How I scored 99.83% in CAT 2023 and tips for CAT 2024

Study materials, timetable, number of questions to get 99% and how to stay motivated

In 2023, 2.82 lakh students appeared for CAT. The total number of MBA seats across all IIMs of the country is roughly 5000. If you consider the top 6 IIMs, the number of seats is around 2500. About 50% of those seats are reserved, leaving 1250 seats for General candidates. Doing some rough calculation gives us a selection percentage of 0.8% from an initial pool of 2.82 Lakh candidates, making the top IIMs one of the most competitive institutes to get into. General Engineering Male (GEM) candidates do not get an interview call from the top three IIMs, IIMA, IIM B and IIM C below 99.5%. Considering all of this, it is extremely important for candidates to score a very high percentile in CAT to ensure that they get an interview call. The competition is still tough after getting the interview call, but the chances are much higher for top IIMs. For example, IIM Ahmedabad called around 1250 candidates across all categories for 400 seats, a 32% selection rate after getting the interview shortlist. In this article, I will present my journey for CAT 2023, how I scored 99.83%, which is top 450 out of 2.82 lakh students. I will share all resources that I utilised, timetable I followed, number of questions I practiced, how I maintained my motivation all throughout my preparation and share some meaningful tips on how you can ace CAT 2024. 

Start your preparation with a full-length mock!

I had been thinking about sitting for CAT since April 2023 and I finally started my preparation journey on May 28, 2023, by giving a mock. Yes, that’s right, you should also start your preparation by giving a full mock of 2 hours. By giving a mock very early in the preparation journey, you understand exactly where you stand and what is the delta between you and that elusive 99.5%. CAT is divided into three sections, namely, VARC(Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension), DILR(Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning) and QA(Quantitative Aptitude). By giving a mock early, you get to know which section you need to work on the most and which one is comparatively strong for you. Don’t be worried if the score is very poor in the first mock. I scored 29/198 in my first mock. That’s alright. Remember, you are preparing for CAT to secure your future and being honest about where you stand is extremely important before you can start improving. Free mocks are available across the web. I scored 22/72 in VARC, 3/60 in DILR and 4/66 in QA. It was very clear that I needed to buckle up in Quant and DILR. The next 3 months, i.e., June, July and August were mainly focused on improving my QA and DILR scores with lots of practice, which I will break down below. I did not prepare anything specific for VARC for the next 3 months other than reading The Hindu every day. My VARC preparation was also supplemented with the full-length mocks that I gave regularly and analysed even more rigorously.

Study Materials, Mocks and other Resources!

I am sharing all the resources I used for my CAT 2023 preparation. Most of my preparation was through practice and practice only. I practiced over 50 mocks in my CAT preparation journey and countless sectionals. Sectionals are part-mocks, typically 40 minutes duration and covering one out of the three sections. I strongly recommend everyone to give highest weightage to full-length mocks and sectionals in their CAT prep journey. It has been the biggest differentiator in my journey. I am sharing the below materials in the order of importance that they had for me. 

• Mock Series – TIME & Career Launcher – I found mocks & sectionals to be the best way to prepare for CAT. Both test series are very good, and I recommend everyone to give these. There are other mock series like IMS as well. For me, these two worked out well.

• Book - Arun Sharma – Quant and DILR – Best book to get started with Quant Preparation. Theory provided is easy to follow. Practice questions are divided into levels of difficulty(LOD), which helps you prepare according to your current levels. Don’t try to solve every question in the book, it’s a futile exercise. Instead, read the theory for each chapter, make notes and solve questions till you find yourself satisfied with that topic. Solving roughly 60% of questions from each topic should be more than enough, including all LODs. Arun Sharma Books on DILR are also useful as they provide an overview of the types of questions asked in CAT. Still, you can only get so much practice with these, and I recommend everyone to focus more on sectional practice for DILR. 

• Newspaper - The Hindu – Reading the newspaper everyday was the main activity I did to prepare for the VARC section. I know it might not be obvious how this affects VARC but reading 5000-10000 words everyday improves your reading speed dramatically, which is a key requirement when you are reading RCs in the VARC section. Additionally, you understand a lot about sentence formation and grammar semantics. Getting into the habit of reading the newspaper paid me huge dividends during the interview process as well. 

• YouTube -  Rodha & 2IIM – I found both channels to be very enriching. Rodha videos were very good for DILR and Quant. 2IIM had solutions to past year papers, which helped towards the end of my preparation.  

• Strategy – 2IIM, Shweta Arora – CAT requires a good strategy for each section as well the entire paper. Rajesh Balasubramanian, Founder 2IIM puts out relevant videos at different stages of the preparation journey and Shweta Arora provides a good content library on how to structure your preparation. Both were critical to my CAT preparation journey. 

• Motivation – InsideIIM interviews – Keeping yourself motivated for 3-9 months when preparing for CAT can be tough and I found InsideIIM interviews of top IIM alumni very useful. Listening to their experiences provided a much-needed dose of motivation when the going got tough. 

• Talking to friends – I had a couple of friends who were already into the top B-Schools of the country and talking to them about my growth areas was always helpful. If you do have any friends who have gone through the grind, find one or two good mentors via LinkedIn. 

• Formula Book – Personal and Career Launcher – Having a formula book for quant is very important. There are a lot of formulas for quant and remembering all of them is an impossible task. Creating your own formula book is the best investment you can make for your Quant preparation journey. I will also share my formula book as well as Career Launcher formula book towards the end of this article. You are welcome ☺ 

Quant Preparation Strategy

Everyone has his or her strengths. Students with a humanities background will have an advantage in VARC. Similarly, engineers are expected to have an advantage in QA. Unfortunately, that was not the case for me. Being an engineer and seeing a QA score of 4/66 on my first mock was depressing. As I mentioned earlier, the first step towards improving is accepting your weaknesses, analysing them and then learning from them. Hence, I got to work and reviewed every question of that first mock. I understood the solutions for most of them and tried solving the same questions on my own. I know it sounds stupid but trust me, reading/watching solutions and doing them on your own afterwards makes a huge difference. This strategy is called active recall, which helps our minds retain information for the long-term, improves understanding and helps us apply the same concepts to different scenarios. 

My quant preparation strategy was simple. First, I quickly completed all the topics from Arun Sharma’s book and prepared notes. Additionally, I also completed LOD1 questions from the book. Post this, I regularly solved one sectional every day and reviewed my notes periodically. Solving one sectional or 20 questions does not seem like much, but it does add up over time. Solving one sectional each day for 3 months is 20 * 30 * 3 = 1800 questions. Anyone who practices 2500+ questions diligently, inclusive of mocks and sectionals, can easily score a 99% in Quant. Remember, Quant and DILR are both practice heavy. If you can solve a huge number of questions of a varying variety, you will find it easy to solve them in the final exam. 

DILR Preparation Strategy

DILR section contains two main types of problems, Data Interpretation(DI) and Logical Reasoning(LR). In the past few years, the CAT exam has been heavy on LR questions, and hence focusing on improving your Logical Reasoning is important. My focus for DILR was mainly mastering LR type of questions, as Data Interpretation came naturally for me. Typically, there are 4 sets of 5 questions each in the CAT exam. DILR is considered the toughest section in the CAT exam and solving 2 sets fully should guarantee a 99% in this section as well.

I started my preparation for DILR by reading through the theory in Arun Sharma and practicing the included questions. I solved a few LOD1 and LOD2 questions but quickly realised that the type of questions were outdated in the book. Instead, I shifted my focus on sectionals. I used to give one sectional every day for DILR as well and then analysed it religiously. Solving one sectional every day for 3 months would give 4*30*3 = 360 sets. Solving 500 sets and analysing them honestly can guarantee a 99% in CAT. 

VARC Preparation Strategy

I scored 22/72 in my first mock and it looked like I was ahead of the curve in VARC. Over time, I realised that improving at VARC is going to be one of the most difficult tasks for me. While DILR and Quant are objective in how we approach them, VARC is subjective. You need to comprehend the passage and select the best possible choice from the options. Now the problem is that many times two or even three options look very similar & correct, and it becomes difficult to select one and you end up picking the wrong one. 

The VARC section has two kinds of questions, first is Reading Comprehension, where you read a 500-word passage and answer 4 questions based on that. There are 4 RC passages in the paper. Second, there are 8 Verbal Ability(VA) questions as well. These are of different varieties, ranging from Paragraph Summary, fill in the blank and arrange the sentences. I felt that improving in RCs was deterministic and it depended on the number of passages I had practiced. VA always felt like a wild card and my scores were very inconsistent in it. 

As I mentioned above, reading the newspaper was my main resource when preparing for VARC. Additionally, full-length mocks provided me with the required exam practice. I practiced very few sectionals for VARC and in hindsight, it was a mistake. One should practice all the three sections and not neglect any. If I was to give CAT again, I would add one sectional for VARC every other day.  Solving 200-300 RC passages and 500 VA questions should be enough to score a 99%. I scored a 98.21% in VARC. 

Full-length mocks and review strategy

As I have mentioned above, mocks are the best way to prepare for CAT and it was my main focus for the duration of my preparation. By the end of it, I had given close to 50 mocks and consistently scored 90-100 marks in each towards the end. I started my preparation by giving 1-2 mocks every week and reviewing them rigorously. The review process is the most important part of giving a mock and your review process will set you apart from other candidates. All mocks like TIME & Career Launcher will provide a detailed analysis of your attempt after you complete the mock and that data should help guide you. You should take a note of any topics that are consistently poor for you and improve it before the next mock. Additionally, all of them have video solutions for every question. 

I found the video solutions to VARC and DILR very useful in understanding how to approach a question. I also solved DILR questions again after I had seen a solution to figure out if I had any gaps, thanks to active-recall. In VARC, after seeing a lot of video solutions, you will understand the patterns of solving questions and efficient ways of reading passages. In QA, understanding the solution, trying it out yourself and making a note of the formulae used should be enough. Also, if any topic is weak, focusing the next week on that and seeing your improvement in the next mock should suffice. Here is a good video that talks about the mock review process: How to Analyze CAT Mocks to Improve Your Score? | CAT Mock Analysis for Beginners | CAT 2021 Mocks

Time Management Tips

Managing your time becomes extremely important when preparing for CAT, especially if you are working full time as well. For me, what worked really well was studying for 15 hrs before my office duties in the morning and then 1.5 after my office work was completed. This gave me 3-4 hours of practice in the initial days, which helped me get up to speed. Towards the end, I gave a mock before my office in the morning and reviewed it in the evening. I also found time in between meetings to read the newspaper(digitally) and review formulae. 

Having a clear time strategy for each section is extremely important. As you give more mocks, understand the time taken for each section and try to improve upon your weak areas. For me, I was very slow in Quant and unable to solve more than 11 questions in the mock. I worked on this slowly, practicing questions in a time bound fashion only and by the end I was able to attend 17-18 questions comfortably in most mocks. Similarly, I was very slow in DILR and found it difficult to select the right sets. I researched a lot about this and overtime solidified my strategy. Here is a good video on the same: Hacks that Get You a 99 Percentile in DILR Section 😎 Learn to THINK SMART in CAT Exam! 

Conclusion

In conclusion, scoring a 99+ percentile on the CAT exam requires a focused and disciplined approach to preparation. As an aspirant preparing for CAT 2024, start your journey by taking a diagnostic mock test to identify your strengths and weaknesses across the three sections - VARC, DILR, and QA. Utilize a range of study materials, with a strong emphasis on practicing mock tests and sectional tests. Reviewing these tests thoroughly is crucial for identifying areas for improvement and refining your test-taking strategies. Consistent daily practice is key to building mastery over time. Solve Quant and DILR questions daily, read The Hindu newspaper for VARC, and take full-length mocks regularly. Have a clear time management strategy for each section and the overall test.

If you are preparing for CAT while working full-time, make efficient use of your time by dedicating focused study hours before and after work. Stay motivated throughout the journey by seeking inspiration through alumni interviews and conversations with friends who have successfully navigated the CAT journey. Remember, with the right resources, a disciplined approach to preparation, and a positive attitude, you can achieve your dream of securing admission to the top IIMs. Stay focused, work hard, and believe in yourself. The journey may be challenging, but the rewards of success are well worth the effort.

To all the aspirants preparing for CAT 2024, stay committed to your goals and persist through the challenges. With dedication and hard work, you can achieve the 99+ percentile that will open the doors to the most prestigious management institutes in India. Wishing you all the very best in your CAT preparation!

References
Personal Formula Book: CAT 2023 Notes.pdf
Career Launcher Formula Book: CL Important Formulae.pdf