Why Do You Want To Do MBA After Arts? – Journey Of An English Graduate. “Student Team 2020”

For VARC, I used to practice using the GMAT Club; that book gives you questions with extremely close sounding options, which is what happens for CAT as well. One important thing to understand while doing the questions is to understand whether the questions are inference based or implication based. This difference can cause a candidate a lot of marks. 

LRDI section is all about practice; I used to try and practice new sets every day. The more sets you see, the more are the chances you will do better in your exam because once you are familiar with what question is asking, half the battle is won. There are no tips for LRDI but practice.

I will give you my Key takeaways/tips from my cat journey so far:-

1. Know your strengths and weaknesses – CAT is a skill-based exam; unlike our college life, we must understand that we have to choose our battles wisely. I approached the sections by breaking them down according to my strength. I tried to maximize score in my strengths and planned to work enough to get the marks that do not hinder my IIM calls.

2. Don't burn out – Everybody is striving to get into the best B schools and studying hard to get there. Many students, just like me, stop eating timely and giving attention to their bodies. When the exam was approaching, I was very rigorous with my preparation, and I started burnout. Just before my cat exam, I had a high fever, body ache.I went for my exam and gave it somehow with multiple visits to the washroom to wash my face, poured some water on my handkerchief, and used it to soothe my eyes because they were burning while looking at the screen. But I am thankful that I did my best at the Time and scored enough to get into IMT Ghaziabad.

3. Give a lot of mocks: Being familiar with past papers' pattern gives you a crazy advantage. Once you are familiar with the pattern, you can concentrate on questions better, deal with time pressure, and be better equipped to handle the examination. Take mocks of at least two places. I prepared with Time and IMS mocks.

4. Quants for me: I took a calculated risk by leaving the topics that were getting very difficult for me to grasp. Take this with a pinch of salt, but I stuck with the OG's Arithmetic, Geometry, and Numbers. I did other topics, too, but concentrated my efforts on these topics.

After getting my percentile came the Time for interviews, which was a different ball game altogether. Why would an Arts student want to do an MBA? This question was haunting me in my sleep. But I want to clear the air, all one needs to show is a genuine interest in pursuing the course and back it with some evidence. I had developed a taste for entrepreneurship and started my venture, which did not pan out as expected. Still, that story allowed me to have a conversation with the panelists in many interviews; it was the ice breaker I needed to show them how much I wanted to do an MBA.

You will get your shot, make sure you grab it.

E-mail: priyamjuneja96@gmail.com