[somname]

Finally I get to post on the thread I always wanted to.. Finally, after more than 3 years of visting PaGalGuY.com, I get to post on the most sacred thread of all…

Well, here’s my story.

I was never an ambitious guy. Growing up in a small town like bareilly, I used to think that I would never be able to compete with the big-town boys.
This feeling was further reinforced when I got a rank of 16,500 in the IIT-JEE screening and was consequently not able to sit for the mains examination.

I finally got admission into Manipal engineering and was happily whiling away my time till the 6th semester when the results of my 5th sem exams came. I had scored a GPA of 1.72 out of 4.0. Though expected, I had never imagined that I would not even be able to cross the minimum pass GPA (2.0). However, since I had scored better in my previous exams, I was able to scrape through due to the cumulative GPA effect.

But back home, my parents were really disappointed. There were 5 other students in my college from my township and all of them had scored more than 3.3 in the 5th sem. And all this in a industrial township, where everyone knew everyone else. It was going to be difficult to face my parents when I got back home.

During this time, there were two free mock-cats held in our college. One by time, and one by ims. I gave both just to see what all the hoopla surrounding this stupid exam was. Getting 85 and 90 percentile overall in them added nothing to my false confidence. It was impossible for me to get through a competition which involved 1.8 lakh other aspirants (at that time).

However, the news that Infy was coming to our campus galvanized me. I studied almost 2-3 hours a day (a humongous number by my standards) for the written infy test. It’s a different matter altogether that I had finished the George summers puzzles book halfway in the first year itself just to kill time.
Anyways, I made it to infy. The other 5 people from my township didn’t. My parents found it hard to believe that I alone of all 6 could make it.

I went back home and could face my parents again. That’s when my mom brought up the subject of cat/gre/gate etc. She said I had to take at least one among those exams for further studies and to choose one. I had already spent 3 years in engg and didn’t want to waste 2 more years studying technical stuff again. So, cat it was for me.
My mom was a little disappointed by this choice of mine. Why, you ask? Well, the other 5 were all taking up gre. :huh:

I spent the 7th sem back in college in as careless a fashion as I had the 5th sem. Meanwhile, another IT company (perot systems) also decided to offer me a job and I decided to join it since they were also offering me a chance to do my final sem project there.

Meanwhile, I had filled up the form for cat-2004 and had decided to give the exam in Bangalore. My preparation for the exam by then, consisted of solving the DI book of ims (taen from my room-mate) and the 2 mocks I had written earlier. Seeing this, one of my friends made a bet with me that I would not cross the 90 percentile mark in cat. I took the bet. Also, on being goaded, I said out loud that I would go for only the top three (ABC) or nothing else. This happened in august and I was the butt of all cat-related jokes for the next 4 months.

I reached Bangalore the morning before cat-day. After spending the whole day looking at the pretty females on MG Road , I called up my old school friend (who was not giving cat, but instead had just a sessional on Monday ) and went to a pub at 10 in the night. We kept on guzzling beer and head-banging to the rock music being played by the DJ till 2 am. After the pub owner chased us out, we went to a restaurant and had chicken till 3 am.
Finally, we decided to call it a day and my friend dropped me at my hotel room at 3:30. The exam was supposed to start at 10 am so I had 6.5 hours to rest.

Or so I thought.

I was rudely kicked awake at 6:30 by my hotel room-mate who informed me that we had to leave the hotel room by 7am. Being in no state to argue, I somehow managed to get freshened up enough to go out with all of my hotel roomies and grab a coffee.

When the papers were handed out to us in the hall, I was a bit surprised to see just 123 questions instead of the 150 I was expecting. Both the mocks I had given had contained 150 questions each and this real thing did not. Judging by the uncomprehending looks on the faces of everyone else in the hall, this was an unexpected blow right in the solar plexus.

During the next 2 hours, gave the paper very calmly. Occasionally even taking time out to look at the more visually enticing members of the opposite sex.

When I compared my answers to the various institute keys, I knew I had done well. However, I had said ABC in my arrogance and there was no way I was getting a call from any of the big three. So at the end of the 7th sem (December-2004), I went home planning to join perot systems for my final sem project and the consequential job in noida.

Come December 25th, and I read on rediff.com that cat results had been declared and also that a site called Pagalguy.com had “leaked the results”. That was the first time I visited the site and found that there was absolutely no mention of the results whatsoever. It was just a simple forum where some people discussed cat. Figuring that there would be hundreds of forums like this, I did not think much about pagalguy.com (what a weird name!) and went back home from the cyber-café.

However, the next day there was a lot of coverage in the media about the cat results. Again a went to the cyber-café, and found that the cat results had actually come out. And, surprise of surprises, I had got a percentile of 99.05 overall, which gave me a lone call of IIM-C.
That day, my friend lost the bet. I won something more important, I won my self-belief.

Well, unfortunately the GD-PI process is a whole different ball game from the CAT, as I found out later. Going into the C GD-PI with the same level of “preparation” as I did for CAT, I was a nervous wreck by the time the GD started (my first GD ever, incidentally). Things turned out as bad as they could possibly have. Out of the total 15 minutes given for discussion, I got a total air-time of 10 seconds.
Things went from bad to worse during the interview with the panel members laughing at my answers. It was a relief when the interview was finally over.
I came out of the hall and walked straight-out of the waiting hall without bothering to look back at the people asking me how my interview went.
I knew the result of my interview as soon as I went home to my college hostel. I remember crying a lot in my room. I remember thinking that I had messed up the best opportunity that God had given me in my short life of 20 years. I remember getting up at 4 a.m. every morning for the next one month to go to the temple. I remember sitting there looking at the stone idols hour after hour, second after second. I used to finally come back to the mess, have breakfast, and sleep.
However, all good things have to come to an end, and so do all bad things. I was lucky in the fact that some of my best friends were there with me in the college and they told me in no uncertain terms what they thought of my first attempt. I had proved almost everybody wrong. I had had college toppers come up to me and tell me that I was the “surprise package” for this year’s CAT. There were discussions in the college hostels about who the most intelligent person in the batch was, and my name started featuring prominently in these discussions.
The fact that I could do all this by just writing a stupid exam was shocking to me. I was a perennial also-ran. I was always the guy who came in second. I was always the small-town boy who liked to live away from the glare of the spotlights.
After the cat results however, the reality was different. I had unknown people coming up to me and shaking my hand and saying to me “good try man”. I had people saying “oh! You’re Soham?” when I said my name to them. I felt good.

Well, I finally decided to join infy after college. Since the joining date was quite late, I decided to teach part-time at the local cat-coaching institutes. This ensured that my studies for cat were also upto scratch. I put in some long hours for the exam this tyime around and was doing quite well when I joined infy mysore.
The next couple of months went by smoothly. And I promptly lost touch with all the preparation I had done over the last few months. When the D-day was 4 days away, I was informed that I had to relocate and join the Chennai office on the Monday after CAT.
Needless to say, the exam was screwed up for me. I checked my result only the day after the results came out and the overall was 92 %ile for me. I had screwed up in DI this year (72 %ile) after screwing up in quants the last time around. I had a nasty feeling that somehow, the verbal section was to be my nemesis the next year.
It was in preparation for CAT-2k6 that I finally started getting a lil more active on PG. After CAT-2k6, I even started participating on the cat-retest thread. This was the year when there were lots of mistakes in the question paper and I was not happy about it. On top of that, I had gotten screwed in verbal as I had predicted. For the second time in my cat-journey, I had a 99+ score and a lone call to show for it (IIM-I).
Although I did join a coaching institute for the first time in my life (for GD-PI), my heart was not in it. This was primarily because I had already fallen in love with IIM-C, the same institute which had rejected me the first time I had crossed the boundaries of cat. I could not think about any other institute other than C. It was with this kind of a mindset that I went for the Indore GD-PI. The GD was a bit better than my C interview 2 years back, but the interview was even more pathetic.
I came back laughing this time around, since I knew in my heart that the next year was going to be MY year, no matter whether I converted or not. The horror stories of people leaving converts only to get the same insti the next year again did not deter me. When the final results came, I was wailisted at 68 for I. I still do not know how far the wait-list moved for IIM-Indore for the batch of 2007-2009.

As I started approaching CAT-2k7, I heard myself asking some critical questions. I wondered why I wanted to go through all this torture again. Was I a masochist or what? And to top it all off, I was not too happy with the current state of my career. I understood that if I wanted to do an MBA, I had to draw a line somewhere. I could not go on writing this stupid exam year after year just to prove a point. That’s when I decided to write all the MBA entrance exams I could. I filled up the forms of CAT, XAT, JMET, IIFT, FMS, MDI and even SNAP. I wanted to take admission this year, no matter if I got my dream college or not.
But having screwed up three different sections in my three previous attempts, all I was praying for was that CAT should not contain 4 sections this year.
The night previous to CAT, I did not booze. I went to bed at 10 in the night and stayed wide-eyed and awake all through to the next morning. However, one good thing is that I had logged off from PG for the last 2-3 days and was not speaking much about CAT to anyone.
I gave CAT with as much of a cool mind as I could muster. When I came back home and checked the answer keys of the various institutes, I was getting marks ranging from 124 to 144 out of the 300 possible. I was clearing all the cut-offs by a big margin and I had a huge grin on my face that night. Fate had good things in store for me this year and I knew it.
Anyways, I gave all rest of the exams after heavy bouts of drinking the previous night before, and the results confirmed what I had begun to suspect since my results in CAT-2k4. I was good in these exams, whether I drank or not. The results which were out before the cat results showed my suspicions to be true. I received calls from IIFT, SIBM, IIT-B etc. but all I was praying to God was that my IIM-C interview should be the last of my interviews. I wanted to take all the rest of the GD/PIs as preparations for the big one.
CAT results came, and it was exactly as I had hoped. ILACK, and C was at the last! I finally had my second chance to convince the IIM-C panel about how badly I wanted to join their institute. And this second chance had taken me three more years to achieve.

Anyways, even the results of the exams I gave after CAT came out happy for me. I got calls from all the institutes I had applied to except IIM-B. All my overall percentiles were above 99.6. Just one problem, the FMS date was clashing with my IIM-C interview. Lots of people I knew got their date for FMS changed. I didn’t purely because I did not want any interview after the biggest one. Consequently, I had to skip the FMS interview.

It was during this time that I started thinking about how everything was going according to my plan. Was it because of my hard work? NO. I had worked the hardest in cat-2005 and that had fetched me my lowest marks. Nothing I could think of could explain the way that everything was happening just as I had prayed for.
Except one thing. Destiny. It was the only thing that explained why my IIM-C interview was at the last. I knew then that that there was nothing that was going to stop me from getting into joka this year around. It did not matter that I had filled up zillions of forms. It did not matter that I had even gone as far as pune to give interviews for colleges which I never wanted to join. It did not matter that I had already quit my job.

<continued-below>

[somname]

<contd-from above>

I decided to put my birthday celebrations on 10th april on hold since the IIM results were supposed to come out on 11th april and I wanted to give both my convert and birthday party together. However, the Supreme court gave me a nice birthday gift on 10th by removing the stay order on the OBC implementation. This meant a substantial delay in the release of the results and a substantial increase in my nicotine intake (which went up by 400%). The only thing which kept me sane in this time was the fact that I had converted XLRI.

Well, the results finally came out on the 1st of may. IIM-B declared it’s results at 1:00 am on 1st of may and IIM-C was the next in line at 10:00 am. After checking the IIM-C results (rather getting them checked by my lucky charm), I did not bother checking the other results. I had converted both the PGDM and PGDCM courses and was going to joka at last, 3 years after I had first had the opportunity, and missed it.


At the end of my CAT journey, I realized many things. CAT for me had not been about how much hard work I could give. It had been a question of how many failures I could take, and still have the courage to try. Rocky Balboa’s saying proved true for me.

It was also about testing the limits of my desire for something. CAT demanded both passion and detachedness from me. I realized that just passion for the exam would make me crazy with tension and just having detachedness was simply not possible. That is when I challenged myself. I asked myself whether my spirit to get into IIM-C was so much that it could overcome itself and help me remain calm during the pressure cooker situations. I found that I could answer myself in the positive.

And finally, I realized that it is not what others say that matters, but what you want. It does not matter what percentile you have in CAT, but to get into your dream insti. For me, the objective in my final attempt had not been to hit, maim or kill the cat, but to get into IIM-C.

Finally after 7 IIM interviews, 6 appraisal cycles at work, 5 months of unpaid professional life, 4 CATs, 3 years of preparation, 2 useless 99+ percentiles and 1 bloody good IIM-C interview, I land up at my college-Joka.

Hopefully I’ll learn faster here.

Soham

PS: Thanks for reading all this.

[arko_brad]

i wud agree a bit wid rajesh.. but not totally.. Though CAT is a basic test, but the funda's are high, keeping in mnd the competition. May be u'll find the questions pretty easy as of one's standard but the time n strategy factors is wat one needs to practise on.

I will even stress upon minimum preparation of CAT, even i hardly prepared anythn, just went thru da basic quant techs before da test. But i scored a decent 90 percentile. But then ur preparation strategy will depend on u. One needs to identify where is one lackin or going strong..

Anyways all the best ppl

Arko
IMT- Nagpur

[kjain]

Well here is my take on CAT.

First time I appeared for CAT was 2006. Boozed big time the night prior to it. Was not serious at all & was appearing just for the heck of it. Still managed 95%ile. This boosted my morale for taking it seriously next time around. This helped me crack it next time i.e. 2007.

Got a lone call from IIMK and converted it. Here I am at IIMK.

My only advice to all CAT aispirants is that the day you start believing that you can make it to IIMs, 70% of the battle is won. Do not let that spirit die out at any moment, even if you score badly in mock CATs n all. Remember it is the boxing day that matters not the mock CATs.

Once you have that spirit, all that matters is your regularity. Believe me the most important factor is how you see yourself and not how you see CAT.

Wishing you success


Cheers

[navneet023]

Well...perhaps the first time I got aware of CAT "the exam " was in 2003(yes even way back in 2003, I was equally ignorant), all kudos to Ranjit "Don", the guy who leaked the papers. That time I thought,"The exam must be a very important one if such a mass level hysteria is in the general public!!"(Yes, I heard one of my elder cousins saying"Dammit...fir se padhna hoga 3 months..."):laugh:

Back then, I was in 12th standard with my results out and my dream of getting into IITs shattered...Also my hopes of fetching respectable marks in XIIth board examination were shattered when I almost flunked in my optional subject.And alongwith that dream, another one that kept me awake(The girl whom I loved all those two years ...11th,12th and could not say a single word to her...Man I was some loser material back then!!!), came to an end as I had to return to my home, and she was still in Ranchi.:huh:

However less the margin be,a failure is still a failure. :idea:
And I faced a dozen of them(missing the cut offs by silly margins) while looking at my career with a distraught look on my face.That was the first time in my life when I started helping myself out,thinking logically and sorting out the things as they are supposed to be, instead of expecting some miracle to happen and make life heaven..Puys who are reading this, note, "THERE ARE NO MIRACLES, ONLY ORDINARY PEOPLE WHO DO THINGS WHICH LOOK MIRACULOUS TO THOSE WHO DON'T WISH TO MOVE THEIR BUTT":bigear:

Anyways, time passed quickly once I got into a nice Engg. college...not those biggies...but still a nice one(Yeah that's what you say when you don't get what you desire...get habituated to it as there will be many things in your life which you wont be getting...CAT might just being one of them...So make CAT something which doesn't damage your life if u don't get it)
College life was good...we enjoyed(like everyone in college...and we rocked...even if no one cared..New friends,new life..new-found freedom and a single room...what more can a bachelor ask for??
Then came 2nd year and I heard some of my seniors preparing for CAT...i was surprised!!"Why are they preparing for another exam when they have got comfortable jobs??", was the first question that popped in my mind.I simnply could not understand why they were trying for something to study when they were having their engg. degree...Why they were trying to put in vain everything they learnt in 4 years?
Anyways, many students in my college joined a nearby coaching centre(a famous one).
I followed the suit and asked my parents for a huge sum(13500 INR, which was later invested in making calls to my so-called-GF, the same girl from Ranchi, my school days). They asked what it was for, I told them I wish to do MBA.:sarcasm:
Surprisingly, they were delighted!!So, I enrolled into the institute for 1 week trial period.
Also attended the first class and performed well. BUT(yes that's a big but), never went for the classes ever again. No special reason,I thought it was too much of an effort to maintain a discipline of going to classes(Now when I think of this, going to CL classes every weekend, and managing my hectic job as well, I just smile at what I was at that time).
Anyways, the CAT saga for my 2nd year was only this much and noting much happened afterwards.


Come 3rd year and everyone was mugging up the books and magzines and every single source of any information...GOD!!I came to know a bit later..1 months...that they were all preparing for the campus selection which would take place at the end of 3rd year. In my usual style, I brushed away the concern saying, "The first person to be selected for campus from our batch is ME". Many people hated me for saying that. Perhaps they still do. I don't care.
As the pre final year drew to a close, we had our University examination and the first company was scheduled to visit the college merely 5 days after the last exam.Infosys.Yes,like many others, that was my dream job also(Now I sometimes thank GOD taht all my dreams don't come true!!).GOT REJECTED IN PI ROUND.Cried for the first time on phone while talking to my parents. Anyways, time flies by quickly and seldom we give a thought to the fact that how priorities change(form college to gf...from gf to job...again from job to gf....from gf to career...from career to family...and finally from everyone to one's true self). My GF dumped me(perhaps for the 100th time in 5-6 years) and I started once again from the scratch.Sharing things with my diary was nothing new and now that I was all alone(barring a few friends who always have been alongside, come what may), it felt nice to vent out all the frustration on my diary.



10th-11thjuly-2006
Got the job. Not my dream job, certainly, but still,a slice of a cake is better than a hungry and aching stomach.
That fateful night me and some of my closest friends decided to go for the CAT as now we dint have anything to be bothered about(Job in hand..GF gone...it really becomes a free life!!). Filled the form and started preparing in a group.I knew it from always quants was my stronghold and used to score 35-40% in it(read % ,not %ile) and DI section was also in the place. What worried me most was my performance in EURC section. I did get good scores, but was not consistent.


Never took a mock test all the way and suffered as a result.
FIJs.Yes I know you are aware of them now but on the C-day in 2006, that was like a lightening bolt from hell...and it did struck me.Got a pathetic 1 in EURC(after calculating 32 a/c CL and 28 a/c IMS). 99.5%ile in QA and 95.3%ile in LRDI were not enough to help me cross the barrier and the year ended up as a disaster.


Took JMET and XAT also, cleared the cut off for JMET but never got into the merit list of any of the colleges.


CAT-2007:- Didn't fill the form coz of a newly joined job and a desire to get atleast some work ex along with some experience of working in an office.


CAT-2008:- Working on it. Hoping to add something more to my not so illustrious career just in order to be able post here with some proud.

P.S.:- If you think you can do it, you can. If you think you can't, you can't.
Thinking about my GF of 7 years??Dont think much friends....she's married now..not meeeeee..some other guy...Life goes on ...and no one cares..

This, by no means is the end of the saga...I'll see if I can sail through or get drowned....Coz if I sail through,its all ok...and if by chance i drown, he he he...then i'll get a whole new world to explore. CAT is by no means the end of the road for me. I believe in oppurtunities....not the results...I think of CAT as one of the many roads which I travel in my journey of life. What if I fail? No issues...I do lose...everyone does sometime...but the point is...that when you lose, don't lose the lesson. I want to learn as much as I can from my pursuit of CAT.

Also, this by no means to represent the whole story....abi to poori kahaani baaki hai...this is just the prologue...we'll see....and we'll rock!!!

Continued on CAT's really just a coffee shop on the highway (All I wanted to Speak about CAT)

[soumyadut]

Mine is a different story.I was fiercely against CAT in my schooldays(with no specific reason,I didn't even know what CAT comprised or what an MBA carriculum demands).Maybe my inherent tendency to go against the norms led me to do so.Saw all my established cousins giving this CAT and walking out champs after two years.I had this antipathy for CAT till my college placements(I'm an engineer).We started to prepare jointly from November,our placements were in March 2007.I was amazed to find that I was much ahead of my friends in "apti",but when it came to technical,the three years of volleyball and football life took its toll.My friends knew so much and I was not even a novice in front of them.So I strengthened my strengths----apti and H.R.(by god's grace i can talk well).In the process of doing this apti stuff I rediscovered my love with basic maths and di/lr and grammar and rc.I got placed in the first company CTS but I realised I can't survive in the technoligal giants with just my nice smile,nicer words and love for apti.It was a fine monday,I found my friend Suhan sitting on the last bench and pondering over a fat book(which I later found out to be Arun Sharma Quant).I asked him what the matter was?He showed three sums of number system which he has got stuck with.It took me ten minutes to solve two of them and i couldn't do the third one too.He said said a polite "thanks".Later I thought if Suhan,who was preparing for CAT for 8 long months could not do two sums which I could do in 10 minutes,so why not try my hand at CAT?It was more like a "LET'S CHECK IT OUT" thing,not my dream.I got enrolled in IMS for 2008,filled up the form and gave CAT 2007 with just a week's training at the institute.I had attempted 12 questions in QA,12 in English and 11 in DI/LR.Everyone in the hall said after the exam they had attempted more than 16(some even said 25)So I was sure I would get maximum 60 percentile.On the day of the result,Suhan gave me the number where we had to send send the sms to know our results(I was least bothered to know even that as I was sure of my fate).To my utter surprise I managed 95 percentile DI being my flop show with just a meagre 78.That boosted my confidence and made me believe in myself and here I am in 2008,raring to go with full preparation at the toughest examination of the country,the gateway to my dreams.

[anuj nangia]

Hi ,

Iv seen a lot of deliberations on Mock cats on PG.....nd all i wanna say is that put dismal performances, if any , in the mockcats , behind you and maintain a positive frame of mind . Generally positive deviations are seen between Mock cat and actual cat scores , and hence just remain confident and spend this one week wisely .

I had last time joined Time and IMS test series and my scores at IMS fluctuated between 81 - 99.2 percentile with a average of around 92 percentile .Time was mind-boggling . there my percentiles varied from 65 - 96 percentile with a average of around 84 .

My final cat percentile was 97.2 and also cleared cutoffs for FMS , IIFT , Narsee Monjee .

My final performances were much better than what my mock cat scores suggested and I have noticed the same with my friends . So I would again re-itirate that just stay confident and aim high .

ALL THE BEST

ANUJ NANGIA
FMS - MBA (M.S) 2008-2010

[maxximus]

Hie,

Posting on PG after many months...have been dormant for last 15 months....but the thanks awarded to me have tripled....so probably my posts are still read!

Dono how many of you still remember me....I started the thread 'Concepts...total fundas!!!!' around 18 months back and became an occassional visitor just after three months of very active participation. Those three were very exciting months when I used to stay awake till early morning to put my concepts on the thread and solve the QQAD before sleeping.

I then got busy with my GMAT preparation. Then, applications. When I converted few big calls, had a surprise of getting a 100% schol in one of the decent US universities and knew that am gonna join the same. Hence, I got busy with having more savings and started working a lot to avoid taking any loan. Also worked on my long term goals and devised a correspondence course for GMAT. Then I got busy with preparing the study material of a US institute....then the joining date of MBA arrived and caught my flight almost running after it....then got busy with the MBA...in the process, one of my very dear activity suffered...posting on PG!! I cannot count number of requests I got to include P&C, Probability in my thread...but just didnt get the time.

I owe an apology to everybody who anticipated my posts but couldn't find. Yes, I worked for three different organizations in three different capacities during last six months before my MBA started....yes, I am handling the life in a B school while working on my venture back home....and missing my country...still...I believe that I could have posted the concepts if I could have managed my time better.

After three months in the B school....am experiencing a great feeling...have clear goals in life as my passion and profession seem to be same....and it's a blissful state to be in....and what time can be better to make a come back to PG...than the CAT eve...

So now, let's talk about CAT. I gave mine in 2005. I did not prepare much and would say that I was lucky to get into IIM-L. The priorities were different....I wanted to defend the frontiers of the nation during the five most energetic years of my life...I topped Combined Defence Services...and joined the Short Service Commission. Destiny had something else in store as there was a technical problem during the training period and I chose the correct-yet-difficult path of quitting Army.

By the time I came back, next year's CAT forms were gone...I took up a job with one of the leading CAT prep institutes, where I had worked part-time previously and realized that I liked the work and the same was appreciated by others. Started taking my classes to a larger audience by posting on pagalguy....I made a team of geniuses and made as many friends in three months as people aspire to, in a lifetime...

marijuana_user, junoonmba, rockeezee, vyomb, mohit_ranka, vineet.nitd, gk1, sumi, rajat_nda, our great moderator rmbt....are only few to name....I hope you guys are reading it!!....It's always been an honor to be with you guys and I miss the old days...

The season is on...there will be so many entrance tests, interviews, GDs....it's a competitive world where titans would clash...

I often wonder how I made into an IIM when I wanted to get into Army and an CAT was a back up (with all due respect to the test that I LOVE so much...) and a success meant that it was going to be even more difficult to convince my parents for my decision to join the Indian Army.

The answer is very clear...I went to take my CAT with a nothing to lose spirit...I went in...to enjoy those 120 minutes...puys...you are even more lucky to have 30 extra minutes to enjoy....

It's going to be a very interesting test...something that no earlier CAT or mock-CAT has served...it's going to be a feast....so guys...feast!! If you're still studying...you're commiting a mistake...it's not a test of knowledge...it's a test of application....if you say, 'let me revise formulas'...there is no need...(unless you dont remember volume of a sphere...)...there are no formulas in CAT....you gotto play with numbers and words...so have a fresh brain....watch 'Dostana' and if you fear that it may suck, get DVD of a movie you love and watch it. Do anything that refreshes you....sleep well for 8-9 hours....and enjoy the CAT...

I wrote my CAT in the classroom for VI standard students. I cribbed for the small seats, but only for few minutes- as I learnt the lesson of my life soon....have shared it earlier on PG, wish to do so again...

A student's poster read the following...


Today is going to be a wonderful day....
Thank you god, for showing me this beautiful day...
I will do one great work....
One good thing is going to happen to me....
I will make one person smile...
I can get one step closer to my dream...
I can do more than what I think I am capable of...

Bonds, fighters, and underdogs....remember the last one...." I can do more than what I think I am capable of..."

So puys....go ahead....the most beautiful exam that world has ever witnessed, is waiting for you.....feast!!....not everybody is so lucky....sitting in Boston, am missing the kick...!!

And remember....

"I can do more than what I think I am capable of..."

All the best!!!!

Thanks for all the love and affection!!
Maxximus!!

[dipsleo88]

16th November,2008.
For the moments that I’ve lived till now,there was never an important Sunday more then this one in my life. Dreams of hundred nights,and that one chance to make it all come true,died within 150 minutes of struggle with the last generation of cat questions on the paper .it was drizzling in bhubaneswar when I woke up early in the morning around 6,that’s what I thought of the time to be,but the fear,nervousness anxiety of mind had made me open my eyes at 4,calming myself down I went under the blanket telling to myself that its just another exam that u r goin to appear…but was that true??no,it wasn’t,it might be an exam but it meant loads to me,for my parents,for everything that I wanted to achieve in life..formulaes were appearing in the darkness of the brain in my so called sleep, as the earth revolved,which lead the hour hand to move towards the north-western direction of the dial,strike 10,me standing in front of a small school,B.J.E.N high school,bhubaneswar.i didn’t care for what was it really known as,nervous like a wet baby squirrel,I reached for the classroom which had been allotted to me.i had practiced hard for around 5 months,solvin aptitude questions which were always my nightmares,right from the start of my skuldays..my verbal part,well didn’t concentrate much on that during my prepartions session,I thought English to be really my cup of tea/coffee..watever u prefer to read/drink..who knew the paper was all set to screw me down out der even…DI..well i couldn’t ve ruined my dreams more better,all thankz to the section which I ignored the most(DI)..studyin chemical engg(final year),in a remote place of orissa(parlakhemundi) in a private engg college(JITM),with access to limited resources for CAT preparation,surrounded by guys for whom the word CAT,reflects “billi”,made things more difficult for me..but I had no excuse to make,I had to make it the very 1st attempt itself,harshad karandikar’s words kept echoin in my ears,he talked to me thru gtalk just the previous nite,for now is the time where u need to say that u r gud in all those 3 sections,the distance between u and ur dream is just U,its just u who can do it,the fight is between u and you,and not those many that sit with u for those 150 minutes.i recalled every positive aspects of me,I was the chemical topper(yeaa I do top it every year,with 13 students),I made into infosys in my very 1st attempt…and ..hh ..and what else....hhhhh y had I to take them as my +ve aspects just before an xam were u deal with basic school mathematics(just telling to make things chillout..:( ),ur understanding,ur grasping power of wat u read,analyze data’s and wat u perceive out of them…y didn’t I think of my mock percentiles…well u guessed it right,I never enrolled for a coaching classes mock series,the reason I reside just next to the hill,where naxalites play with their guns ,yeaa I watched them once…the nearest city was berhampur(unfortunately,it still is,GOD,wen m I gona get out of dis place?) (both TIMES&IMS operate),I culdnt travel every Sunday morning a distance of 140km,tuk 4-5 hrs, for a mock.i had got AIMCATS 07,from a friend of mine,but culdnt attempt much of them,becoz my preparation of 6 months,from those TIMES material that I had borrowed never made me confident enough to attempt them,I used to pull one mock out,read those quant question and put it back in ..i used to tell myself,guess the time hasn’t come yet for me to appear a mock,I need to clear my basics more better...and most probably my attempts to clear my basics(I dnt know if its clear even rite now or not,if had it been clear I must ve written something else under some other named forum this present moment) tuk me more then 4 months,one mornin of late October I realize that I need to get my hand onto those mocks,bravely,the next morning I somehow gather all courage to attempt my first mock,it was SIMCAT-1 downloaded from esnips..well gave it …and disaster stuck,blow,the score said that all my 5 months of preparation was worth cow-dung,i cudnt really find out exactly where I landed(meant to say in terms of percentiles),but I knew I was really pathetic in quants,DI made me shiver every nite from then on,VA yess I was gud at that…but that’s compared to MY ability to solve DI&quants(that’s what cat 2008 paper made me feel,I wasn’t gud at VA either)..it tuk me around 2-3days to make myself believe that those sacrifices(though small) that I ve made,toiled for my dream(woked up every morning at 4 to study for CAT),wnt go waste,I wuld play it safe,wuld crack CAT-08 gud..gatherin all my scattered courage particles I appeared for one of the AIMCATs 07(guess it was M-1058007) …the result was the same,it gave me a severe beating at the time when I needed to gain more confidence,moreover it slapped me real hard when I scored almost a negative in the DI section,my aggregate 42/300..i asked hades.thehellraiser for the approx percentiles,he told me not to ask (he didn’t want me to get underconfident,just before a week of D-day)..but wen he told me that I wuld land up somewhere around 55-65 percentiles,I was like m I really that bad??after so much of hard-work efforts(yess it was just towards quant and English section,never really concentrated on DI) I was scorin really less in quants,and even in va,not upto mark.the next day I planned not to appear for mocks till the D-day,becoz it was makin me more weak..the week rolled by,16th seemed wnt come ever...the last of week I just practiced simple basic sums from times,read my formulaes,tried to do something for DI(actually tried solvin DI sets from mocks)but all in vain,it wasn’t in me I felt so….despite all these, my dad( an IIMA alumni) inspired me every second,I wnt let my dreams shatter this easily,m not goin to break down,I promised harshad karandikar that I wuld b his junior the comin summer..but on what basis did I tel him this,there was no time to improve,the time had past by and I had done what I had to,dnt know what went wrong..things that left me the moment the qpaper arrived was the seriousness in crackin it,I went careless for the startin few minutes,40q in VA,I made it my first prey for the morning,pounced on it,but somehow I felt little uneasy with the reading comprehensions,and those sentence correction,just a glance and was like hmmm this is goin 2 b interesting(hell, I meant it to b n a scary way)..moved on with the paper really consciously,20 minutes flew by,I just culd c 3 black dots over my answer sheet(that too not sure of),hhh a drop of sweat on my forehead(the temperature must b around 25, bloody it was so cloudy) had to gain momentum somehow scrambled thru,finally came the reading comprehensions,I chose the one of maya civilization,felt gud after attemptin it..then came to the language passage,cudnt deal with it,thought of tryin the other one,the cent one too made me feel sick,I wasn’t concentrating well enuff as I was under pressure,I had to attempt more with just few min more n my allocated time for VA…tuk some chances in the one-cent-2-cent pie comprehension..and left the VA part..hh I relied so much on my accuracy..the feelin of losin it all started from the moment I ticked the last answer of the VA section n the answer sheet..a review of a side of the answer sheet told me,that I had made very less attempts,wasn’t sure of few,luck dsnt favour me much( I ve my reasons to tell that !!)..and the worst part,it was my strongest section..moved onto quants..with 85 minutes left to go for the dream to shatter(I know its now,partially then)..quants,ahh tried to identify the questions of the topic m most comfortable,TSD,TW,RPV,PPP..:(,not much to b found out.and the ones that were present,I had smashin my head for few minutes to solve it,with my ego hurt and without touchin the circle with the pencil,as if it were really holy for the quants section,I was almost n tears for startin minutes of quant section,still somehow tried solvin the geom.&mensurn q,I got one correct which I was really assured of,the other one went wrong which I am really assured of now,after lukin the way it shuld ve been solved.20 minutes into the quant paper,I ve made three circles impure,I moved to the q which belonged to the most hated families of maths kingdom,but I found them to b a sitter,the permutn&combn q,helped me get assured of another answer,then to the sequence question,askin the no of common terms,was happy to solve them,,,and began the terrible time for me..moved from a question to another question tryin to solve somehow just a few more,the steam of my brain was released til then,unable to solve anymore,I broke down with 6 attempts,with such an easy paper at hand(those questions were easy compared to prev cat papers,yeaa I had seen them ..)I culd never make it possible to reach the cut-offs,I took a deep breathe,no,I wuld solve it,I ve worked for it…somehow was able to solve another q,the other 2 were those were I was stuck between 2 options,ohhh shittt..the hour hands job was done,the minute just had to cover 45 minutes,and the game was over for me,with a heavy heart,I tuk my chances and ticked on those 2 q,which I was never sure of,and as most of the time it turns around,both were wrong..m all crushed.and I had to face the section that I never faced,and wen faced gave me the worst of time,I luked at the section,I searched for pie charts,nowhere…barcharts,tried to solve it,got 3 q,circled it all black,went to the cut-off set,it was easy did that,and then to the employee ones,solved 2 of them,tried solvin the otherones,and it wasn’t just happenin,10 min to go,9 min to go,8 min to go,…m still there lukin blank,analyzing,tall house oppsosite the red house,so…..(bull shit,I was never gud at such q,but I had to attempt becoz I wasn’t sure of wat I had done n those previously attempted sets,and moreover I cudnt predict how much I had to attempt) the bell rang ttttrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…it wasn’t to tell me that I had to return the answer sheet to the invigilator,it was tell to pack my dream inside myself for it cant be true for now,keep it safe till another November Sunday morning comes,I cant witness my dreams turn real this year,another opportunity given to me by my life,another failure added to my life,blew another set of expectations of my parents,raped my confidence (after scorin less in 10th,12th,failin to get n2 any IITs,NITs,which made him move from a city like Mumbai (yea cldnt score well n MHCET even) to orissa,parlakhemundi(got a rank of 6708 n OJEE) just to pursue an engg degree from a not so famous engg college…m struggling with myself to get n2 IIMA..certianly, THE DREAM IS SCATTERED BUT NOT DEAD…


THE WAY I DID IT(did succeed n screwin myself up):-


1.before startin with the preparation,the first thing that I asked myself was y I wana do it??and wuld I b able to do it??the answer came out so quick,I m not really interested in wat m studying n chemical engg,which wuld finally make me deal with various operations and process that wuld help a factory to bring out its best-quality end products,moreover I dnt wana work out der morning 8 to nite 9,lukin after those machines,the atmosphere der sucks(I come to know,ve seen my dad,and many work like dat)..want to have a gud standard of living,climb the ladder of the success at an early stage of life where I can exploit all my skills at the fullest,e a gud leader(ve done things that make me tell so) ,ability to motivate others to acquire the goal,make justice to the calibre I possess as soon as possible.the second answer was yess I can make it,CAT,I wuld crack it,quant,yess y cnt I ?I scored 142/150 in 10th maths ,that was a gud thing for me tell it aloud ,wat if I scored 53/100 in 12th..so that really doesn’t present the clear idea where I stand I n maths,va is my forte,I am a lover of novels,I like to read anythings that’s at my hand,DI well never got acquainted with this section,and still haven’t,becoz I didn’t have much chapters dedicated to it n my skuldays or college days….so there I set a positive frame of mind for cat 2008.


2. began with QUANT part of CAT,got TIMES material (07) borrowed,started preparing from it(last week of july),I used to sit with the materials ,read the q ,did the easy part,but whenever it came to a little twisted ones ,I was real quick at lukin at the solutions,I tried to avoid it ,and fight with the sum,but at the end most of the time,I wasn’t able to get the correct ones.lukin at the solutions I was happy that I understood it,and move on.but whenever I used to face the sum after few days I wasn’t able to solve it on my own,I had to luk at the solution again,and then recall yess yess I get it,kk I had to do it n dis way…I cud identify that I culdnt solve the sum that was little typical after few days gap,I didn’t knew wat to do with them,whenever I tried them and cudnt solve them,I was like shhh I had solved this,know this,but rite now unable to solve them,guess my basics still r not correct,and there I used to start it all over again,which consumed time.i want u puys to SUGGEST ME wat to do n such situations,where do I lag??? I hated chapters like number system,SI-CI annuities,permutn&combn,probability,functions rite from the beginning,so whenever I practiced I used to avoid these chapters…I guess need to work on them more,becoz that negligence has cost me so much n cat 08,most of the q belonged to them.need ur SUGGESTIONS.i just did sums haphazardly from arun sharma,and TIMES(revised the materials thrice n ll before CATday)..that was my way for quants,I knew wat were my strengths,but didn’t knew how cud I improve the chapters that I named…

3.never really did prepare for VA,wasn’t really religious towards it,somewhere in back of mind it was there that I can do it anytime,anywhere I was confident,and today even,rite dis moment m confident for that..i used to occasionally solve few RC,go thru parajumbles..etc,was quite gud at it,my accuracy was always gud,and but sometimes overconfidence n this section lead me to incorrect answers, more of carelessness,and when I used to make myself aware that I wnt go attemptin everything,I got real conscious and that reduced my pace in cat 08 even.SUGGEST how do I know were to stop from getting careless,and from getting over conscious of wat m solving??

[dipsleo88]

1.DI I seriously never made attempts towards it.i used to get really bugged up while solvin this section,SUGGEST how can u make this section interesting?sets which r just based on calculations r solvable,but its tirin so the interest n getting the answer slows down,finally it leads me to shut the section itself…m really weak n the reasoning part,it never comes naturally to me,I hate it from the core of my heart,so the logical reasoning questions were never meant for me (I tuk it n that manner,sometimes didn’t read questions even),even I attempt and I cnt solve the easiest of them,it demoralized me bad,so I never putin further attempts to improve n it.i had planned to start with DI after I cover up the quants part,but that never happened satisfactorily for me,and this another major reason y I left out DI…sort of chain reaction,didn’t feel gud with quant part,had to start with DI,delayed and delayed till it was too late even to luk at it…




MISTAKES I COMMITEDu can tel me those which I missed out ,if u feel so,do PM me plss)

1.it wasn’t a perfect strategy,concentrated on just one section,that too in the similar fashion rite from the start to end,just kept solvin the TIMES material over and over again,finally I made myself feel that I had mugged up all those typical sums..(plss read carefully, I never mugged up,i had gone thru it so many times) never put myself n2 test,with the fear that m not prepared,and scorin really less wuld make me underconfident, didn’t wanted myself to know where I really stand???the reality was completely different,I wasn’t solvin keeping the xam n mind,I was just goin from one to the other.

2. never worked on my weakness seriously,always tried to practice the chapters which I knew better then the rest,it was fun solvin them,it gave an feel-gud –about- wat- u- doin feelin..the hatredness towards them has taken a permanent place n my heart,I need to change my attitude towards them,have to work more on it,guess need to start from the rootlevel for these chapters,have more patience,my motive being to learn it rather then b happy to get the answer of a specific question related to the chapter.
3. I never had such a company,or group who fought for a sole objective of being n2 an IIM,m surrounded by guys who just need a 10k job,eat & sleep,no dreams,no aspirations,no desire to live a different life,and even if they have,never tried for it whole-heartedly,even if they did,I missed them for their togetherness wuld ve at least made things little competitive,probably wuld ve made DI q little easy to solve together,someone who besides me cud inspire me,or whom I luk up2 wen m at doubt,let that b emotionally upset,or stuck with a q which is turns onto a thorn n my path.

2.never gave a mock like most of them do,I left solvin mocks just after I attempted few wen I scored really less,rather then thinking over it,analyzing it ,learnin from it,I luked at it otherwise,I wasn’t able to solve easy q,cudnt identify q which I cud solve,becoz most of the times they belonged to the secn which were shit to me,and this slowly deteriorated my confidence,the decision to take no more mocks made me float into a fake world of mine,where I was happy with what I was doin,the real world was those results of mocks,which I denied to face as I thought better I b confident and happy with what I ve prepared rather then b underconfident and give CAT.so the timing of me appearin for mocks at my hostel room was a real wrong one,shuld ve taken it long back wen the mock-season started.








It would b really helpful of u puys to help me out,I need ur suggestions,ur feedback,where and how can I improve myself n this journey of crackin cat..regardless of whether its online next year,or damn n any means,it dsnt matter to me,m gona crack it,today mite not b my time,but for graspin the opportunity u need to create opportunity for urself,m really better then all that I performed n those 150 min,I need to fill up those holes n my preparation in the comin months,and dnt ve to live with pityin myself for wat I did ,for wat I achieved,as tonite the ones surrounding me seem the same as me,whereas the fact its not so,but wuld leave sayin that the war is within urself,not the ones who r around u,the war for me dsnt end till I achieve it ,I’ll b back here with a different story to tell,but wnt forget that it wud b lessons from this story that lead to chapter of my dreams turned to reality,IIMA I wuld b der,

Cat u didn’t let me thru u dis time,
I wuld decimate u the next season.
Vastrapur I wud b on ur path,ur red wall so sublime
Cat u not aware of teachings that I tuk from this lesson.
I ll be back..

Meet me,

Dipankar behera
10th-77 %
12th-67%
b.tech(7th sem)-7.43 cgpa
pgp-……….the answer wuld b out here soon..around 363 days to go….