How 2-3 hours of CAT preparation on weekdays helped me land IIM Lucknow -By Nishi Agrawal, 99.62 percentile

CAT'19 was my 3rd, but the first sincere attempt and I scored 99.62 percentile in it. I started my CAT preparation in the month of May and dedicated 7 months to it along with my job as a full-time Business Technology Analyst in Deloitte. I gave around 2-3 hours to my CAT preparation during weekdays and studied diligently on the weekends. Here is an anecdote of my journey.

Dear CAT aspirants, coaching is not a mandate

Since VARC was my weakness I enrolled for coaching for the right guidance and to stay focused as I was also doing a job. I attended some of the VARC classes. Coaching helped me find the right people for my doubts. I had a go-to person for every section. It also helped me to keep motivated which becomes difficult along with the job. But I also think one can absolutely go for CAT preparation without coaching if they don't feel the need for it. They can focus those coaching hours on their self-study.

Challenges...

When I began my CAT preparation, I was most worried about 2 sections i.e. VARC and LRDI. 

• My reading speed was slow 
• I felt weak in comprehending the passages in VARC
• I was also unable to clear VARC cutoff for the last 2 attempts
• I was not confident in solving LRDI sets

...and their antidotes

So I started reading, as soon as I started my CAT preparation and gave special attention to VARC. For LRDI, I knew it requires a lot of practice and that practice can definitely help me ace it. So I continued practicing the sets and saw my scores improving.

• I think what helped me the most in VARC is reading a lot and giving as many mocks as possible. 
• After giving the mocks, both sectionals, as well as complete ones, what helped was analyzing it properly. It made me realize what's going wrong and needs my attention. 
• For reading, I referred articles and editorials from different websites such as Aeon, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Economist, Livemint, The Hindu, etc.
• For LRDI, it was solving various sets that helped me. I gave a lot of mocks for it and referred to TIME's booklet (same applies for the Quant section). I gave around 60 mocks including AIMCATs and SIMCATs.

I heard a lot that while focussing on weaknesses people often take their strengths for granted. By doing that, they don't extract the complete benefit of their strengths. Quant was my strength, so I always kept that in mind while analyzing the test properly and making sure the graph is not going downwards. However, the LRDI graph outperformed the Quants. I scored 99.81 percentile in LRDI and 99.33 percentile in Quant. I believe I could have done better but now better to focus on what is in hand.

The winning strategy

The strategy which worked for me was giving as many mocks as possible. I feel mocks have amazing sets of questions that are not available anywhere else. It also made me devote a good amount of time to prepare. I suggest giving a lot of mocks and analysing them. But analyze it properly, check which topic is not giving you marks, and then solve the particular questions from the booklet. Then to test your practice, give mock for that topic. Repeat this process until you gain confidence in that topic.

Make sure to be sincere and not serious. Try enjoying the process of learning. What helped me the most was I tried to keep myself calm throughout the preparation process. Get the best out of yourself and never compare. Take small steps at a time and keep learning every day. This attitude has helped me immensely in not getting deviated from my ambition and trying my best to improve.

Verdict: I got calls from IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow, IIM Indore, IIM Kozhikode, FMS, XLRI, MDI, and all new and baby IIMs. I converted IIM Lucknow, IIM Indore, IIM Kozhikode, MDI, and all new and baby IIMs. I'm joining IIM Lucknow, known as "HelL"