'CET Is A Different Ball Game Altogether Than CAT'- Mrudul Parikh, 99.95 % ile Scorer in CET

I did my engineering from Dwarkadas J. Sanghvi College of Engineering in Electronics and Telecommunication in 2011 and currently pursuing MBA in finance from JBIMS, Mumbai. I had worked in TCS for one and half years, when I realized that just having technical expertise is not enough to succeed in life and that is when I interacted with my senior colleagues and friends and decided to pursue MBA. I scored 99.95 %ile in CET 2014 and hence I was able to get through to JBIMS.

2.Did you expect to do so well in MH-CET?

Yes, post scoring 99 %iles in XAT and CAT, I was expecting to do well in CET. Since quant is my strength and as it being a speed-based test, helped me score big.

3.When and how did you start planning your time and strategies for the exam on the whole?

CET is an altogether different ball game than CAT. You need to practice really hard in CAT, while you need to solve a lot of question papers in CET. As CET is speed based, you need to time yourself so that you solve selected questions based on your strength. I started practising sums from R. S. Aggarwal which helped me get equipped with the type of sums asked in CET. Additionally, I solved past CET papers (time based) to analyse how many questions I am able to attempt in the allotted time.

I tried different strategies: Solving sequentially, solving quant first, followed by logical reasoning, followed by verbal, followed by visual reasoning to understand if I can get maximum out of any of the strategies. My strength lied in quant and logical reasoning and hence I started putting more efforts in verbal and visual reasoning by solving more sums.

Since most of the practice exams are online followed by a deep analysis, it is much easier now to understand where one loses time and accuracy. I used to put in a lot of efforts in analysis since that used to help me understand my weak areas.

4. Did you follow any particular method of learning for individual areas? Was it always about working on the strengths more than focussing on the weakness or vice-versa?

As I mentioned above, I used to give sufficient time on my weaker areas since I wanted to get maximum out of it. It didn’t mean that I didn’t focus on my strengths at all. Approximately 65-70% of my time was on my weaker areas.

5. Which section, according to you, is a decider in the CET?

According to me, visual reasoning is the decider in CET. It takes time for a person to understand the logic behind each question and with very little time on hand, it is difficult to get all the questions right. I used to solve visual reasoning questions right at the end and used to keep last 30 minutes for those 25-30 questions.

6. Did your previous educational background aid you in any section of the test-prep?

Being an engineer and having strong inclination towards maths did help, but I believe preparing for CAT really helped me with CET preparation. CAT quant level is way above CET level and if one has practiced for CAT, one would benefit from it.

7. Do you think MOCKs or Test Series are a reflection of your future performance? From when should a student start concentrating on these aspects of test prep?

I don’t believe that MOCKs or Test Series are a reflection of future performance. But yes, not repeating mistakes from MOCKs and analysing the weak and strong areas in MOCKs and focusing on strengthening the weaker areas helps. A month before the CET, the aspirant should start solving papers. 15 papers and analysing each paper on alternate days and solving and practicing sums on the other days. Post practicing atleast 5-6 papers, do a detailed cumulative analysis of all the papers and see the section or type of question that you are able to solve with high accuracy / less time, and the section which takes lots of time or has less accuracy. Also, try different strategies at the start so that you can come to know which strategy you are comfortable with which yields high marks and takes less time. This would help you in the exam where a clear strategy and focus will help you get your dream college.

8. Which other exams did you appear for? Did it help you in preparing for MH-CET?

I had appeared for CAT and XAT. As mentioned above, practicing for CAT did help me with the quant in CET. But apart from that, practicing is very essential in CET.

9. Finally, any other advice that you wish to share with the aspirants?

My advice to the aspirants is to start practicing sums on daily basis of each type. What my friends and I had done was that we had created a Whatsapp group (not more than 10 members) and used to share difficult sums with each other so that everyone used to benefit from it. There is only one word to crack CET – practice, practice, and practice.