The DI LR section has always been playing the role of a second fiddle to the other two sections of CAT i.e. VA and QA, well at least in the test takers’ minds and subsequently their test-taking strategies. Till CAT 2014, one could actually confer lesser importance on the DI LR questions since they were split into half and stuffed into the then CAT’s 2 sections namely VA & LR and QA & DI. But times have changed.
General Engineer Male (GEM) with over 2 years of IT experience dreaming to get into one of the country’s finest b-schools is nothing short of a Herculean task. Below is the depiction of a GEM’s plight through this journey.
From last 2 years, the pattern of CAT has remained consistent. There are three sections QA, DILR, VARC; each one of them with 34, 32, 64 questions each. To do well in CAT, one needs to score consistently in all three section or to say minimum 90%ile in each section would be favourable for getting calls from Top IIMs.
I’ll lay down the objective of writing this piece right at the outset to save you the effort of going through all of it before you ascertain its utility for you. From the way I look at it, this piece should be quite useful to those grappling with bad grades in their undergraduate/postgraduate life and aiming to get an MBA degree sooner or later, fairly useful to those who look at CAT as something potentially exciting and worth acing, and probably just about worthwhile to those who are simply curious to know what another aspirant’s journey was like. The others too are, most welcome to read this even if not from a purely utilitarian perspective. That said, I’ll now proceed to narrate my story.
“The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams” – Oprah Winfrey
As I sit writing this piece in my hostel room at 2 am at night at SCMHRD, I can hear a buzz. My head is buzzing, the hostel is buzzing, the entire campus is buzzing. The summer internship season is here, or as one of my more wittier batchmates commented ironically - WINTER IS HERE! But more on that later, let us start from the beginning.
Atul Kumar Jha IIM Bangalore CAT %le 99.24 CAT 2012 My first encounter with CAT was in 3rd year, NIT Jamshedpur when I found my roommate buying coaching institutes course material. Being a Mechanical Engineer, all I wanted then was a decent job with a good pay. However, peer pressure made me enrol in one of the coaching institutes. Spent (rather wasted) Rs 30,000 as I hardly opened any book or took any of the mocks. Very soon the 4th year came and I got busy with my placement procedures. CAT was scheduled in November as usual, but I chose to skip it (a big mistake) and decided to go for the companies coming that day. Got rejected from that company as well. However, destiny worked in my favour and got placed at BPCL.
This is about my b-school dream which may come true after three years. I am now more of a dreamer than an aspirant. I want to live that hectic MBA life which makes you capable of tackling every problem you will face in life. I decided that I want to do MBA when I was in 9th std and from then on I started reading articles on b-schools and MBA life.
The DI LR section has always been playing the role of a second fiddle to the other two sections of CAT i.e. VA and QA, well at least in the test takers’ minds and subsequently their test-taking strategies. Till CAT 2014, one could actually confer lesser importance on the DI LR questions since they were split into half and stuffed into the then CAT’s 2 sections namely VA & LR and QA & DI. But times have changed.
General Engineer Male (GEM) with over 2 years of IT experience dreaming to get into one of the country’s finest b-schools is nothing short of a Herculean task. Below is the depiction of a GEM’s plight through this journey.
From last 2 years, the pattern of CAT has remained consistent. There are three sections QA, DILR, VARC; each one of them with 34, 32, 64 questions each. To do well in CAT, one needs to score consistently in all three section or to say minimum 90%ile in each section would be favourable for getting calls from Top IIMs.
I’ll lay down the objective of writing this piece right at the outset to save you the effort of going through all of it before you ascertain its utility for you. From the way I look at it, this piece should be quite useful to those grappling with bad grades in their undergraduate/postgraduate life and aiming to get an MBA degree sooner or later, fairly useful to those who look at CAT as something potentially exciting and worth acing, and probably just about worthwhile to those who are simply curious to know what another aspirant’s journey was like. The others too are, most welcome to read this even if not from a purely utilitarian perspective. That said, I’ll now proceed to narrate my story.
“The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams” – Oprah Winfrey
As I sit writing this piece in my hostel room at 2 am at night at SCMHRD, I can hear a buzz. My head is buzzing, the hostel is buzzing, the entire campus is buzzing. The summer internship season is here, or as one of my more wittier batchmates commented ironically - WINTER IS HERE! But more on that later, let us start from the beginning.
Atul Kumar Jha IIM Bangalore CAT %le 99.24 CAT 2012 My first encounter with CAT was in 3rd year, NIT Jamshedpur when I found my roommate buying coaching institutes course material. Being a Mechanical Engineer, all I wanted then was a decent job with a good pay. However, peer pressure made me enrol in one of the coaching institutes. Spent (rather wasted) Rs 30,000 as I hardly opened any book or took any of the mocks. Very soon the 4th year came and I got busy with my placement procedures. CAT was scheduled in November as usual, but I chose to skip it (a big mistake) and decided to go for the companies coming that day. Got rejected from that company as well. However, destiny worked in my favour and got placed at BPCL.
This is about my b-school dream which may come true after three years. I am now more of a dreamer than an aspirant. I want to live that hectic MBA life which makes you capable of tackling every problem you will face in life. I decided that I want to do MBA when I was in 9th std and from then on I started reading articles on b-schools and MBA life.
