Hi Guys,
I don't know if I'm late here, probably this thread never caught my eye, or may be I was too busy in interview preps and usual work load.
Nevermind, I would like to share my experiences of CAT'07 with 08 aspirants, especially those who abhor maths like me.
All along my school life, I used to hate maths (rather should i say, I had some phobia against maths). Irony of my life being IX,X,XI and XII,I scored exactly 75 marks(yes,that's true). Even in my grad I was an average performer.
Cracking CAT with a good score in quant was like a distant dream to me.Infact at times I even thought that CAT clear karna mere bas ki baat nahi hai cuz I always used to think I was weak at quant owing to the experiences right from childhood!! But I just thought lemme work hard in Quant and give CAT a serious shot, as English was my only strength I had to work equally hard in DI as well.
I started my preparation in Jan 07 and being a relationship manager at Citibank, work was even more demanding cuz it was the financial year end.So my prep was like a non starter, studying for two days and missing for 5 days, I could not carry on with my prep and had to concentrate on my work for a few months. March 07 financial year ended and I was made a Financial services manager, so work got even more hectic!! as the saying goes with great power comes great responsibility, I was stuck !!
. But couldn't refuse the promotion for all the hard work I had put. Again the next three months went for a toss.I couldn't even attend a single coaching class in those three months.
Finally, at the end of June I sat down one evening and introspected, trying to think clearly about what I wanted to do. My conscience said CAT.I said to myself - but its just 4 and a half months left and for my phobia for maths it was a gigantic task.:nervous::nervous:But I was determined this time and made a decision to speak to my boss(all thanks to him) and took a leave for two months. Special thanks to him that he approved the leave.
My prep got a second life again.But my task was cut out - maths!! I borrowed seventh,eighth,ninth,tenth and eleventh class books(CBSE) from my cousin.Trust me, it worked like magic.I was able to clear my concepts and build a solid foundation. I worked hard on my concepts(I often used to refer TIME books to compare and combine topics) for fifteen days.later I started studying the concepts daily from textbooks and TIME books in the morning and started solving problems in the evening.I wouldn't lie that I worked for almost 12 hours a day during that whole month.
July over and I had completed 50% of maths course,and the AIMCATS had also started, didn't know what next and how to plan about for the next 50% course..Just then one of my schoolmates Shastri(IIM A) called up and I asked him to advice. He gave me brilliant ideas to combine chapters and study.I did exactly as he said.and whoa I completed the remaining portion in a span of one month!!I combined all numbers related topics(numbers,PPL,interests,Progressions,AMA,rati o proportion,indices surds,time and work,time and distance,P&C,Probability) and combined functions and graphs,simple equations,special equations,quadratic equations,inequalities and modulus,co-ordinate geometry. and rest consisted of geometry and mensuration and a few other topics. Believe me, this combined chapter studies gave me an outlook and an eagles eye view of all the topics cuz they are all linked in some way or the other.
September, I rejoined work and started coming back home early and used to start prep at 9 PM and used to continue till three in the morning. I also started working towards DI and English. October, all the three subjects prep started running simultaneously and I started clearing cut-off's for Quant (although I always used to clear VA and DI cut-off's ).November, was just final touches, this was a time to maintain scores in AIMCATS.I scored consistently in the last three AIMCAT's clearing all the three sectionals.
D-day came and I spent the maximum time on Quant and DI then VA.and then a series of entrance exams followed for the next two months.
I cracked CAT with a quant percentile of 95.6 and an overall 93.4.I may not have done exceedingly well, but for an average student like me this was like a hellova achievement,a dream come true and for the phobia towards maths I scored my highest percentile in maths amongst the three.So guys who are average like me and are afraid of maths and think CAT is not for 'em, don't just
worry,plan and work real hard, cuz
CAT is also for us.:-):-)
PS : If I can do it everybody else can do it too.
Help
, QA: 99, LR: 99.37)
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