Like most working professionals who pursue an MBA, my aspirations were clear—switch my career and aim for a leadership role. However, the CAT exam stood as a major barrier. It’s an exam where engineers solve questions for fun, and for someone from journalism with almost no relevant syllabus, I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off. I was hesitant, doubting whether I stood a real chance. But after some thought, and a strong urge to redeem myself after my failed JEE attempt, I decided to go for it. I wanted a second shot, and this time, I was determined to make it count by getting into a top B-school. Hi, I am Pritam Priyadarshi, a journalist with 30 months of work experience in a Sports Media company. My profile: 8/6/6, UG from St. Xavier's, Ranchi, CAT 97.96 NC-OBC Category, and here is my CAT Journey:
The Failed First Attempt
In June 2023, I finally decided to take the CAT. I enrolled at Elites Grid and started putting in 4–5 hours every day after work. Juggling a full-time job and serious prep wasn’t easy, but I felt like I was giving it my all. I genuinely believed I had done enough until D-Day came.
Little did I know that CAT is a different beast. Sometimes, even your best effort doesn’t reflect on the D-day. I scored just 68 percentile, with single-digit scores in VARC and QA. It was heartbreaking. I had put in long hours of 8-10 hours of work followed by 4-5 hours of prep, more than 20 mock tests, and countless marathon sessions. After seeing the result, I genuinely felt that maybe competitive exams weren’t for me. Maybe someone from a journalism background like mine was taking a blind shot by taking this exam.
What Went Wrong
But this time, I didn’t want to repeat the mistake I made during my JEE phase, i.e, quitting after failure. I took some time off, but didn’t let go. I went back to the paper, sat down with my mock results, and started analyzing what went wrong.
That’s when I realised:
- In Quant, I tried to prepare for every topic, which spread me too thin.
- VARC was just guesswork, and I had no clue how to eliminate options.
- Only DILR was somewhat on track; I had a clear strategy there, which was built after several months of practice. My focus was to not panic even if I don’t solve a set in the first 25 minutes, and keep solving it until the end of the section.
- So I made up my mind. I’ll take another shot at CAT 2024, but this time with a smarter, focused plan.
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Strategy for CAT 2024
Since I had already covered the syllabus, I shifted my full focus to mocks. I enrolled in Elites Grid, IMS, and CL test series and wrote over 60 mock tests.
For Quant, I rebuilt my entire strategy. I focused mostly on Arithmetic and Algebra, the topics I was comfortable with. I covered Geometry and Modern Math too, but I no longer tried to attempt everything. My aim was simple: pick the right questions and play to my strengths.
For VARC, I followed Gejo Sir’s methods, solved hundreds of past-year RCs, and focused on option elimination, not just reading comprehension.
For DILR, solving Sudoku regularly helped. It trained my mind to eliminate wrong fits and find the right structure, i.e, just like arranging data in CAT sets.
On the exam day, I scored:
- 20.26 in VARC
- 35.4 in DILR (with 100% accuracy)
- 23.79 in QA
Final CAT percentile: 97.96%ile
DILR: 98.5%ile
CAT Jounery: The Interview Phase
Once the CAT result came, I knew the real challenge was just beginning. As my mentor at InsideIIM rightly said, “CAT is just a filter. Selection happens in the interviews.”
Thanks to the team at InsideIIM, I prepared for every possible question. My 30-month work experience in the sports media industry became the core of my interview discussions. Most panels asked me about my work, why I wanted to shift, and how the MBA fits in.
Finally, an IIM Call
As I write this, I’ve converted IIM Kozhikode and am waitlisted at IIM Lucknow and Shillong.
For a boy from a small rural town who didn’t even know what IIT or IIM meant back in school, this is surreal. I didn’t come from a math-heavy background. I didn’t have coaching from day one. But what I had was the willingness to keep going, even when it felt like the odds were against me.
And maybe, that made all the difference. Read Part-2 here
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