Anisha has done MBA in Marketing from NMIMS And Executive Management(PMNO) from Harvard Business School. She has been instrumental in growing CATKing Digital with her experience with Marico and Henkel in the past.
CAT is a competitive examination taken by graduate students across the county to get into some selected B-schools. It comprises of three sections:
- Verbal Ability
- LR_DI
- Quantitative Ability
The following two points can be considered as my secret to success for belling the CAT:
- Taking enough mocks:
Apart from preparing each and every topic of the entire curriculum diligently, I took 2-3 mocks every week. This is the main “mantra” of cracking CAT. I didn’t wait till I finished the entire CAT syllabus. I started appearing for the <<<mocks>>> right after the first 3-4 months of my preparation. However, I didn’t stop at taking a mock. I went a step ahead and analyzed the mocks thoroughly. That is what made all the difference. While analyzing the mocks, I took into account the following points: For the questions which I haven’t been able to solve: I carefully looked at the problems which I hadn’t been able to solve. I tried to find out was it because the concept was unknown or because I ran out of time? If it’s the first, I learnt the new concept and wrote it down in a notebook so that I can revise it quickly before the next mock. If the reason was the latter, I tried to practice more to increase my speed. For the questions I solved but that went wrong: I tried to find out where I went wrong. Was it a calculation mistake or did I apply the wrong concept? If it’s the latter, I relearnt the concept and wrote it down somewhere for a quick check before the exam. For the questions which I correctly solved: While analyzing, I never skipped the problems which I had solved correctly in the mock. I always tried to find out from the solution provided that whether my way of solving was optimum or not. If not, I learnt the new concept. Trust me, I learnt a lot more by taking and analyzing the mocks than I did by simply solving problems from books.
- I maintained consistency
No matter how busy I was due to work load, or how preoccupied I was, I maintained regularity and studied every day. In CAT, this consistency is very much required. I studied for 2-3 hours every day when I solved problems from book/materials and during the weekends, I took out 8-9 hours to take mocks and analyze them.
- I always had my goal in mind and stayed motivated
No matter how bad my mock score was, (there were days when I scored something between 80-90 percentile) I never gave up. Although at times I felt like quitting, I kept myself motivated by visualizing myself in one of the IIMs and I never gave up. I guess this attitude helped me a lot to start afresh after a bad mock.
- Good Habits
Apart from following the above points, the other thing that I followed diligently was maintaining good habits. I went to sleep early and in turn woke up early in the morning so that my body clock gets adjusted to both the morning and afternoon slots. I followed proper diet and rejected all kind of junk food. I also went to the gym regularly in order to stay healthy and fit. These essential good habits had helped me a lot in building up my inner stamina which came in handy during the preparation phase and during that 3 hour long sitting during the examination. I believe that the amalgamation of the above four points will surely pave the road for the success you desire in CAT. About the Author:
I am Nivedita Das from Kolkata, West-Bengal. I pursued B-Tech in Electronics and Communication engineering from Netaji Subhash Engineering college. I have worked with TCS Kolkata for 3 years as a developer. I have experience of working with an NGO, where we spent time with Autistic children, trying to help them live a better life. Apart from being an avid reader, I also like listening to music, baking and stitching. Currently I am pursuing MBA from IIM Sirmaur.
