How Did I Prepare For CAT And Landed At IIM Bangalore

The resources used included TIME classroom booklets, Quantum CAT by Sarvesh Verma, Arun Sharma books for Quant and DILR, and books for GMAT by Wiley Publication.

The plan should be simple and straight that the strong zones should be polished and the weak zones should be worked hard upon. I knew VARC and Quants were my strong zones and DILR was my Achilles heel, so my main motive was:

1. Not to botch up my weak part i.e. the DILR section.
2. Not to grow overconfident in my strong part i.e. VARC and Quants section.

Since I was a working professional with a 9 to 6 job, managing time effectively was on the fore front of my checklist. So the first thing I did was set up a daily target which was to be fulfilled anyhow.

1. Solve a chapter of Quant daily.
2. Practice around 6-8 sets of DILR daily.
3. Practice 5 RCs daily.
4. Read the editorials from atleast two newspapers daily.

Solving the mocks and analysing them with the mistakes I made and the approach I carried out, was the weekend task for me which was carried out very religiously.

The most important thing I did while taking the mocks was that for the first 40 minutes I used to solve the RCs and then in the next 20 minutes was the time for the verbal part. For DILR section, the motive was to first pick the best 4 sets which I had to attack and then solve them. If time permits, go for the remainder of the unattended sets. For QA section , for the first 20 minutes I used to solve questions from the front, the next 20 minutes from the back and subsequently the last 20 minutes for the remaining questions. This strategy really helped me a lot.

Apart from all the daily nuggets of study, proper ventilation of the mind is also required so that you don't burn out just before the D-Day.

After looking at the offer letter in my hand, one thing can be said that there is no alternative way for hard work. If you work diligently and donot get deterred by the opinions of other people, no one can stop you from reaching the summit. And when you will look down from the peak, you will realise that all the hard and smart work which you did has landed you at such a beautiful place and those rigours was worth it. You know what you want and how badly you have worked for it. So go out, keep calm and put your best foot forward on the D-Day.

All the best to the upcoming aspirants. CAT 2020 will be your show.