[sivarka]

Hi,
Thanks for ur eagerness to peep into this new thread. Now, we have lot
of 'Doers' in this forum. Let them guide all of us. All IIM 'Call Getters'
please write down ur valuable experience in preparing for the D-Day!

Infact, today I planned to kick off this thread, and keyed in to this forum,
and found one post by Prats present in the following link:

http://www.pagalguy.com/cat/viewtopic.php?t=588

Why not others too type in their 'Secret of Success'!
Thanks in advance for all those who are going to pour in ur experience.
-Siva

[kunalrana999]

hi frenz,
for those preparing for 2003 CAT
here are some suggestions which worked for me
>maintain a weekly calender and count the no. of hours u put in (remember if ure studying half heartedly that hour doesnt count) and see how much work u put in each day,each week, each months.Usually institutes say it is eneough to put in 500 hrs total for CAT...i gave it around 1500hrs since i had lots to improve
>find out ur weak areas and work on them like crazy......my english was pretty hopeless so i made my own word list of apprx 5000 really good words culled from 3 word lists and a dictionary
>for maths u hav to know the short cuts...i referred to a book by abhijit guha (TMH) it has lotsa short cuts, a little bit of vedic also helps(just a little as much as u can understand....u need not know all vedic)
>when i started my speed was pretty good and in easy papers i can easily attempt 175+
coaching institutes focus a lot on accuracy but i feel that one should focus on speed and accuracy will come naturally
>take TIME mock cats:this year there were some really fundu questions in cat which had come in the exact same way in the mock cats like the cat-mouse-tunnel-relative speed question
>take IMS simcats :the standard of english in simcats is the closest to what u get in CAT ...in english other institutes are not even close(TIME,CF,Cplan)
>analyse all mock cats thoroughly<<MOST IMPORTANT>> find out what areas u do fast and what u are slow in
>its my personal opinion that one shouldnt spent more time on any one section,distribute time equally after setting aside a small buffer in case something goes wrong
>i did block transfer of all answers...it is faster

i hope u guys find all this useful
luv,
kunal

[MavericK]

Hey Kunal
Thanks a Lot for the Info...
All the Best to You...

Anil

[sivarka]

kunalrana, ur words speak a lot to me! thanks a lot!!

[MavericK]

Hi Friends
Others who made it thru the IIM calls...Please let the Junta know abt how u prepared for the exam..

Anil

[deejay_2000]

hi

whic book u refered by Abhijit Guha. pklease tell me the name and publication.

deejay

[rahulkedia]

1500 hrs!!!! shit I prepared for not more than 50-60 hours.Beyond a month of prepration there is nothing to do.Dont go for overkill guys, just have your basics good , it's an aptitude test after all.

[atrangi]

Hi guys !
well according to me the key, as pointed out earlier, is effectiveness of preparation.
Plan the studies - one short term ( say week ) and one long term ( complete till the end ), work according to it, look out for ur weak areas and take care of them. If you feel anything will help you do it then and there. joining class or not depends on you. i know many who did it without classes. Just take care that you dont wear out urself. Peak at the right time. Remember it's not the match practice that matters but the performance in the match. And last but not least FOCUS.
Someone said
"IF YOU DARE TO DREAM, YOU SHOULD CARE TO ACHIEVE"
Also reading the papers and stuff will surely help you in gd/pi so never give up that. it's a must.

HAVE THE KILLER ATTITUDE-NOTHING CAN STOP YOU
bfn
atrangi

[ravi]

Hi guys.

Now i have been thru 3 yrs of prep. I started off with the IMS diag test. Found that my scores were very lopsided - 40 min each 4 sections and i ended up with 35+ in VA-RC, 6 in Quant and 4 in DI i knew i had 2 work on quant and DI - that was, if anything, a great understatement :wink: i learnt some during classes, but nowhere near enough. i came close 2 the quant and DI cutoffs in the IMS Sims, but didn't make it. 2 weeks b4 CAT i did a crash course of tests -2 full length tests a day and thorough analysis afterwards - particularly of DI and Quant - and that pulled me through. That was yr 1.

Year 2 : i didn't get final admits and last yr i prepared full time and in the first few simcats i was getting ranks like 6,18 and so on. But on CAT day i knew i blew it big time this was the yr i prepared best and ironically, the only yr when i didn't get a single IIM call. so prep alone is not enough ! what is more necessary is concentration - those 2 hrs u shouldn't let ur mind wander for even a second and on the day of CAT 2002, i was preoccuppied :wink:

Year 3 : I prepared pretty well - not grt - attended classes and did at least an hour of work on Quant or Di every day from Sept. Also attended most of the IMS SimCats and Career forum mock CATs. I watched the news daily - star news at 7:00 AM and then BBC at 7:30 - read 2 papers a day - ET and Hindu - read Editorials almost everyday from the NYtimes on the web - all this was bcoz of my conviction that i'll clear the test,but needed more General Awareness to do the GD/PI better. I had been faring pretty well in the Sims throughout - got ranks arnd 120-130 throughout. My strategy for all three years was to go in for heavy accuracy - usually managed arnd 85 % accuracy in Sims and that was after i decided 2 take some risks. But 4 the real CAT, i tried 4 100%. Of course, i should have ended up with accuracy of arnd 90% + i firmly believe that accuracy pays better than attempting more. this has some downside - u'll never b a topper, but then ur scores won't b very diff from what u expect either. And note that the IIMs have never let out how much -ve marking there is - for all v know it might b as high as 1 mark :wink:

I think that is all the advice that i can dish out abt prep.
Hope this helps.

Ravi

[bharathram_s]

Hi All,

Now that I've managed to land an IIMC call, let me take you through my experiences in SimCATs, actual CAT and of course, my IIMC GD/PI experiece. Of course, these are C&P from old posts on this forum. Reading them made me nostalgic. Hope it makes for good reading for u as well and helps u in ur preparation. In terms of the actual preparation that I went through, I'll send in another detailed post later.

Mod Squad : Please let me know if the post is too long. I couldn't help it coz I was unable to paste a link which directly took the user to the messages that I posted in the various threads.

So here goes my road to an IIM final call :

(SimCAT 4 - Before the results were published)
Joined the forum recently and this is my first post . Quite happy and relieved to know that most of u found the paper tough yesterday. My scores in the 1st three SimCATs were 80.5, 77 and 71. And yesterday, when I came back home and evaluated the paper, the score came to around 62 (the scores haven't been uploaded for Bangalore yet) and I was devastated (especially considering the fact that my scores are rapidly declining). But after seeing the posts, honestly I'm relieved .

But as most of u acknowledge, SimCAT scores can never be a true indication of someone's preps. What ultimately matters is how u perform (esp vis-a-vis others) on November 24th

(SimCAT 4 - After the results were published)
The Percentile scores are out! Well, I didnt clear the cut-offs for Section 2, so didn't get a rank. Also, my percentile was 99.09. The top score is an amazing 129! What do these guys have for breakfast?
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(SimCAT 5 - Before the results were published)
I just now met up with Gaurav and we had a fruitful discussion. Think I should be meeting him regularly (or definitely on the D-Day), because, after meeting him, I came back and checked the scores. Here's my break-up:
Section I-17-13-4-12
Section II-24-18-6-16.5
Section III-24-19-5-17.75
Section IV-29-27-2-26.5
Overall-94-77-17-72.75

After the test yesterday, I wasn't too confident. I thought it was as tough as SimCAT 4, if not tougher. But boy! When I returned home and evaluated my score, I was thrilled, though soon I started berating myself for not getting 80. Anyway, I think its a decent score. But I'm not too confident of clearing the cut-off for Section I. Keeping my fingers crossed.

(SimCAT 5 - After the results were published)
pagalguy wrote:
You'll be in the top 100 I'd say. Let us know

Turned out to be true. My rank was 56 in Sim CAT 5. I also got a top 100 rank in Sim CAT 1. Hope the arithmetic progression continues and I get into the top 100 in CAT (which is effectively Sim CAT 9 )
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(SimCAT 6 - Before the results were published)
Here's the breakup of my scores:
Section I - 39 - 29 - 10 - 26.5
Section II - 36 - 33 - 3 - 32.25
Section III - 39 - 32 - 7 - 30.25
Section IV - 114 - 94 - 20 - 89

Yeah, I agree with all of u. It was a very easy paper, probably the easiest so far. I too expected a slightly higher score (after my analysis), but I'll settle for my current score. Had I lost 5-6 marks from my analysis (like in the case of Allwin), I wud have been devastated.
But, one difficulty which we all will face immediately after CAT is helplessness. We are all so used to going back home, sitting down and analysing the SimCATs that it's become a habit. But after CAT, we won't have that luxury. Shudder to think of nearly 3 months of helplessness and uncertainity. Anyway, hope for the best.

BTW, Gaurav, that's a wonderful score man. Hope the IMS score matched that of urs. Do inform us of ur real score. Doesn't make much of a difference, but will certainly egg on the competitive spirits.

And finally, Allwin this is for you. I and Gaurav met up immediately after the test. He's expecting 95 and I have got 89. Think our luck is rubbing off on each other. So, have u booked ur air-tickets?

(SimCAT 6 - After the results were published)
The percentile and ranking info are out. My rank was 157 and percentile was 99.09. Gaurav's rank was 66. Great going Gaurav.

Also, this time 25 ppl crossed the 100 mark, for the first time, which was quite expected. It's really hotting up leading to SimCAT 7 and eventually to CAT. Happy preps folks
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(SimCAT 7 - Before the results were published)
I agree. It was probably the toughest SimCAT so far. But lemme go a step ahead and analyse it a bit further.

Section I - RC+VA - Wasn't too tough. Most of us should have found this the easiest Section
Section II - PS+LR - Man, was this tough! Scariest of them all. If I have the option, I usually go for PS first and this time it was no different. And guess what..even though there were no time limits, I made the mistake of imposing 40 minutes for each Section, with disastrous results. After 40 min of PS, just out of curiosity, I took 10-20 sec off and counted the no. of attempts..Came to 18..Phew! I did this coz I had got royally stuck in the middle and knew I wouldnt have crossed 20.
Section III - This was also not too tough, at least compared to Sec II. DS Qs were fairly easy as were a couple of graphs. I've been historically weak in RC and small passages. So cant comment on the last 10 Qs. But ironically, RC in Sec I was were I had put in my strongest performance.

So overall, I dont expect to cross 55. I am happy that this didnt happen 2 weeks down the road and also hope it doesn't happen. But at least it was a good wake up call as to what we should NOT be doing.

All the Best with ur preps folks.

(SimCAT 7 - After the results were published)
Hmm...So there were a few questions marks in my PIN, DOB and some other fields...But luckily my Test Booklet # was okay..So at last I could see my marks. Here are they :

Sec I - 28 - 24 - 4 - 23
Sec II - 20 - 13 - 7 - 11.25
Sec III - 28 - 21 - 7 - 19.25
Overall - 76 - 58 - 18 - 53.5

Think we all should just forget this test and move on. All the Best folks
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(SimCAT 8 - Before the results were published)
Well, I didnt fare too well. This is my expected break-up:

Section I - 24 - 17 - 7 - 15.25
Section II - 27 - 17 - 10 - 14.5 (How abt this for accuracy?!)
Section III - 27 - 21 - 6 - 19.5
Overall - 78 - 55 - 23 - 49.5

Everytime my actual score is 1.25 below my expected score. So probably the score wud be around 48. Anyway, dunno how u guys have fared, but I wud just like to put this behind me and move on in life. All the Best folks, for the ultimate one
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(The Ultimate One - CAT! - Of course, before the results were out)
ravi wrote:

Any guy who makes over a 100 attempts in this paper with an accuracy of 80% ought to be a certified genius. I don't know how many people agree with me. But that is what i feel. I guess Gaurav and Bharat might have.


Hi folks,

First things first..Ravi, please dont put me on a pedestal and include me in the pantheon of geniuses..I'm as good or as bad as you all..Gaurav probably is a genius, but certainly not me.

And now to the business end of the discussion..To put it simply, the paper looked easier than it actually was...probably becoz of the fact that the pattern was the same (which was a big surprise..probably intended to surprise).

Section I (DI/DS) wasn't too difficult, but certainly not as easy as last year, in the sense that it was more time consuming. I attempted aroung 28 Qs in this section.
Section II was certainly time consuming and certainly more difficult than last year's paper. Yes, there were a few sitters, but overall it was tough section. I attempted around 21 Qs here
Section III too wasnt as easy as it seemed initially and it really drained my energies. Attempted around 35 Qs here
So overall, I attempted around 85 Qs. Hoping for a good accuracy rate and keeping my fingers crossed.

I dont want to speculate on the cut-offs for I dont think the IIMs will have rigid cut-offs. For example, if they set the cut-offs as 20-20-20 and if a candidate gets 30-17-30, I dont think he/she will be ignored. On the other hand if the scores are like 30-10-30, then its a bit difficult. So I do think that these guys will be flexible.

Anyway folks, lets hope for the best. Keep u r cool and do the other exams well.

On a parting note: I and Gaurav were in the same hall. So hope it bodes well for both of us. The difference was he made a lot more attempts, but at least hoping his luck would rub on me. Anyway, regarding his performance, I'll let the word come out directly from the devil's mouth
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(IIMC GD/PI Experience)
My GD/Interview was also at the same time (2:00 PM on 22nd March). But I was in Panel-4. GD topic was the same viz., 'Ban child labour and in the process kill them'.
I was quite repetitive during the GD and there were some moments where no one was talking and I had to step in just to break the silence. At the end of it, everyone was given a minute to verbally summarize and I did it in 20 seconds flat and I was asked to continue Luckily I was able to recollect some more points

Interview was a pretty long affair. It lasted for about 30 minutes. I was asked Qs on a wide range of areas. I will just summarize them below :

Acads :
--------
- What is Amplitude Modulation? What is Frequency Modulation and how is it different from AM? In India, what percentage of Radio broadcating networks use AM/FM? Which results in better noise reduction? Can you draw the circuit diagram?Blah Blah...

- Handled the first few Qs without much of a problem. But when it came to the later Qs, I didn't know them and said so. They then asked me whether I didn't come across them during my graduate studies. I replied by saying that I did study but could not recall at that point of time.

Maths:
-------
- Give us a fucntion which has a dicontinuity at x=2 and another function which has infinite discontinuities.

-Didn't have too many problems initially with this too but they kept probing deeper and deeper and at one point I had to give up

Career Goals:
----------------
- Asked me about my medium term goals (Since I had mentioned my short-term and long-term ones in the form). Told them that it would depend on how my short-term goals take shape. Then they asked me how I could then come up with my long-term goals. Somehow managed to stave off a difficult period by saying that it was more of a dream than a goal

General:
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Qs ranged from famous personalities from my home town (Coimbatore) to how the economic situation in Coimbatore would affect the Indian economy!!! Came up with some bullshit here Luckily they didn't probe me further.

Absolutely no Qs were asked on my work-ex. Overall, it was a pretty exhaustive (and exhausting ) interview. From my side, I'm not too unhappy with the way I went about it, but just keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best
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Regards,
Bharath