Be Confident In Your Ability And Your Preparation | CAT Tips By Vibhu Sehgal, CAT '19 99.87%ile, IIM A 2020-22

Dreams can take you anywhere. All you need to do is to learn from your failures, stay motivated and remember that one goal you have been working hard since the very first day. Today we bring to you a story of a person who never settled for less, who knew that he had in himself to make it to the best B-school in the country, who took each failure as a stepping stone to success and how the success of his twin brother (Scoring 99+%ile) made him stronger than ever to achieve this feat. Let’s hear what Vibhu Sehgal has to say about his journey.

I was born in Delhi, and I have done both my schooling and Bachelors from Delhi itself. I graduated after completing my Bachelors in Management Studies from Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, University of Delhi in 2019. After completing my undergrad, I was working as a Financial Analyst in Pune, which I quit after getting my CAT score to prepare for my interviews. I have now converted IIM Ahmedabad.

CAT 2018

CAT 2018 was my first attempt, and I scored a 93 percentile. While I prepared by doing a good amount of mocks and covering all the basics, I had realised that my preparation, including my strategy, needed some changing.

Key learnings-

VARC strategy was working all I needed was to focus in the same way that I had done.
I needed to change my approach in DILR and significant improvement was required.
My preparation for Quant was under par. I had realised that there were specific key topics that I have not prepared the way I should have.

I got a profile-based call from SPJAIN and appeared for the interview, but all I'll say is that it was a fun trip to Mumbai 😆

But there was a big positive from CAT'18. My twin brother got a 99 percentile in both CAT and XAT. That became my hope and motivation that I could do it as well. Though he wasn't able to convert A, he converted XLRI and is currently pursuing the 2-year BM program.

CAT 2018 and XAT 2019

CAT'18- 93.53%ile VARC-98 percentile DILR- 69 percentile QA- 88 percentile) XAT'19- 94%ile (approx.)

CAT 2019 Preparation and Strategy

To put my best foot forward in CAT'19, I started reading through strategies of other 99percentilers that I could find on the internet. Picking out parts from their plan, for different sections as well as how they prepared for various topics, I created one that I felt would work best for me. I started preparing for CAT'19 in September.

I found the following points common in all the strategies that I went through -

Analysing your mocks was the key.
Focused preparation is essential. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses in different section areas helps a lot. It allows you to maximise your effort.
Being consistent during your preparation equally important.

My VARC Preparation

Having known that I had scored decently in CAT 2018, I was comfortable with following the same strategy. The main highlights were:

Daily reading in the morning for at least an hour. I would usually read editorials from 2 newspaper before I left for my work. The purpose of reading is to make yourself accustomed to doing it continuously for an hour while interpreting them as you go.
Analysing mocks- Analysing mocks that I practised was a significant part of my VARC preparation. I would usually go through my attempted mocks and reattempt questions that I had answered incorrectly.

On D-Day, I wasn't pleased with my performance in the section as I wanted a 98-99 percentile in VARC but could only manage 96.7. It was because I had answered some questions, and I wasn't fully sure about them. However, I did make up for it by getting a 99.6 percentile in XAT'20.

My DILR Preparation

I knew I could do way better in DILR. For me, the most crucial thing about DILR was to practice how I selected my sets, which sets to solve first while attempting the section. I usually spent the first 5-10 minutes quickly going through all the sets and creating an order for answering them.

For practising DILR, I gave mocks and sectional tests. I would always practice DILR with a time limit, trying to reduce the time limit for questions as I practised more and more questions.

Analysing the mocks helped me identify topics that I needed to focus upon.

On D-Day, I was actually pleased with my performance. The set selection that day helped me a lot.

My Quant Preparation

I was aiming for a 96-97 percentile in Quant as I banked on the other two sections to do well. My Quant preparation was the most frustrating and probably the hardest of them all. Since I was preparing through self-study this time, I would get my doubts cleared by asking some of my friends who were good at QA. Practising mocks, and topic-wise sectional tests again helped. As soon as I identified my weak areas, I would start with the basics and would focus on doing more and more questions about that topic. This helped me focus my efforts on areas I was weak in and was the reason why I was able to go from 88 percentile in Quant to a 99 percentile this year.

On D-Day, I didn't realise how well I had done. Only after the response sheet was released along with the answer key did I realise that I had achieved 100% accuracy and went from having 60-70% accuracy to 90-95% accuracy in my mock tests.

CAT 2019 and XAT 2020

CAT'19- 99.87%ile | VARC - 96.71%ile, DILR - 99.97%ile, QA - 99.22%ile

XAT'20- 99.902%ile

My Two Cents On My CAT Preparation

Create your own strategy. You know best about your strengths and weaknesses and what kind of preparation you are comfortable with.
My CAT preparation focused a lot on giving mock and sectional tests .I have given around 10-15 mock tests and more than 150-200 sectional test.). FOCUS ON ANALYSING THEM. Only then does doing so many mocks help.
Because I was working while preparing, most of my strategies were made keeping in mind the time constraints I had. Do try and make your plan keeping in mind your own time constraints.
I didn't focus a lot on preparing my basics of topics because I had already done them once, and I had time constraints. If you are preparing for the first time or you have time in your hand, you can spend more time on going through the basics and attempt less sectional test (do not attempt fewer mocks).
Discuss with people who also aim to do well in CAT. Their enthusiasm rubs on you, and you'll do well as well.
"He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; He who does not ask a question remains a fool forever." Don't be afraid to ask "stupid" questions. I have made myself look a fool in front of lots of people while preparing for QA.
For me fixing the number of hours to study in a day wasn’t possible (given that my work hours would wary), and neither did I prefer that. I would instead target the number of topics or sectional tests I wanted to complete in a day and devote my time accordingly. There were days I studied a lot (especially the weekends) and there were days when did not study at all. Apply whatever works for you

Other CAT Things:

Some other things that helped while I was preparing for CAT-

Do not take any pressure for CAT. If you actually prepare and put in the effort, you will achieve it. Be confident in your ability and your preparation.
Telling someone or writing down how much you have done often gives a clearer image of how well prepared you are. Personally, talking to someone who could hold me accountable helped me. I was the most accountable to my brother. I would speak to him about my preparation while listening to all the things he was doing at XLRI gave me the encouragement to work harder.