If you’re wondering how competitive it is to score upwards of a 99.7%ile on CAT, how toppers reach that level, and what the focus of your preparation should be at this point, we’ve got you covered in this article. Not only that, we’ll help you out winning strategies for CAT and common mistakes to avoid!

We invited two IIM Calcutta students and CAT Toppers - Mridul Jain (CAT 99.75%iler) and Shantanu Date (CAT 99.88%iler.) to share how they approached the three sections on CAT such that they scored 99.7+%iles!

Shantanu Date had 95% in class 10th, around 87% in 12th, and as an engineer from NIT Nagpur, he graduated with a CGPA of 7.2. He went on to work with Fidelity Investments as a Software Engineer for 2 years, after which he wrote CAT and joined IIM Calcutta.

Mridul Jain scored around 94% in class 10th and 12th and then did his engineering from MNNIT Allahabad from where he graduated with an 8.7 CGPA in 2017. He went on to work with Morgan Stanley and then joined IIM Calcutta.

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1. How competitive is it to score 99.88 percentile? How many people out of the two lakh plus folks who take the exam actually score it?

About 200 people will score a 99.9 plus percentile on CAT. If you want to be among one of them, you need to make sure that you're preparing really well. You might do well in one section, but you might not do well in the other. You need to make sure that you end up scoring well overall. So, it is not as easy as it looks. If I got a 99.7+%ile today, I probably won't get anywhere near that percentile the next time. It is just about preparation and going through it. Put in your best effort. That's about it.

With a score of 160 on the old pattern, you could get 99.2%ile. With a score of 175, I got 99.75% and with a score of 188, Shantanu got 99.88%. Notice how 15 marks, which is around 5 questions, can create such a huge difference. That’s the silver lining, I would say. It's competitive but you only need to make marginal increases of 1 - 2 questions to reach your desired percentile. So just keep at it, keep practicing, and you’ll get there.

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2. What should be the focus of one’s CAT preparation at this point?

Since most of you would have built your basic concepts by August and September, to go from the 95th to 99th percentile, what matters most is that you take at least 2 mocks a week apart from the regular practice that you do daily.

Now is the time to stop seeing CAT as a test of different sections such as QA, VA, and LRDI. Those sections will keep on improving on their own as and when you give your mocks sectionals and analyze those tests. Now is the time to see CAT holistically and build the capacity to keep on solving mocks in a timed environment. You'll have a clock ticking in front of you and you need to ensure that your mind is adjusted to solving maximum questions in those 2 hours. So begin preparing your mind to ace CAT.

The other thing is, you need to be practical about it. If you are an average person, it is unrealistic to expect to do exceptionally well on all the sections. There are numerous examples of people who have messed up really badly on certain sections but managed to do exceptionally well on one section and therefore sailed through. So you need not be very good at all the three sections. You only need to identify the section that is not your forte and aim to clear the cutoff in that section. Recognize your strong sections and work to make it even stronger because that will give you the bulk of your score.

All in all, accept that you have some weak sections and prepare your strategies accordingly.

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3. What does a winning strategy for CAT look like?

Mridul Jain: Strategy is about experimenting with test taking styles to figure out those that work best for you. Now is the time you can do a lot of experimentation as we did. For example, I tried taking verbal ability questions first and then moving to RC. I tried taking RCs first and then moving to verbal. I tried solving 3 RCs. I just glanced through all the RCs and solved the easy questions. So try different strategies to attempt the paper.

When it comes to LR DI, many people want to solve a particular set, but just try to understand that you do not have to solve 4 sets or 4 complete sets. What you can also do is complete 2 sets and 4 partial sets and you will reach an equivalent score. Don’t get stuck on questions.

Every set of 4 questions would have some easy questions, some hard questions. Now you need to identify those easier, medium questions, solve them, leave the hard questions for later. You need to have some kind of strategy to attempt the paper and this is the time where you start creating those strategies. This is also the time where your mentors and your teachers play a huge role. Video analyses also play a huge role because they explain to you how you can create some strategies of your own and show you ways in which you could have attempted the paper better.

Shantanu Date: Let me give you specific examples. Let's take a 40-minute exam. You want to probably go through the entire list of questions at once, because there might be easier questions towards the end of it. Coming back to the moderate questions after you have done all the easy ones could be an optimal strategy.

On the 1-hour exam, I did the 40/20 strategy where I did the first round in 40 minutes and then the next round in 20 minutes. Your strategy would depend on even the level of the paper that comes this year but you need to work through these permutations and combinations to find the approach that suits you best. This discovery can only happen when you have a lot of practice.

One other thing that we came across is that 90% to 95% of the times we did not require a calculator to solve quant questions. So if you require a calculator in a particular question, you are probably going wrong somewhere, and might benefit from working with the options instead. So rather than going and brute forcing your way using a calculator, be smart about it and go through the options because the options will help you crack questions in a matter of seconds.

In terms of verbal ability, your reading speed does matter a lot. You might want to focus on that through your preparation and that would help you get from that 99 to 99.6 or 7 plus.

These are the things that we have unearthed ourselves after analyzing and practicing a lot. So, just keep preparing, I would say, you'll learn all these things on your own. Lastly, the only person whom you would want to listen to is your teacher or your mentor from a respective Coaching Institute. I think that is more than enough. You'll unearth all these learnings with their help and on your own, but just keep preparing. Keep practicing.

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4. What mistakes have you seen people make that prevent them from scoring 99 plus percentile? How can aspirants avoid those mistakes?

I think the first mistake is that people see months remaining for CAT as a whole continuous period. This may make preparation seem overwhelming and add vagueness. The outlook I recommend is:

The first phase is a concept building and individual concept practice phase.

The last three months are for you to see CAT as a whole and prepare yourself to ace the entire exam.

These two time periods should be clearly entrenched into your mind so that if you're falling behind, you will be motivated to increase your speed or put in more hours so that despite bad days, your preparation does not suffer.

Second mistake we see many aspirants make is that they become complacent with the sections they think they are good at. Suppose I'm getting, let's say, with my current preparation level, around 99.5 in Quant, and I'm happy with it and I stop preparing for quant, I lose out on the opportunity to get to a 99.9 or 100%ile in the section. And those extra few percentiles towards the end create a huge difference in the overall percentile you will get. So do not ignore your strong areas and try to improve them.

Marginal utility from improving your stronger areas is huge. In your weaker areas, just try to float, I would say, don't drown. Clear the cutoff and obtain a decent percentile. This should be your strategy for your weaker areas.

The third mistake is losing your calm on seeing a difficult paper. Remind yourself that we live in a relative world. If it's difficult for you, it's difficult for everyone, so there is an opportunity there. Be calm and attempt the paper to the best of your ability. Do justice to your preparation. That will suffice.

The fourth mistake is getting demotivated on seeing low mock scores and judging your entire self based on that one random score. See, if you fail right now, it's okay. If you fail in your mocks, you learn a new concept, that's brilliant. Your goal should be to learn from one mock everything you possibly could and then approach the next mock with a similar mindset.

When you see yourself today and compare it with yourself a month back, you should see some kind of an improvement and that should be the strategy. Day on day, you won't be able to find any improvement. So just don't get demotivated by the small setbacks you face. See the positives, learn from your mistakes, and move on.

The fifth mistake I see many aspirants make is not attempting other exams such as IIFT, NMAT, SNAP and more. These exams lead you to very good colleges. These are colleges that can take you to good companies and therefore definitely should not be ignored. These exams also give you hope during the CAT day when things seem to go haywire. You would know that you have other chances, and that thought would relax you and calm your nerves, which is critical on the day of CAT.

The sixth mistake is studying and taking mock tests in complete silence. It could be possible that your test center is on a highway and there is a lot of noise on the highway or continuous disturbance during the paper. So get used to focusing despite some kind of noise.If at home your family is talking or some disturbance is happening, let it be. Try to focus despite it and think of it as practice for the CAT day. Wear a mask when you take a mock. Try to simulate an environment similar to one you may expect on the exam day so that on the last day, you do not panic. You want to feel homely, comfortable, and safe on that last day.

So these were the six mistakes I have repeatedly seen people make. These are easily avoidable. Avoid them.

5. Any final thoughts you want to share with the aspirants?

Shantanu Date: I know that a lot of you are from really diverse backgrounds and cracking CAT might seem daunting, right now, but remember that this is just what you learned until class 10th. So, go back to the basics. You might need to put in more effort, but it’s going to be worth it.

I want to stress on the fact that preparation through mocks is a very real thing and it is what the majority of people who end up doing well on the exam focus on too. So do not just give up on mocks because it could then create a very bad feedback loop. If you don't score well, you get demotivated, you feel that you can not do a mock right, and then it just goes downhill from there.

So keep at it. Keep taking mocks. Keep analyzing them. That is the only way you will improve for the final exam, because concept building itself is a key part of your preparation but it won't really help you’re not ready for the final paper.

Mridul Jain: First of all, never give up on your practice. Always practice regardless of whether mocks are going fine or not or accuracy is high or not. Your goal should be to not repeat your mistakes.

The second thing is, when you write the exam, just forget your background, profile, and other concerns. Give everything you can to this exam at that moment because the CAT percentile plays a very important role in the final calls. So give whatever you have to this exam.

Getting that CAT percentile is not rocket science. If you talk to people who prepared seriously, they'll say that CAT is not a concept but it's a brain test, it's a mind test, how easily you can control your nerves on the final day is critical to getting a high score. You can do that only through regular practice. That’s all you need to do. Start.

To make sure you don't miss out on the entire story, read the first and second parts as well.

Oshin Sharma

What Does It Take To Score A 99.7+%ile On CAT? Ft. IIM Calcutta Alumni