[deepu]

Originally Posted by garimaa

can ne one pls tellme that what r good colleges to apply if one is getting percentile b/w 50to 70.n my no. of attempts r just not increasing my score ios conatant n does not depend on whether paper is easy or not plls help me i will appear for cat this year 2005

Hi garima not the right thread for asking such questions..plzz continue in this thread i m sure u will get good responces thr..
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-re...gy-advice.html

Cheers,
Deepu.

[deepu]

Originally Posted by Gaurav Dixit

Really a wonderful post chandu,it made me realise how unstructured my preparation has been till now...

Hi gaurav, chandu made that post long ago..and referring to such posts now will clutter the forum unnecessarily..soo if that appreciation is intended for chandu alone plzz PM him...dont post individual messages

Cheers,
Deepu.

[dubyaman]

hey chandu.......... i must admire u for the kinda foresight u had as a 1str yr student..... to be honest, one never thought beyond exams and scoring well in the 1st year cos most of us were still in the same 12th std mode of riting exams.......... but i'll level up wid ya and tell ya......... cat's not about preparing for 2-3 yrs.it's such an unpredictable paper that if u give the same paper on 2 different days, u'll get 2 tottaly different scores!!!
during college life if one has actively participated in inter coll events like quizzing, trivia, math and logic etc, it becomes easier to do reasonably well in the cat....cos after all if one thoroughly analyses the cat paper........ it only tests ur high school basics( maths). in english, if one has been an avid reader throughout his childhood, scoring in the cat exam is not that difficult...... coming to di... the puzzles part becomes easy if one has participated in coll events... the graphs and the tables purely test ur calculation speed......... all said and done, why do ppl still screw up in the cat inspite of being good in all 3 areas????? it's not because they dont know much....... it's bcos they haven't mastered the art of question selection...it's because they haven't experimented enough in their mock cats...... of course there r a variety of other reasons like getting overtly tensed or anxious during the paper...... but nothing can beat the power of positive thoughts while giving the paper....... it's a fact no jokes......... You would have seen that for some tests just after the first 2-3 questions you get a good feeling about the test and you do well but in some others afer the first few ques you feel like somthing is wrong.....not on the surface but there is some feeling deep down that something is wrong....if you are able to control that feeling it can work wonders. Positive thoughts really can work wonders ........ try solving a mock cat when ur in a really good mood..... believe me u'll see the difference

[big4guy]

Hi Guys,

I been thinking about this whole CAT thing. Consider a scenario, a guy goes to IIT, he can get a decent job with an IIT degree,but with an IIT + IIM he can get more. Greed sets in. So he prepares for CAT, cracks it goes to one of the IIM's and gets a good job.

But after all the hardwork in studying, preparing for CAT, the job one gets is even more demanding. Late nights, work pressure, travel, in short a hectic life full of work, work and some more work.

Isn't it a bit silly that we study hard, get a good MBA degree to get a good life. But on the other end of the river, the situation is just the same. I might be sounding a little depressing here, but thats the reality.

It's thus important to get your priorities right. Even if you are an engineer from a B-grade college, or just a B.com you can still live a quality life. A peaceful life!!!

So as Morpheous asked Neo which pill do you want the 'RED' or the 'BLUE' one. Ask yourself this question. Which life you want to choose, cause once you choose it, there is no turning back.

Think about it.

Regards
big4guy

http://www.big4guy.com

[EuPhOrIa]

To put into a word, I can do with couple of words - A lot.

to elaborate on that lemme put it this way:

Perseverence. Hardwork. Hanging In. Never-Say-Die-Nature. Fighter. Words, and word are all we have!

Before you think that these wise words can motivate you enough to endure for one more precious year and you will taste the success then, deside whether it would be worth investing? Make ur own calculator and do some calculation as in the balancesheet. Coz making a profit is the most important part of game since IIMs are neither a destination nor it tells you success story as in achievement. If you hang in there for one more year and may be one more after that and you would portray urself as a Fighter and live up to ur much-advertised usp Never-Say-Die nature but think what r u going to get out of it?

I am exhorting you to consider this, and consider it pretty much seriously, coz there are two aspects one cannot overlook: The beauty of designing CAT and The lack of transparancy in issuing calls.

The Beauty of Designing CAT:

Everytime you write CAT and you will feel you cud have done better. Everytime you write the CAT, you find it difficult, very difficult, in the exam hall and if you solve it few moths later you cry out in public for not cracking it being it silliest of all. Everytime u take CAT and you think you did millions thing but this, you thought of billion other things but this and you expected trillion different and new changes but this. And, thats why I call CAT a beautiful young lady whose intellect is unmatchable! Can you take her in ur stride? Think before u decide to go for it again...

The lack of Transparancy in Issuing Calls:

This issue has been discussed umpteen number time on various therads in this forum, various other forums, media and at lot of "chai-ki-lauri" and lot many "smoking zones". We have a living exapmles of Aarav, Anubhav and others (unfortunately the self included) who are, more than regretting, searching for the answer of that trillion dollar question "WHY". Once you take CAT and get rejected, you never know why it happened and the best thing about it is, you also can't make out studying the pattern of the calls given. So, it helps you come up with all these encourageing words which help you waste, err, invest one more year dreaming for the mirage! Nonetheless, all the call getters desrve it duely but my only contention is those who did not , especially wen they were better than or equal to those who recd the calls. Then, do they not have right to ask "why" for which they hae spent so much of money, spent so many sleepless nights, have sacrificed a lot and gave this exam the first priority and prefer studying to everything else. Do they not have right to know where they went wrong, whether they really made bludners or simply they don't have something which is mandetory to get into the best school of management in India. I wish all the IIMs could put all these "WHY" under FAQs section and we, yes all of us, cud have access to the answer of it.

At the end of the day, IIMs were, remains and will be the best school for anyone who lives in the country called I-N-D-I-A. But, how long u can wait for it and how far u can chase it, depends on how gud ur at calculation. Make sure that u make profit. :-)

well, whatever you decide, decision will be yours but make sure you are not cheated or decieved by your miscalculation. Weigh all pros and cons and march ahead to realise your dreams and always stand by your decision.

ATB,
a pagal.

PS: sorry, i had to post it on this thread eventhough i posted on the other thread, this being the most apt one!

[shywaah]

My story...

I've been a passive participant al pagalguy since august.. Thought of posting only if I get through the written..Just 1 of those things.. Superstition mayb

Anyway im posting... So obviously the results are good..

I was always a good student.. Top 10 in 10th.. even in 12th.. Didnt know what to take up in 12th so took up science.. 1ce again took up engineering as it seemed that is what intelligent ppl did.. But engineering frankly did not give me too much.. It was just cramming and more cramming.. N vomitting everything the next day in d exam.. So wen it came to what next it was always MBA that came to mind.. Maybe that would actually give me a passion in life.. Let my creativity.. My intelligence( how arrogant ) come to the fore.

So I joined Career Launcher in summer 2004.. Started with verve..completing all assignments etc.. then let go somewhat a little later.l.In fact stopped studying completely to be honest. It was in august sometime that i once again decided I WAS going to get through.. and that could only happen if I started studying..

I started putting in some effort(Nothing like chandu mind you.. Ive never been the hardworking kinds).. A couple of hours in the beginning.. and progressed gradually to 4-5.

Some things I learnt while preparing(These are NOT generic rules but worked in my case):

1. If your english is strong (dont want to sound pompous but mine is as i've been an avid reader since I was 5) theres not much that can be worked upon besides vocab.. Reading speed can be imoroved only after many months' hard work.. I didnt even do too much vocab as I thought I would be better off using my time elsewhere.

2. My reasoning was strong from the beginning.. The key is that if you enjoy something.. in all probability you will be good at it.. And I enjoy sudoku.. Those Rita Sita questions etc.

3. Maths was my weak point(My mock scores always bordered <=cutoff) but that too became fine once i understood some facts.. You must do only questions that you think u will be able to answer at first shot. Come back to the rest ONLY if you have time..

4.Be Clever.. Do approximation.. Substitute the options if u've narrowed down to 2 options.. Even attemting on gut feel may give results(at times).

5. To my advantage my speed was good(accuracy was not).. So I WORKED TOWARDS MY STRENGTHS..

Keeping these points in mind.. I understood an important fact about this mother of all exams.. Each person must devise his/her own strategy for attempting..

More importantly.. CAT IS NOT A FUNCTION OF HOW MUCH YOU STUDy.. BUT HOW INTELLIGENTLY YOU STUDY.. It is not how you perform in your mocks but how you perform on that very day..

I didnt study the last week.. watched a lot of movies.. ate a lot of chicken.. Saw jo jeeta wohi sikander the day before.. N gave the exam very calmly.. As i had planned

I thought my exam went OK but even so didnt calculate my scores for fear that if I scored poorly i would spoil my upcoming sem exams too. So tore up the paper and relaxed..

2nd Jan.. Results
Calls: A C L I K

Im ecstatic jubilant, exuberant.. just very very happy and hope I get the calls converted too which would be the perfect end to my story..

[srikrishnan]

Yet Another Below Average Student's Experience and Guide towards Cracking CAT

Well, I don’t have any other work today. So I've decided to relive the most amazing journey of my life -à CAT. To start with, this is not a success story .I doubt if this will be anything close to motivating. But I am writing it anyway. I am just a below-average (not even close to average with my academics) run of the mill engineering guy who studied in one of the thousands of private engineering colleges located along the suburbs of Madras. I remember that it was around December 2004 that I decided to prepare for CAT. I didn’t know the reason exactly then as to how an MBA would help me. The best reason that I could think of was that my engineering academics were below average and I even had a couple of backlogs in my second semester (what do you expect from a below average guy) and MBA meant instant money. Also, I wanted to do then was to do something different. While the whole class started preparing for GRE, joined classes, mugged wordlists and so on, I wanted to take a different route. Even if it was GRE that I wanted to write, I wasn’t convinced by the concept of coaching classes for GRE. Verbal can only be imbibed by one and not taught by one to another. At least, that was by feeling and still is. GRE math was child's play and seriously wasn’t worth preparing too much. I still feel the same way though the difficulty levels of questions have moved up. So I decided that my exam would be CAT. After getting to decide I would take up CAT, I joined pagalguy forums. I then mailed seniors in IIMs to find out how to start preparing and which coaching class was the best for me. All of them suggested that TIME was the best in South India especially here in Madras. So I joined TIME almost on the same day last year. Started attending classes with enthusiasm and excitement. Got back home and worked out the handouts and tried my hand at the problems given in the institute study material. This continued till about august. Then the pressures of engineering started catching up. Slowly started bunking English classes as I saw little use in them anyway. Math and DI were what I was after. DI was demoralizing in particular as I was poor at number crunching and the whole class would shout out answers even before I got down to work. Once again consulted seniors on pagalguy to help me out and they all said the same thing once again. PRACTICE. That seemed the only way out of DI. So started paying special attention to DI. Time passed and we were supposed to appear for our first mock that was by mid August. Wrote the first mock and it was then that I understood where I stood. Math bombed and surprisingly DI was okay. I was fairly confident in English;however, I felt strategy had to be fine-tuned. The number of attempts had to be increase as they were too low. Even in English, I realized the importance of reading speed as I found that if I could master reading speed, I could easily max out English. I got my hands on a speed reader software (once again thanks to pg forum) and started working at my reading speed. Then, in the mocks that followed, started doing well in English by feel to abysmal lows as far as math was concerned. Once again, DI seemed "manageable". It is at this stage of my preparation that I feel I faltered. I never got down to the absolute basics of math and never fine-tuned DI. I should have easily spotted this as I was always erratic with my percentiles in DI and consistently low in Math. Then came another shocker. I couldn’t get myself into a decent software company when everyone around me seemed to do it with relative ease. Wipro came, Caritor came and TCS came. I could not make it. All this seemed too demoralizing and together with my mock CAT results, made me question the very reason for my existence on this planet for the past 20 years. All this prompted me to take up GRE that seemed the easiest and safest option then despite my ordinary acads. Spent about ten to fifteen days mugging up Barrons. Never touched the quants or analytical writing parts and appeared on the GRE. Did maths and analytical writing well as expected but bombed in verbal with a score of 500ish. Now that GRE was over, the whole mood changed. I thought I could give CAT the final push that was needed. Chatted for a long time with the guys who had made the cut to the IIMs and drew inspiration from their performances. Filled with renewed enthusiasm, I worked away day after day. It was October end before I new it. Now was the time for some serious business. But wait. I didn’t know a word of engineering in the seventh semester. So had to prepare for that. So I was down to burning the midnight oil as I had to manage my semester exams together with CAT. Decided to skip the model exams at college and got myself into big trouble by doing it. HOD had a real go at me. I just ignored him. Then came the timetable from Anna University. The semester exams were to begin on 17th November and CAT was on 20th November. So the exam fever had kicked in. The first paper was Professional Ethics and the exam that followed CAT was Environmental Science and Engineering. So the first couple of exams weren’t a problem. But I was worried about the other subjects. So I completely ignored CAT by the last week of October. But hell, the semester exams that began by 17th Nov ended only by Jan 2nd. We ended up having only a couple of exams every fortnight thanks to the rain that played havoc on the city. Cursing myself for not spending the last few days preparing for CAT,DDAY drew closer and I now started writing CRTs(CAT Replica Tests-> old CAT papers). Finally after the Novemeber 18th, I decided to wrap it all up. Then came November 20th. (I've narrated my experience of DDAY on another post on my blog). After CAT, sat analyzing and got what I thought I would get. Finally the semesters got over by Jan 2nd. Results came. My percentile: a pathetic 90.12 including 98 in Verbal. I faired well in what was my inherent strength and fared abysmally in what was my initial and now almost inherent weakness—DI.

Where did I go wrong?

This was the question that kept ringing through my head a thousand times after seeing the result.

• I was never a master of the basics.
• Never analyzed mocks seriously.
• Preparation was irregular and was hardly systematic.
• Should have been more focused especially when I was feeling demoralized(after the initial mock CAT results and failure in campus interviews)

What has CAT given me:
CAT is as much about attitude as it is about aptitude. I realize now that where I really failed was in the attitude part. My weakness could have been easily nullified with more effort. However, the lack of mental strength did me in. It is extremely important in believing in yourself especially when you go through lean phases knowing that you are good enough. CAT has made me realize that mental strength is indeed the most precious strength that one posses and the difference between those who make it big not just in CAT but in every aspect of life and those who don’t is essentially this very quality. Life after CAT is so much more different from life before CAT.

[srikrishnan]

Now I am a lot stronger mentally and I feel more comfortable living with myself. Hell I didn’t crack CAT but I surely made myself a better human being trying to crack it. It is for this simple reason that I feel that CAT has been invaluable to me. I may never crack CAT or what do you know!! I might be in IIMA next year.. But I feel either ways, I have won. There is a feeling of genuine happiness and content that I seldom had even when I topped the class at school. This is what CAT has given me.


My 2 cents to CAT 2006 aspirants( This is for the below average guys like me… all you studs can take a hike .. Anyway I am not qualified enough to advise you):


First and foremost, dont think about your academics and correlate that with your performance in CAT. The director of IIMC himself has said that they look at a person's academics only by his CAT scores. It DOES NOT MATTER IF YOU HAVENT DONE TOO WELL IN YOUR DEGREE. IIMA might be different but you dont have to worry about this as things like this can take care of themselves post CAT. People who crack CAT aren’t exactly Ramanujams. You don’t have to be special to crack CAT. All that you need to be is to just be yourself. Stick to what is your strength and try to maximize it. Try to nullify your weakness or atleast reduce it as much as possible. Take mocks seriously. The results of the mock CAT have absolutely no correlation with performance on DDAY but it is extremely important that you analyze your mock CAT papers. The importance of this in particular can never be overemphasized. Build your basics slowly and strongly. Never move to the next topic without being clear with what you’ve already studied. I feel that I faultered here as I tried to rush through this particular phase by finishing off the materials given by TIME as early as possible. Always have basic materials of more than one institute (I had TIME and IMS' materials). As you approach CAT, even if you have neglected a few topics here and there, stick to your strength. I feel that in order to crack CAT, your strategy plays a bigger part than knowledge of topics. I would put it down to 70% strategy and 30% knowledge. However, I put this down with due caution as I don’t want to misguide people into believing that you can crack CAT without putting too much in terms of preparation. I am just trying to emphasize the importance of having good strategy. Good strategy is not essentially a single strategy but learning to be flexible and adjusting your strengths and weakness according to the pattern and difficulty level of questions in the paper. I feel that this can be reached only with regular practice and taking as many mocks as possible. And last but certainly not the least, remember than ATITUDE IS AS IMPORTANT AS APTITUDE.


Some books that I can suggest:


Verbal:- If you have lots of time which I guess anything more than six months is, then going through Barrons GRE is not a bad idea. Apart from this, I would specially recommend All About Words by Morris Rosenblum and I feel that it is a must read for everyone interested in expanding their vocabulary. If you aren’t too confident about your verbal ability, try digging into one of the old Wren and Martin lying around in an old second hand bookstall. For parajumbles, I guess mocks should do the trick. Cant comment on extensive preparation for English because I hardly prepared much here anyway. Was fairly confident of getting 99.** . But got only 98.


Quantz: The most feared section especially for non-engineers. Trust me guys..… Unless you are IIT material or some reallyyyyyyy gifted guy, engineers find it as tough or as easy as others. I would recommend any insti material like TIME or IMS or CL (I used TIME+IMS) for building basics. I think its always better to have materials from atleast 2 institutes. Apart from this, once you are through with basics, try " How to Prepare for the Quantitative Aptitude for the CAT" by Arun Sharma. The book is excellent and contains some really tough questions. Considering the fact that CAT papers, year by year, are getting tougher in terms of difficulty levels of problems, this book is an absolute must.


DI/LR:

This was what did me in as far as CAT 2005 is concerned. Try to work out as many handouts as possible as I felt that they were of higher difficulty levels than most of the exercise problems in the insti study materials. Also, mock problems also closely resembled what we got in CAT. Once again, refer to Abhijit Guha's book which contains both quantz and DI. I wouldn’t recommend the book for quants but would certainly say that it is the best for DI. It contains several strategies that can be useful when mastered and the difficult level of exercise problems is also pretty high. Also, the book is quite comprehensive in itself as far as the DI section is concerned. Was fairly comfortable with LR. Would say that mocks are enough as far as LR goes.


One final word(or maybe para): Have fun while preparing for CAT but take it seriously cos it damn worth it and remember that the means are as important as the results. If you do the processes well, the results will take care of themselves. (Finally I know what Dravid means when he says that).





That’s it folks. Thanks a lot for the time that you guys have taken to go through my reallyyyyyyyyy longggggg post. Bye.

[anupam will return]

Originally Posted by srikrishnan

.........That’s it folks. Thanks a lot for the time that you guys have taken to go though my reallyyyyyyyyy longggggg post. Bye.[/SIZE][/FONT]

One of the best posts that I've come across so far @PG. shall I say a perfect example of what CAT teaches us in the long run...
Moral of the story : No matter what goes wrong .. face the world positively.
Kudos to you and your spirit Srikrshnan..


Edited By oxymoron: tut tut...now now Anupam you must of all people know better than to quote long posts..

[gaurav_kh1]

hi chandu bhai i usually come to this thread when i feel down or when i need a mental support but today i read ur post must say great write up u really gave a great fight this was my first attempt to cat and why iw ent for cat??the reason are almost same as urs money mental peace etc but above all it was my dream to study in iim i had tht aim since i was in 11th but after my cat i landed up at 93.13 and now i have lost my confidence tht i would be able to crack the cat06 so now im aiming at other bschools i knows its not fair to give up ur dreams so easily but thts life i have seen so many persons getting lower percentile in second attempt and i dont want to fall again so thts why im aiming at second and third tier school but after seeing ur post im sure i would be taking a drop if i dont get thr mica thankx a lot may be i deseerve iim may be some day i will proudly say tht im a IIMIAN