The dream of doing a postgraduate degree in management was there from my engineering days. Before doing my MBA, I wanted to have exposure to the working culture and business strategies of an organization. So, I worked in an MNC after my engineering for around 3 years. In March 2017, I decided to write the XAT exam and prepared for it for 9 months. XAT is one of the difficult exams and requires serious efforts to be put for getting a good percentile.
Below are the strategies I followed for preparing for the exam:
- Join A Coaching Centre
The first thing that I did after deciding to write XAT was to join a coaching centre. The main reason behind this was to brush up my maths concepts and to know more about the tricks and tips that can be used in the exam.
- Prepare A Schedule
The most important factor that determines a good percentile in XAT is the effort we put in. The next thing I did was to find a balance between work and studies. For this, I prepared a schedule on a weekly basis based on the topics to study and the amount of office work that had to be completed. I always tried to complete my studies as per my schedule.
- Write Mock Tests
After attending a few classes, I have started to write Mock tests. Initially, I was not able to perform well in the mock tests and my score was very less. Gradually my scores kept on rising as I wrote more and more tests
- Understand Your Weak Areas
After attending each mock tests, I used to spend some time analyzing the mistakes that I made in the tests. This helped me understand my weak and strong areas and to allocate more time on my weak areas. After every new mock test, I checked whether my performance had improved or not. Based on that, I updated my schedule accordingly.
The last stage was to perform in the actual XAT exam. Before the exam date, I had gone through the important things that I learned. It was just to jog up my memory. Also, I went through the previous XAT papers. On the day of the exam, I kept my mind calm, confident and refreshed and wrote the exams.
These strategies really helped me to perform well in the exam and I was able to get into one of the premier B-school in India on my first try itself.
Venkidesh Harikumar
"1st year MBA student at IFMR GSB Krea University"