He Prepared for CAT After Work, Won Three Excellence Awards and Still Reached 98.50 Percentile
Kavin Puri started preparing for CAT in July 2025 while working full-time at CNH Industrial. His role involved new product development, cost reduction, field investigations and coordination with global teams.
During the same period, he received three Excellence Awards at work and scored 98.50 percentile in CAT. He converted IIM Shillong, IIFT and DMS IIT Delhi, along with IIM Lucknow’s PGP-ABM programme, and chose IIM Shillong.
A Two-to-Three-Hour Routine After Work
Kavin studied for two to three hours on weekdays. Weekends were reserved for mocks, revision and analysis.
He did not measure preparation by long study hours. His focus was to study consistently, even on days when work had been demanding.
For VARC, Gejo Sreenivasan’s VARC1000 course changed the way he approached Reading Comprehension. For DILR, he solved varied sets and practised deciding which ones to attempt first. For QA, he revised topics and kept a notebook of formulas and mistakes.
Why Mock Analysis Became His Advantage
Kavin took around 15 full-length mocks and many sectionals through TIME, along with VARC1000 for verbal preparation.
After every mock, he reviewed wrong answers, skipped questions and even correct guesses. He wanted to know whether a problem came from a concept, a calculation error or poor question selection.
That review improved his accuracy and decision-making more than simply taking additional mocks.
Turning VARC Into a Reliable Section
VARC was his weakest section in the beginning. He often overthought the options in RC questions.
He worked on reading every day, used the VARC1000 framework and practised sectionals regularly. With time, his accuracy improved and the section became more dependable.
The IIM Shillong Interview
The IIM Shillong panel included an academic and an industry member. The industry interviewer asked detailed questions about Kavin’s work at CNH Industrial, his projects, achievements and how he would approach launching a new product.
The academic interviewer picked subjects directly from his B.Tech transcript and also asked about probability, algebra, finance and current affairs.
The interview involved repeated follow-up questions. Kavin stayed calm and relied on his preparation rather than memorised answers.
He is now joining IIM Shillong.