CAT Preparation@ CAT is a test of your perseverance rather than intelligence

July 26, 2012 - PRLog -- In today’s Topper Mantras series, we will present to you the success story of Vishal Vyas who scored a score as high as 99.98 percentile in CAT 2011 and cracked calls of several top B-schools, of which he decided to join IIM Indore..

Vishal is a B.Tech in Electronics and Communication from ACEIT, Jaipur of the batch of 2011. He has worked with Accenture Services Pvt. Ltd. for eight months as an Associate Software Engineer.

Excerpts from the interview:

Q: What was your CAT 2011 percentile? Which other MBA entrance exams did you take?

A: I have scored a 99.98 percentile in CAT 2011. Apart from CAT, I appeared for XAT 2012 where I scored a 98.37.

Q: How did you start the preparation and what was your overall strategy?

A: I appeared for CAT 2010 and had scored a 91.92 then. After completion of engineering, I re-worked my strategy and started preparing right after final exams in May 2011 with a brush-up of fundamentals like Vedic Mathematics, Vocabulary for VA and logical puzzles for reasoning. Only when I had gained some pace and confidence, did I jump to systematic problem solving and a test –series of T.I.M.E. in end June.
While working with Accenture, I tried to keep in touch with CAT preparation with the help of the test series and a thorough performance analysis after each test.
Q: Please share your WAT/PI experience in detail.

A: WAT and PI were the two vital stages of IIM Indore selection process. WAT was somewhat tricky with a question on précis writing and another asking about my opinion in a given situation where a choice was to be made between a family managed business and a professionally run organization.

PI probably was the most challenging part, with the interviewers asked extensively about by job profile and nature of work apart from a good amount of general knowledge. Work experience was somehow a difficult part to tackle with questions ranging from basic programming concepts to industry quality standards and their constituents.


Q:  Do you think it is possible to crack CAT without taking formal coaching? What would you suggest the CAT 2012 aspirants who would like to prepare by themselves?

A: I can present my own example where CAT was cracked without any formal coaching. All we need to have is a thorough understanding of high-school mathematics, a logical and structured way of thinking, some smart effort to build vocabulary and a habit of reading. One can later strengthen the preparation with systematic problem solving and a test-series. For a test-series student, the performance analysis is very important to help you understand your strengths and weaknesses. If you get a call, take a brush up of current trends and happenings with some GD-PI program and read as much as you can. Success will be all yours.

Q: CAT saw a major change in the format & pattern in 2011. How did you prepare for it? Did this new pattern cause any hindrance in your preparation or exam taking strategy?

A: The new pattern of CAT actually is a boon for students who lack on Verbal Ability or Quantitative Aptitude. With the high-scoring section of LRDI split into LR and DI, the chances of success are very high for those who can score well in this one third of that particular section. A somewhat low performance in the other two third (VA or QA) can thus be compensated.

Q: What was your preparation strategy for the Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation and Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning?

A: QA has always been the better part of my preparation; all I needed was a timely brush up of formulae and vedic mathematics. I started with vedic mathematics and with calculation speed going up, there was a considerable time-saving, so now I could attempt more. For DI, any popular problems book as Arun Sharma will suffice, just keep practicing.

VA requires a great vocabulary for which newspapers, novels and books like Word Power Made Easy are the best resources. RC passages require practice for the correct interpretation. Lastly, for logical reasoning puzzles are the best means; they broaden our horizons and we are open to all kinds of questions.