie. Juggling my health and work along with my studies seemed tough in the beginning but soon I got the hang of it and was writing topic tests in any break I got. All was going as per my plans, but with only 2 months left for the D-Day, my mother fell sick and was hospitalized for 10 days. This was the most painful time for us where I was working from the hospital and struggling to keep things sane around me. Even though I had already registered for CAT by that time, I was planning on dropping the idea of it, since I knew my preparation was not at par with my expectations. My parents convinced me otherwise and asked me to at least appear for the same, for we always have another "next time" for I already was working at a pretty exciting role.
Q: What is the most important aspect of preparing?
The most important aspect of preparation has to be consistency. Be it for 10 minutes, but it is necessary to invest some time every single day.
Q: Tell us about your D-Day experience and how you felt about your months of preparation after the exam? Today when you look back at your journey, Is there anything you would do differently or advise the upcoming aspirants against it?
A: So the dreaded day came, and I had the 1st slot. In those foggy winter hours, we started the journey, and comedy being my lifelong friend, I was mistakenly dropped at the wrong exam center. 15 minutes to reporting time, I had to sprint to the correct location with no money and mobile phone on me. Surprisingly, that was not the scariest part of the day anymore. I sailed through verbal ability and was quite content with the performance. However, DILR got the best of me and that was the end I could feel. Fighting through the urges of just running away from the center, I continued but by that time it had gotten the best of me and I had lost all hopes. This is what I would suggest to the aspirants not to fall into the trap. If a particular section is taking a toll on you, train your mind to block it at the gates of the following section.
Q) Please Share Your Month-Wise Preparation Insights For Upcoming Aspirants.
I started to practice for CAT 2022 in the month of March itself. However, it did not pick up pace until the end of June, when I started to recover completely. I invested the entire month of July in completing the concepts from Quantitative Analysis while practicing VARC and DILR on the side. Quants being my weakness I had given it the most time. I knew VARC was my strongest point, hence I attempted topic tests for them every day till the end. For me, the month of October and November were the most crucial ones where I used to attempt mocks over the weekend (or weekdays, if I was working the weekends) and analyze them later. However, I feel that I would have done better if had the chance to practice more sectional and complete mocks. Mock tests help to simulate the exam pretty well. The situation at the CAT exam got the best of me, which can be easily avoided with a well-trained mind.
Q) Please Share The Section-Wise Strategies Followed By You During Preparation.
For me, topic tests helped me far more than sectionals could. That was the case because I was working for 11-12 hours every day and that too in odd shifts. Due to this paucity of time, I could only steal away small pockets of time from my day and attempt topic tests of 15 - 20 mins each. After I would attempt a topic test, I would devote 10 more minutes to analyze the same and note the progress down. It went on like this the entire time I was preparing and I could only attempt Mocks over my week offs.