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To Crack CAT, Focus On Patterns, Trends - A Consultant's Strategy Ft. Javin M, IIM K

Jul 22, 2020 | |

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Javin Madaan, Senior Consultant at KPMG India got interested in writing the CAT and pursuing an MBA during his work with FMCG companies. He realised that if he wanted to crack the uber competitive CAT exam, he needed a strategy unique to his own strengths. Bringing the rigour and discipline from CA preparation as well as his unique experience analysing and strategizing as a consultant, Javin decided to focus on scoring the sectional percentiles he needed to crack a legacy IIM or a top Indian b-school. In this video, he shares how he cracked IIM K by scoring 96%ile in CAT 2019, with 99.7%ile in VA-RC, 94%ile in DI-LR and 81%ile in Quants.  



Summary:
From juggling demanding work hours to preparing for CAT, Javin shares how he started CAT prep only in May end 2019 and went on to write as many mocks as he could squeeze in. He figured out his strengths and the patterns that the CAT sections were likely to follow and based his own prep on these. For example, he struggled with the Quant section; this made him keep the trigonometry, geometry sections aside and work only on sharpening the concepts he was familiar with. Despite not scoring a 99%ile, he managed to reach the sectional cut offs required by legacy IIMs.

He shares how he managed to analyse mocks without being associated with any coaching institute. He talks of dealing with a section you’re unsure of and how one can crack this to achieve the necessary scores. He also mentions how to deal with a really tough section during CAT itself. He shares how one needs to find the easy questions and solve those. Javin also talks of moving on. Having flunked CA finals once, he is intimately familiar with failure. He shares how one needs to make sure that on CAT day, he or she does not dwell too long on answers they can’t solve. He shares how you need to move on to the next question and not worry about the previous one. If you want to know how to think of the CAT exam, the mental attitude and the sharpness of focus required to crack the CAT, this is a must watch.

Key Takeaways
- It's important to know the sectional percentiles you'll need for target b-schools while preparing.
- You can choose which concepts you want to hone based on how many questions you need to answer during CAT.
- Focus on your strengths to crack the CAT.
- Choose your battles well when juggling work and CAT prep to focus on concepts that will fetch the scores you need.
- In quants, you need only 20 correct answers from 34 questions.
- Consistently writing mocks help you prepare for CAT.
- Keep a formula sheet handy for quants.
- Knowing your strengths by November, & writing mocks is a great CAT prep strategy.
- Mocks give you a sense of perspective & time management.
- Don't get stuck on solving a question as a measure of your intellect. Move on if you find a question really tough during CAT.
- Find out the patterns of your answers during mocks.
- Focus on your goal. Forget the rest.

Here's What We Recommend You Take A Look At Next:
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2) CAT Consists Of 4 Sections; Not 3 Ft. Lakshya Kumar, 99.99%iler, IIM C
3) From Scoring 2.19 In DI-LR In CAT 2017 To Making It To IIM L | CAT Prep Tips By Anubhav Singh

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