A Fresher's Guide On How You Can Make It To An IIM | Esha Jyoti, IIM Ranchi

VA-RC- English was always my strong area but it was proved wrong when I started solving the questions. My accuracy was very poor and the number of wrong answers were always more than the correct ones. But the only solution I had was to keep practicing. You need to be very comfortable with reading long and tiring passages. To develop this habit, I started reading a lot. I read the newspapers daily, especially the editorial section. This improved my reading speed and understanding as well as made me aware of the important events around the world which helped me in my interviews preparation. I solved at least two RCs daily. For the wrong answers, try to understand the difference between your point of view and the author's. Whenever you are reading a new passage or solving a mock, write down any new word you come across in a separate notebook and keep revising it from time to time. For VA ,I practiced many questions of Para jumble and sentence correction from the books provided by my coaching institute. The most important thing to do in this section is to know where are you going wrong in understanding the question and not to repeat it the next time.

LR-DI- The only thing I did in this section was to solve as many sets that I can in the given time. It doesn't matter which book you are solving or which mock you are taking as long as you are solving the questions. I solved at least two sets of  LR and DI each daily. LR was my strong area so I paid more attention towards solving arrangement, team selection type question within very less time and give more tie to solve DI. For DI , I practiced the calculations like conversion from fractions to percentage or decimals, squares, cubes etc. to save my time. It also helps in exams like NMAT where we have a lot of questions , don't have calculator and have very limited time. While solving mocks, don't skip any set because it looks too difficult. Sometimes the set which looks complicated are the easiest ones to solve.

QUANTS- Being a non-engineer, I was always very scared of maths and thought of it as my weakest area. Therefore, I spent more time solving questions from Quants and as a result I ended up scoring the highest in Quants on the D-Day. To begin with the preparation, start with the basics. Try to understand the concepts and  formulas. I solved Quantitative Aptitude for CAT by Arun Sharma. First, I made note of all the concept and the formulas and solved LOD 1 and LOD 2. I did not solve LOD 3 as it was of a much higher level which is not needed for CAT. Then I solved the material provided by my coaching institute. While solving mocks, first solve all the questions which looks easy to solve and in which you will require minimum time. While analysing the mock, you will notice that many questions that you left were very straight-forward but you had let it go. Then come back to the questions which are a little time-taking but can be solved by you. If time is left (which is rare), try the questions which are difficult.

As they say , the most important part for CAT preparation is MOCK. I gave my first mock in the last week of June and scored 35 marks with just 2 in Quants. I knew I had to work very hard on my basics and I started practicing more and more questions from each sections. My scores increased gradually but even after that sometimes I used to score very less but I kept going.

Around October, I gave one mock, analysed it and jumped to another but I realized my scores were not increasing. Then my friend suggested me to go back to all the mocks that I have given till date, revise the solutions, go through my mistakes and then take a new mock. I followed this advice and spent few days revising all my previous mocks. This really helped me to increase my score in my further mocks.

Apart from solving questions and taking mocks, there are some little things to keep in mind. Mocks should be used to correct your mistakes, to know your strength and weakness and learn new things. So, don't get very delighted when you score good or demotivated when you score less.

Be surrounded by people who motivates you and believe in you. You will meet many people who will tell you CAT is very difficult, it's not your cup of tea and will give you a lot of suggestions. Stay away from them and avoid talking to them. But there will be only very few people who will push you to work harder and will give you correct advices and who will motivate you at every point. Keep them closer and listen to what they say.

In CAT 2019,the VA-RC section was difficult and I thought it will ruin my entire paper. But I did not carry that burden into the next sections and solved the with a fresh and an open mind. But with the help of all the practice in the past and mocks that I had taken, my accuracy in VA-RC was very high and I scored 94 percentile in VA-RC. On the final day, maintain your calm and be relaxed. Just remember that you know the concepts and you have practiced enough to get good marks. Take proper sleep before exam and don't panic. Just believe in yourself and don't loose hope. Remember that CAT will not judge your academic knowledge but your attitude and your skills.