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The step-by-step approach to 99+ percentile in Common Admission Test (CAT)
Updated: Nov 6, 2020
This is by far one of the longest posts I’ve written on this subject. But, if you’re a serious CAT aspirant, I suggest you read it in one go and revisit whenever you transition from one stage of preparation to another:
Stage 1 - Making Up Your Mind
The question you should be able to answer at the end of this stage is whether or not you wish to prepare wholeheartedly for CAT and give it your best attempt. Before you begin, the following questions may occur to you. I’ve tried to create a repository of the best answers already written by others to guide you through these:
My 2 cents: Apart from being clear on these questions, you should have a very strong purpose in your mind to do an MBA that gets you up in the morning (this reason may not be the one you feel comfortable sharing with an interviewer). During my time, I was so disheartened by not getting into the undergrad college of my choice that I really wanted to not let the same happen with the B-school of my choice.
Stage 2 - Knowing the Basics
A good preparation journey begins with mapping out what all you need to cover and where you wish to reach. For the same, understanding the syllabus of CAT and the eligibility criteria of different B-schools is imperative. Here is a list of all you’ll need:
Eligibility Criteria - the best source is the college’s website, I’m mentioning the top 3 for your reference as they keep changing:
IIM-A: Admission/Selection Process
My 2 cents: I also spent a considerable amount of time on Quora to read more about these topics. But, for any significant piece of information, it is suggested to refer to the official websites only, else it may cost you later.
Stage 3 - Testing the Waters
This stage requires you to answer two questions for yourself -
Which sections do you feel uncomfortable with?
Will you need to take coaching for them?
No amount of matter written on this subject can help you unless you test the waters yourself. So, what you should do is to take a week or two and attempt questions in each of the 3 sections to understand where you stand on the level of preparation.
You can use the following resources, which have 1,000+ free questions for practice:
3.1 Need for Coaching
If you find the need to take coaching, the following questions may help you:
My 2 cents: I enrolled myself with T.I.M.E. Hudson Lane (north campus) because after trying out the sections, I figured my Quants was weak. Even though T.I.M.E. CP centre was more renowned for its faculty, I decided to save my time in traveling and putting in more effort to compensate for the faculty’s quality. Later, I realized that it paid off by not traveling hours in the metro and instead utilizing that time somewhere else.
3.2 Self-Preparation
If you feel comfortable with the syllabus to prepare on your own or have ample time in hand before the exam to prepare before you join the coaching, the following sources will help you find the right answers:
My 2 cents: I self-prepared for 6 months before the coaching (which was of 10 months) to work on my Quants, which I knew was weak. I used Arun Sharma’s book and found it to be very useful. The theory built my concepts and the question bank helped me practice specific areas that needed to be worked upon. Later, I also bought 3 other books written by him - for Logical Reasoning, Data Interpretation, and Verbal Ability. But, I found Quants & Logical Reasoning to be of the most use.
Stage 4 - Finishing the Basics
Now that you’ll have the material in place, you’d be in a better position to chart out what to complete when. Whether you’re preparing from self prep books or using the material that your coaching centre has given you, it’ll contain two kinds of questions - basic and advance (in Arun Sharma, they’re referred to as the level of difficulty 1, 2 and 3). Start with the basics. The plan should be to cover the basics in the next 2–6 months depending on the time you have left as well as your prior preparation level.
The approach should be to understand the concepts and build a strong base. Timing your answers at this stage is not advisable. Solving as many kinds of questions as you can is a better idea. Familiarize yourself with each topic so that before you start attempting the mocks, you know which ones are a part of your comfort zone.
4.1 Section-Wise Focus
Now, let’s see what each section requires and demystify some wrongly held beliefs regarding the toughness of this exam:
4.1.1 Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension
If you look at the pattern of this section, there are 24 questions on Reading Comprehensions (RCs) and 10 questions on Verbal Ability (VA) (generally comprising of 4 Para jumbles). You should note this because it impacts where you put more effort while preparing for this section.
Para jumbles, as you will encounter soon, are the trickiest to solve because of 120 possible combinations. The majority of students get them wrong despite spending (rather wasting) too much time. Left are the 6 questions of VA to have a shot at.
This leaves one important area of preparation in this section - RCs. Here are a couple of answers written in regards to RCs that will help you prepare in the best way:
My 2 cents: I didn’t focus on vocabulary building as I found it unnecessary. Similarly, I didn’t read any novels during my preparation simply because I didn’t find them relevant to the kind of RCs that are asked in CAT. The best source to prepare, according to me, was the editorial column of The Hindu and Livemint. Apart from that, I tried to read (but it was too hard, so I stuck to 2 articles a day) from Brain Pickings. These pieces were at par with the CAT passages and since they were online, I also developed comfort with the interface (scrolling to map the passage). My VARC strategy has been shared here.
4.1.2 Logical Rea