It began in the year 2013. December 2013, to be precise. After spending days brainwashing, and analyzing - looking at the pros and cons of an MBA - I finally decided to join a coaching institute to prepare for CAT, and hopefully become a successful manager some day. I joined the weekend batch of one of the leading coaching centres of India. Initially, I found managing my classes with my college quite tough, but eventually got a hang of it. My classes began with Quant (Number Systems) and Verbal (Vocabulary). The faculty was pretty great. I still feel that the only reason I secured a decent percentile is because of the teachers in my institute, especially in Quant. They tried to cover most of the syllabus in class, so I didn’t have much to cover at home. But I made it a point to go through my classwork again at home, since I felt that it was the only way to have the concepts at my fingertips.
My classes went for about six months, till June 2014, after which I prepared by myself. In the month of July, I spent approximately 2-4 hours a day revising my notes, solving questions and giving subject tests. Somewhere in July, I gave my first mock CAT. I was astonished to see my result - merely a 60 something percentile! Saying that I was devastated would be an understatement. This happened with the next few mocks, too, but eventually, I started scoring better. My percentile soared and soared until it reached 97 in one mock. And then, the official notification for CAT ‘14 was released. Voila, pattern changed! Didn’t see that coming! After giving my first mock with the new pattern, I was back to square one - 65 percentile. I realized that I would have to put in more effort and more time. However, owing to personal reasons, I couldn’t study properly for the next two months - August and September. I could give hardly one mock per week, and although I didn’t score as much as I wanted to, I definitely found myself getting better.
I worked harder and smarter in the months of October and November, giving one mock test per day, and analyzing my mistakes and areas of improvement. I spent three hours per mock and three hours going through my performance in the mock. However, by the time the D Day arrived, I could only manage to score in between 80-85 in my mocks, which wasn’t close to my aim of a 90+ percentile. Anyway, I taught myself not to get disheartened by it, and kept working.
My classes went for about six months, till June 2014, after which I prepared by myself. In the month of July, I spent approximately 2-4 hours a day revising my notes, solving questions and giving subject tests. Somewhere in July, I gave my first mock CAT. I was astonished to see my result - merely a 60 something percentile! Saying that I was devastated would be an understatement. This happened with the next few mocks, too, but eventually, I started scoring better. My percentile soared and soared until it reached 97 in one mock. And then, the official notification for CAT ‘14 was released. Voila, pattern changed! Didn’t see that coming! After giving my first mock with the new pattern, I was back to square one - 65 percentile. I realized that I would have to put in more effort and more time. However, owing to personal reasons, I couldn’t study properly for the next two months - August and September. I could give hardly one mock per week, and although I didn’t score as much as I wanted to, I definitely found myself getting better.
I worked harder and smarter in the months of October and November, giving one mock test per day, and analyzing my mistakes and areas of improvement. I spent three hours per mock and three hours going through my performance in the mock. However, by the time the D Day arrived, I could only manage to score in between 80-85 in my mocks, which wasn’t close to my aim of a 90+ percentile. Anyway, I taught myself not to get disheartened by it, and kept working.
The D Day was 22nd November, and thankfully, I had the afternoon slot, since I have a hard time getting up in the morning. I was chilled out all day, and reached the venue about 2 hours early. I spent more than an hour staring at the screen of the laptop allotted to me, and conversing with my neighbor candidates. I realized that most of them were quite nervous, and for some reason, I just wasn’t! Anyway, I didn’t let that affect me.
Finally, the exam started at 3 PM. The much awaited CAT, the exam that could have the ability to control the next 20 years of my life. Or not. Of course, I didn’t let such thoughts enter my mind on the D Day, and straightaway started with the first section, i.e., Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation. I found most of the questions of Algebra, Number Systems, Profit and Loss, etc. doable, and didn’t bother to attempt the questions from topics that I wasn’t good at. The duration of CAT ‘14 was 170 minutes, and approximately 90 minutes into the exam, I figured that I was done with QA/DI, and started Section 2 - Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning. Now Logical Reasoning had always been my favorite topic, but I found the questions in the exam pretty tough. Out of 4 sets, I attempted only 2 (7 questions out of 16), and was pretty disappointed, but my performance in Verbal made up for it. I did all the Grammar, Para-jumble, Para-completion and Sentence Correction Questions, and attempted 2 out of 4 sets of Reading Comprehension.
Overall, I attempted 54 questions out of 100, with a balanced 27 in each section. After coming back home and analyzing my own performance - not to mention comparing it with that of the others, I realized that 54 wasn’t a good attempt rate, since many had attempted more than 80 questions. Once again, I was disheartened. My expectations fell and fell to the point where I wasn’t even expecting an 80 percentile.
The results were to be announced after a month - on 27th December, at 5 PM sharp. Due to heavy traffic, I couldn’t open the site at 5. Or 6. Or 7. My heart skipped a beat every time I entered my roll number in the field. But the silly site wouldn’t open my result. Finally, after an excruciating wait of seven hours, not to mention the infinite trials, I opened my result at midnight. Now I won’t mention my exact percentile, but it was over 90, and way over my expectations. Turned out, my attempt rate was low, but my accuracy was pretty high. I wasn’t overwhelmed or anything, but I was satisfied, since getting a 90+ in my first attempt was all I wanted.
I’ve taken away 2 important lessons from my journey through CAT. First, hard work doesn’t matter, what matters is smart work. In other words, the number of hours you put in don’t make a difference, what does make a difference is the yield, that is, how much you understand and retain. Second, never compare yourself or your performance with that of the other candidates, it won’t help you in any way. It would only dishearten you. But then again, these lessons might be specific to me, and may not apply to anyone else!
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