Competitions

CAT Prep

Upskill

Placements

MBA Co'26

RTI Response

Rankings

Score Vs. %ile

Salaries

Campus Tour

My Preparation Strategy For CAT 2019 | Shantanu Singh, IIM A

Jul 28, 2020 | 5 minutes |

Join InsideIIM GOLD

Webinars & Workshops

Compare B-Schools

Free CAT Course

Take Free Mock Tests

Upskill With AltUni

CAT Study Planner

Final 18 Days to CAT 2024 Test-28

Participants: 18

Final 19 Days to CAT 2024 Test-26

Participants: 157

Final 20 Days to CAT 2024 Test-26

Participants: 183

Final 21 Days to CAT 2024 Test-25

Participants: 148

Final 22 Days to CAT 2024 Test-24

Participants: 167

Final 23 Days to CAT 2024 Test-23

Participants: 105

Final 24 Days to CAT 2024 Test-22

Participants: 157

Final 25 Days to CAT 2024 Test-21

Participants: 146

Final 26 Days to CAT 2024 Test-20

Participants: 197

Final 27 Days to CAT 2024 Test-19

Participants: 171

Final 28 Days to CAT 2024 Test-18

Participants: 169

Final 29 Days to CAT 2024 Test-17

Participants: 176

Final 30 Days to CAT 2024 Test-16

Participants: 195

Final 31 Days to CAT 2024 Test-15

Participants: 185

Final 32 Days to CAT 2024 Test-14

Participants: 195

Final 33 Days to CAT 2024 Test-13

Participants: 196

Final 34 Days to CAT 2024 Test-12

Participants: 228

CAT 2017 VARC SLOT- 2

Participants: 313

CAT 2017 DILR SLOT- 2

Participants: 157

CAT 2017 VARC SLOT- 1

Participants: 301

CAT 2017 DILR SLOT- 1

Participants: 106

CAT 2017 QUANT SLOT 1

Participants: 152

CAT 2017 QUANT SLOT 2

Participants: 69

CAT 2018 QUANT SLOT 2

Participants: 67

CAT 2018 QUANT SLOT 1

Participants: 109

CAT 2018 DILR SLOT- 2

Participants: 58

CAT 2018 DILR SLOT- 1

Participants: 84

CAT 2018 VARC SLOT- 2

Participants: 203

CAT 2018 VARC SLOT- 1

Participants: 299

Final 35 Days to CAT 2024 Test-11

Participants: 157

Preparation for CAT 2019

CAT is not an exam of intellect or formulas, but a platform that tests a candidate for aptitude and skills through perseverance. The only way to bell this exam is through practice. The skills CAT tests are time management, speed, and determination, which I believe are expected from a management graduate post- MBA.

Background:
Name: Shantanu Singh Yadav (M,24)
Qualifications: B.Tech (Chemical Engineering), NIT Hamirpur batch of 2017.
Work Ex: 34 Months at Kribhco Limited (Urea Manufacturing), Hazira.

Preparation Strategy -

Going with my personal experience, CAT 2019 was my second attempt at the exam, with the first one being in 2018, which fetched me admits to some new and baby IIMs. I started preparing again in May’19, mostly focusing on mocks and timing my attempts effectively. I started cross-checking and analyzing my wrong answers, something I never used to do earlier.
The quants section was my strength, but I still devoted equal time to all the three sections with some extra effort towards DI and LR, which is I believe is the most unpredictable section in the exam. You could practice a hell lot of LR sets before the exam but might still hassle on the D-Day. LR sets are not straightforward like Quants or DI sets. Timing my complete mocks and sectional tests, along with thoroughly analyzing my wrong as well as the right attempts, turned out to be fruitful.

VARC -
For Verbal and RC, I used to read articles from diverse fields to get a hold of difficulty faced to comprehend as well as retain a column when it does not belong to something you’re usually used to. I used to read The Indian Express, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Financial Times. Reading articles from newspapers and business magazines not only helped me in VA and RC but also made a solid base to ace the current affairs during the interview and GD rounds.

LRDI -
For DILR, I focused mostly on LR and LR based DI sets, as for the past few years, you rarely get to see a pure DI set in the actual exam. LR being the most unpredictable section in CAT, I followed a strategy to solve and analyze every set I face either during mocks or during practice from dedicated books. Try looking for practice material online on Google Drive, and you’ll find plenty of LR sets to solve. IMS’s mocks helped a lot in the DI LR section as they had questions that were closest to the ones faced in the CAT Exam.

QA -
For Quants, I thoroughly practised books by Arun Sharma with a timed approach to solve at least 25-28 questions from various topics under 60 minutes. Apart from this, I also solved previous years’ CAT papers with minimal use of the on-screen calculator, although I’d suggest getting used to the on-screen calculator (can’t afford to hassle with it on the D-day). TIME’s material and test series are helpful when it comes to QA, while for VARC and LRDI, I found IMS’s test series to be closest to the actual CAT exam.

I was lagging a bit in VA and LR during my initial preparation. For VA, there’s only one approach, and that is to read, read, and read. Read from publications you’re not familiar with or used to. Read foreign journals/magazines, editorials in international newspapers, etc. For LR, I solved as many sets I could get my hands on with a timed approach, trying to crack the set within 10-12 minutes was my strategy. You can’t afford to lose even 10 minutes on the actual exam since a 10 minutes lag or 10 minutes wasted on a LR set or a QA question you couldn’t eventually solve would push your percentile at least 1.5-2 points to the south. Just try to improve your attempts through mocks and push your score as north as you can.

Strategy for D-day -
The strategy for D-Day would be to avoid any last-minute preparation. Since the syllabus for CAT is so vast and even has no boundaries defined for VARC and DILR, last-minute hustle mostly turns fruitless and overloads you with added stress. I appeared for one mock a day before the exam and scored just 16 in VARC, which freaked me out. It somehow affected my actual performance in CAT, where I scored merely 40 marks in VARC, which took my sectional percentile below 90.
Take rest and sleep well a day before the exam, not much you’ll be able to change with a day’s preparation. I spent the rest of the day watching Netflix after flunking VARC a day before CAT.

***

Below are some similar stories about CAT preparation -
  1. From 70% In CAT 2018 To 98+% In CAT 2019 | Ft. Biswarup Ghosh
  2. How To Ace CAT 2020 | Tips By Tanuj Ruia, IIM B, 99.69%iler
  3. How To Bell The CAT | Tips By Nihir Gulati, IIM A, CAT 99.92 %iler