CAT IIM Toppers Success Strategies

With the Common Admission Test (CAT) around the corner, students have buck up with their studies and last minute preparations. The MBA entrance exam, CAT 2014 will be conducted in a two day window on November 16 and 22, 2014, for admissions in all the 19 IIMs, conducted this year by TCS.

In these last crucial days, it is important for every student to follow a well structured study plan, appear for mock tests and develop few tricks and strategies which helps to crack CAT with a high percentile.

Careers360 brings to you the CAT Toppers from Top IIMs sharing their success mantra for cracking CAT with a high percentile. Know ‘How to crack CAT’ by the toppers, which is the best way to prepare for the CAT exam in the last days.

IIM Kozhikode- Tanya Gupta

Tanya Gupta achieved a high percentile of 99.47 in CAT 2013 and secured admission in IIM Kozhikode. Tanya, who worked with JP Morgan in Investment Banking Division prior to her admission into IIM, aims to become a financial market expert post her management course at the IIM K. Tanya shares how she strategically prepared for the CAT exam by practicing extensively for all the four sections of the CAT paper.

Key Strategy: Start preparing for CAT five months in advance. The strategy is to first solidify the basics for all the four sections and then deep-dive into each one of them. Go for an exhaustive numerical practice and individual topic tests for each section.

Sectional tips: For Quantitative section, practice numerals as much as you can. Read newspaper editorials, and other online material regularly to help you with grammar and also your reading comprehension ability for Verbal section.

Exam Day Formula: Divide time judiciously between your strengths and weaknesses. Build theoretical knowledge first, and then move on to extensive practice. Move to writing mock tests about 1.5-2 months from the exam, and devote at least 4-5 hours after each test to understand your weaknesses. Practice more questions to deal with these points. On the day of the exam, remember to keep your calm, a positive frame of mind will always yield better results than a nervous one.

Click Here to read the entire interview of the CAT Topper

IIM Indore- Soumik Biswas

Soumik Biswas scored an admirable 99.94 percentile in CAT and secured admission in one of the top B-schools of India- IIM Indore. The ex-IBM India employee shares the right strategy to be followed by the CAT aspirants, which can support them in scoring a high percentile.

Success Mantra: CAT does not require extensive study sessions as long as your basics are strong. The main concern is to develop speed which automatically comes if you are able to systemize your mock test. At around 140 minutes per week from your study and work schedule are enough to let individual focus on CAT preparation and achieve a great score.

Section Wise Strategy: ForQuantitative Ability & Data Interpretation stress on 3 points- speed, technique and choices. A positive approach and reading all the questions in the stipulated time are very important for answering the questions correctly.

In Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning, students can score maximum marks. For this section the focus should be on increasing the reading and vocabulary capabilities.

Exam Day Tip: Time Management is the key. Plan your time perfectly for each section. Winning over time will let you win.

Click Here to read the entire interview of the CAT Topper

IIM Calcutta- Arijit Kumar Gorai

Arijit Kumar Gorai cracked IIM Calcutta PGDM admissions with his high CAT percentile of 99.87. He had worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers before joining his MBA programme at IIM Calcutta. A strong believer of practice and time management, Arijit shares his success mantra for CAT.

Preparation Strategy: Theprimary focus should be on accuracy rather than maximizing the number of attempts.  Analyzing the mock exams is a major help and should be meticulously done.

Sectional Tips: If your verbal section is weak, pay extra attention to topics like para-jumbles, comprehensions. Try to increase your speed along with accuracy. Practice by reading newspapers or magazines with an aim to learn new words.

Exam Day Formula: Time management is very important in the actual CAT paper. The focus must be on accuracy. Be sure that you spent around 2 minutes on each problem. It is important to let go off problems if you are stuck in a questions. Wasting time on one question is a huge disadvantage. It is important to go through all the questions since the last 5 questions of a section might have some really simple problems which are very scoring and should not be missed.

Click Here to read the entire interview of the CAT Topper

IIM Udaipur- Sneha Mittal

An Engineering graduate, Sneha Mittal prepared for CAT while working for Cognizant Technology. She cracked CAT with 97.91 percentile and got admission in IIM Udaipur. Sneha’s entrepreneurial ambitions motivated her to join an MBA programme.

Key Strategy: Regular study, practice, self-analysis and adaptability to tricks are the main stakes for preparation. Traditional methods may seem to be easy but always use the tricks to solve the CAT questions with speed and accuracy. And lastly practice even before the exam day.

Sectional Plan: Quant & DI: The most important point to keep in mind is to stay calm and focused. While solving the QA & DI section, browse through the entire paper once. Attempt easier questions first, and do not waste a lot of time solving the difficult ones. This strategy helped me achieve a score of 98.23 percentile in QA&DI section.

VA & LR: For the VA & LR section, solve the LR questions first. With the VA section, if you don’t know the answer, do not mark anything. This saves you from negative marking and would let you maintain your percentile.

Exam day Tips: CAT is not a difficult exam. The right strategy paired with a lot of practice will guarantee you a good percentile in the CAT examination. 

Click Here to read the entire interview of the CAT Topper

IIM Rohtak- Gagandeep Singh Pannu

Gagandeep Singh Pannu achieved a high percentile of 99.97 in CAT and secured admission in IIM Rohtak. An Engineer by education, Gagandeep aims to become a finance market expert post his management course at the IIM. He also talks on his Time Management strategy which led him to crack CAT with high percentile despite his hectic work schedules.

Key Advice: One word: Practice. You must practice in your full capacity. At the end of the day, just practice what you have done and learned.

Sectional Strategy: Learn basic Quantitative concepts, self-preparation would suffice. The focus should be more on brushing concepts and later switching to higher level questions.

VA and LR require speed to read and answer correctly. For this section, focus on increasing your reading abilities.

Exam Day Tip:  On the day of exam, first go through the entire questions and then attempt formula based questions first. Keep a target of 15 Questions in 15 minutes.

Click Here to read the entire interview of the CAT Topper

Also read:

2 weeks to CAT 2014: Preparation Strategy for Last Lap

CAT 2014 - Time Management Strategy for the Exam Day

CAT 2014: Get the section wise preparations strategy

Why mock tests are important to crack CAT

10 weeks to CAT 2014: How to crack IIM and top B-school admissions

Other Feature Stories on B-School and MBA:

Life @ B-School Campus

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CAT Topper Interviews

MBA Internship Series

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