Let's bell the CAT

By Suhani Popli

It was nearly a year and a half ago, when I was one of those many final year kids, juggling with the different ‘options’ that would help them build a future – that I decided to pursue the MBA degree. A dilemma that exists in most of our minds is that between a management degree from abroad versus that from within India. There is no end to this debate, but since I belong to the latter group, I would describe the process of getting through that in this piece of writing.

There are different exams held for the admission to a management institute in India, the popular ones being the CAT, the XAT, the NMAT, IIFT, exams specific to colleges, and so on. A gateway to the premier Business Schools of the country, the CAT, as an exam, does not really need an introduction, so I’ll skip that part. I’d rather use this space telling you what the different phases in the process of doing this exam are.

      1.  The Initial Phase

As one would expect, there are different ways to go about this. People can choose to do absolutely nothing, or study on their own selves, or join a coaching institute. If in the second category, I would suggest an aspirant to pick up study material from online/reliable offline sources. Trust me there is no dearth of either. However (and this opinion is strictly personal), I have always felt that the CAT requires not only a basic and complete knowledge of the relevant material for quantitative, logical and verbal ability, but also a grasp on the tips & tricks that could help accelerate one’s speed to solve.

My guides, both in terms of the preparation material and the teachers, came from the coaching institute I was enrolled in. And I genuinely believe that someone teaching me a particular concept would make it clearer to me, as compared to my reading it from a book. However, one is his/her own judge of what works best for the purpose of learning. Hence, the most important part in this phase is for an aspirant to pick the category that suits best.

Incase one does plan to join a coaching institute – honestly, there isn’t much of a difference between the names that exist in the market today. All of them have material and test series which are comprehensive. Thus, I would suggest to the aspirants to take advice from their seniors who must have attended such classes. Based on what they say (take views of students from at least two different places), make the final decision.

      2.  The Preparation Phase

Personally, my preparation was at the coaching institute I joined. However, for almost everyone I know, it is actually during the summer vacations when people put in their best effort to study. Personally, if I look back, I see that those two months were quite intense, and it was my coaching faculty who guided me through most of what I did. What is important in this phase is to identify the areas where one needs work and hence polish those well. There is no key to this, but to practise – regularly and efficiently.

As the end approaches, it becomes extremely significant to practise as many mock tests as possible. Also, practicing the CAT papers of the past five to ten years can be extremely useful. This serves a dual purpose – one of making the aspirants familiar to the exam pattern and the other of helping them learn how to manage time. Taking a step forward, it is more important for one to analyze mistakes post a mock test. Though this part is more time consuming than taking the exam itself, it ensures the avoidance of the same mistakes in future.

      3.  The D-Day

First, different myths float when one tries to choose a date – of the exam being easier on weekdays than on weekends, of taking the exam on a particular day, etc. – all of this, yes, ALL of it is absolute crap. Nothing such is true. The exam is such that there is a large common pool of questions designed each year, and questions are pulled out from this pool everyday in random combinations to form a question paper. Hence, one can never predict the difficulty level of any particular day or time slot.

Second, aspirants should make sure they look at all the 30 questions in each section. At various instances, the questions in the beginning tend to be difficult compared to the ones later in sequence. Thus getting stuck at initial questions can lead to very negative outcomes.

Third, keep calm and get done with the exam.

      4.  After the declaration of the results

Once the results are declared, successful aspirants get calls from the different business schools. The last step in the process entails preparation for the GD/WAT processes and the PI – i.e. the Group Discussion, the Written Ability Test and the Personal Interview rounds. The key to succeeding here would be to know two things well – one’s own resume and the current affairs. Infact, reading the newspaper is a habit that one should try and pick up early – since it also is helpful in the preparation of the verbal section of the CAT.

Like conventional CAT preparation pieces, I don’t want to end this article by stating a list of which business schools are the best in the country. One can easily Google and find that out. Rather, I would like to put forth the idea that it is important to think through the direction in which life is taking one. And whether it is a job, a master’s degree or an MBA – make an informed choice, one that you really want to do! All the best :)

Suhani Popli graduated from St. Stephen's College in 2013. She scored 98.2 percentile in CAT 2012 and is currently a student at IIM Kozhikode.