Road to the IIM Call

[dheerajkkumar]

yeah...there are so many questions cropping up in my mind..how do these guys prepare...how long do they prepare, how many hours a day..what do they stress upon...is it true THAT IF U WORK, u can focus better coz then, u cut off the craps from ur preparation (or is it the other way out)...
more importantly, which are the books they read/work upon other than the normal IMS/TIME/CL/PT materials...
it's said that TOPPERS DON'T DO MORE WORK, THEY DO THE WORK DIFFERENTLY...so how do they actually go about the whole business
hey moderator, can u provide us some links to that?

[mba_sane]

i wanna know too

[arjun_chauhan]

hey man
crackin cat has a lot to do with ur frame of mind on d day
if u crack urself a lil then cat is gonna split u wide open
so u gotta have a lotta practice in test takin
decision makin matters lot which is basically about which q's to attempt and which not to
i attempted 13 q's in my quant section and got 3 iim calls so u get the idea
ps : try takin back to back flts i.e. 2 in 4 hrs

[Nirav]

solve each paper later giving 6 -7 hours (not in a single day though)
and see how many u get right even without limitations of time .
english and some probabilty sums will always remain tricky ..
analyse ur self ...(brush up ur weak areas)
well giving 2 cats this year helped ..
i am not boasting but his worked out for me ...
i dunno if i ma classifed to be a topper (got 6 calls though)
didnt touch any hting except IMS material

(any class wud be fine i guess)

best of luck for all

regds
nirav

[dheerajkkumar]

tell me... for how many months did u prepare? and how many hours a day? do u have any work ex.? if so, how'd u manage ur time
also, how long did u devote in the basic reference materials ie. the basic section, containing the fundas and all.... or did u move straight to solvin papers
how dyu think one should prepare for PI n GD....if u have a 2year work ex, will they STILL ask u about ur acads??

[Iceman]

Hi,

My $0.02 worth...

The time spent per day varies from person to person. The important thing is to be regular. Even if it's only an hour a day, that's better than doing nothing during the week and slogging during the weekends. And as for working vis-a-vis staying at home, I don't think that makes much of a difference either. Whether you work, are in college or at home, 1-2 hours of effort a day consistently through a four to five month period is what is needed. Another important thing is to not jump into a tough routine. If you are an engineer, then like me you've probably spent four years of total fun , and suddenly jumping into a 3 hour daily study schedule will probably be something akin to culture shock . So, build up to it. Start off with an hour or so, and build up to two or three as the CAT approaches.

And as for extra material, I would suggest reading a good newspaper everyday, to help build your verbal and RC skills. Especially the editorials, as they're quite long and usually of the same "interest" level as the RCs in the CAT.

Regards,
Mansur

[super6]

hi nirvan
can u give us all some tips on how u went about with ur prep???it will be really helpful...how many hrs did u spend per day preparin n any other general info which u think will help us...
finally where all did u make thro???
cheers

[couger]

Originally Posted by Nirav

solve each paper later giving 6 -7 hours (not in a single day though)
and see how many u get right even without limitations of time .
english and some probabilty sums will always remain tricky ..
analyse ur self ...(brush up ur weak areas)
well giving 2 cats this year helped ..
i am not boasting but his worked out for me ...
i dunno if i ma classifed to be a topper (got 6 calls though)
didnt touch any hting except IMS material

(any class wud be fine i guess)

best of luck for all

regds
nirav

hi nirav,
couger here...

so when are u leaving to iim.....buddy i know that once u are there u would be really busy...

bo buddy just tell me the time that u spend each day in preparations... (since u were alos working when u gave CAT).... i think i can gain much from ur schedule...

hope that u would do this favour to me

[Vibhavan]

Originally Posted by dheerajkkumar

tell me... for how many months did u prepare? and how many hours a day? do u have any work ex.? if so, how'd u manage ur time
also, how long did u devote in the basic reference materials ie. the basic section, containing the fundas and all.... or did u move straight to solvin papers
how dyu think one should prepare for PI n GD....if u have a 2year work ex, will they STILL ask u about ur acads??

I actually started preparing in august and it was late august before I got into serious study mode. In hindsight, it was a bit late. June would have been an ideal time to start for me.

Speaking for myself, I didn't bother too much with the IMS Basic material. I just jumped straight into the tests - far more fun to do tests than some boring study material. But its just a personal choice, if you want to revise all your formulae before taking tests, it should be fine.

If the panel wants to quiz you on your acads, they will do it regardless of your work-ex. But that's rare. With 2 years work-ex, you are more likely to be asked q.s on that.

[satanincarnate]

I started preparing in late july .. started off with some BRMs from IMS ...and doin section tests etc but soon got bored ...
i was working and so had some probs with studying on weekdays but somehow tried to manage a couple of hours at least on 2-3 weekdays and a test typically ..
weekends would see me giving one more test .. and then analysing it .. doing the quants and DI parts again in total .. just to see how good my question selection was .. and if there is any particular type of questions which is easy to crack but i usually dont attempt .. THIS WAS THE MOST IMP PART OF MY PREP I GUESS ..
other than this i used to go thru some BRM which i felt i needed to brush up .. there is one thing in the first post on this thread which i do agree happened in my case ... i did cut up a lot of crap in my prep .. i had to coz of paucity of time .. like i didnt go thru the BRMs in a structured way .. only what i felt i needed ..well thats it for me ..

In short, gave and analysed lots of tests .. read BRMs on a need basis ..solved quants and DI for all tests in full ..