Sometimes, age-old advice expressed in a new and interesting manner makes implementing it easier. IIM Bangalore alumnus Abhishek Thakore, who we wrote about in August, has written a small ebook on what you should be doing and thinking in the final run to CAT 2009.

For people who joined a two-year program at an MBA coaching institute and are wondering why they are still miles away from their choicest b-schools, here are some revelations. In a survey conducted by PaGaLGuY.com amongst 366 students from the top b-schools in India on ‘which preparatory program helped them get through a b-school’, only 5.74 percent of the students attribute their success to the two-year program. Of the people who had taken MBA entrance tests for the first time, only 9 percent give credit to the two-year program and amongst the retakers (students who had taken the CAT one or more times before finally achieving success), only 3 percent think that they were successful because of the two year preparatory course.

About 100 odd old users on the PaGaLGuY.com forums are going to be lining up for this year’s CAT as part of OMPA (Old Men’s PaGaL Association) but they aren’t simply cooling their heels and waiting for the CAT notification to come out. Far from it! You can invite your favourite OMPA member in the city for dinner to get answers to all your questions regarding CAT preparation, MBA life and careers. Before you start counting your pennies, there’s some good news; a maximum of eight aspirants can get together and take an OMPA member out for dinner.

It may sound unusual but like charity, management too begins at home. But in this case “home” refers to our mind. CAT preparation is like an iceberg floating along; the visible part of the iceberg is all the problem solving, late nights or early mornings spent in preparation and the books, newspapers and magazines that you run through. What the eye cannot see, the mind has to take charge of. The majority of the iceberg which remains invisible is the mental strength that you have to go through with your effort. This was the opening of a spellbinding presentation on CAT preparation by Abhishek Thakore, an IIM Bangalore alumnus and a student par excellence.

Not really, if you ask the status at various coaching centers around the city, students are now more concerned about their strategies and fundamentals for the CAT than if they will be holding the pencil or the mouse in their hands while writing it. It is the season of mock CATs and city heads of coaching centers across the city say that whether pencil or mouse, it is still the fundamentals that reign supreme.