CAT preparations: Is online coaching a right move? -By Pragyanshu Bansal, 97.27 percentile, MDI Gurgaon

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Meet Pragyanshu Bansal, a real motivation for everyone out there who walk around with a face like a wet weekend after not getting into premier B-Schools at the first attempt. Find out how this engineer made into MDI Gurgaon, how he managed his work and studies, what is his experience of online coaching for CAT preparations, his strategies, and much more.

I attempted CAT 3 times and dedicated 9 months (30 months if counted all 3 attempts). One attempt was when I was in the final year of my graduation. Further 2 attempts were along when I was working. I didn't take offline coaching but some online coaching helped a lot to ace and clear my concepts.

Analysis is the foundation stone to success

During my initial days, I was not able to manage time with my work and studies. I used to get exhausted and exertion stumbled me. Finally, I assigned a day to analyze my strengths and weaknesses. I made sure to carry my strengths along with my preparation phase and keep converting the weaknesses into my strengths. I used to practice weak concepts and devoted a lot of time to them. I couldn't manage time during my initial phase which also turned out to be my weakness. But subsequently, I managed to make it my strength.

Talking about online coaching, I took mocks offered by TIME and IMS. I suggest everyone to take these mocks together to have an overall good preparation. Also, look out for several Facebook groups where they solve questions and queries. Apart from this here is my section-wise strategy:

VARC: I had a very hard time with this section. I was not a pro but managed a decent percentile. I made sure that the accuracy in this section is my utmost priority. I gave 5 minutes to the section to analyse its difficulty. I used to choose the best 3 RCs which I was comfortable solving and at last gave 10 mins to the VA section.

DILR: I devoted exactly 8 minutes (1 minute per set) to determine the difficulty, my comfort zone, and chose the best 3-4 sets which I was able to solve in one go. This helped a lot and landed me to the top 2% test-takers in the exam.

Quant: Quant has always been my strength and I made sure to carry this strength till the D-Day. I used to follow the traditional ABC approach and divided the questions based on difficulty level and time taken to solve the question.

I have a pro tip for all the aspirants. The question paper view is a very underrated thing during exam time. Please use that option to get a glance on multiple questions in a single go.

 Verdict: I got calls from many prestigious institutes including all new IIMs, baby IIMs, MDI, S.P. JAIN, IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Roorkee, SCMHRD, IMI Delhi. Out of these, I've converted IIM Raipur, IIM Kashipur, IIM Visakhapatnam, IIM Bodhgaya, IIM Sambalpur, IIM IIM Jammu, MDI, IIT Roorkee, IIT Kanpur, SCMHRD, and IMI Delhi. Finally, I'll be joining the prestigious institution MDI, Gurgaon.