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The best of All I wanted to speak about CATBy PaGaLGuY.com

(Version June 17, 2009)

Compiled from the posts of successful MBA

students and PaGaLGuY.com users from thediscussion threadAll I Wanted to speak about CAT on

www.pagalguy.com/allaboutcat

Special copy prepared exclusively forHarsh Shethia(This is the 42,345th copy of the book)

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The Best Of All I wanted to Speak About CAT

Copyright 2009, PaGaLGuY.com, All rightsreserved

All text and content in this book is solely owned byPaGaLGuY.com. Reproduction without permissionin any form or means is illegal.

Get your own Free personalized copy (with your

name on it) of this book fromhttp://www.pagalguy.com/books/

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Foreword

Welcome to the first edition of The Best of All IWanted to Speak About CAT .

The Internet has the unique ability to bring out theinherent goodness within people in ways no otherenvironment can. Everyday, millions of strangers

join hands virtually to create something that is

bigger than the sum of them all.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of youngstudents and professionals take a crack at theCommon Admission Tests (CAT), the prime channelto secure admission into the Master of BusinessAdministration (MBA) programmes of the IndianInstitutes of Management and a few other topIndian Business Schools. Less than five thousandactually manage to make it.

This book is a compilation of the MBA entrance testpreparation experiences of the successful fewbetween 2004 and now, who took time out to writedetailed chronicles of their tryst with getting

through into a top MBA school on thePaGaLGuY.com MBA Forums. These are poignantstories of longing, small triumphs followed by largesetbacks, dreams shattered and then rejuvenated,sheer hard work, winning attitudes and suckingvictory from the jaws of defeat.

Prepared exclusively for Harsh Shethia

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Read the stories to know what it takes to get into atop MBA school in India, when everything goes

wrong and when luck deserts you. Or whenever you feel uninspired, read your favourite story fromthis book to get back into the groove and crack thattough Quant problem.

For the sake of not taking away from the chutzpahof the original posts, we have performed minimal

language editing to the book. Do not be shocked if you find grammatical mistakes, Internet slang, alittle bit of Hindi and some political incorrectnessin there. Trust me, you wouldnt enjoy these storiesany other way.

To make reading easier, we have included aGlossary of PaGaLGuY-speak in the beginning of the book.

In this first edition of The Best of All I Wanted toSpeak About CAT, we have only included the beststories of successful MBA aspirants who made it tothe IIMs and a few other top b-schools. In futureeditions, where we shall include stories of a lot

more people from more backgrounds.

In many stories, you will find the writers praisingPaGaLGuY.com to no end. While the fact remainsthat PaGaLGuY (quite probably) deserves (make itdefinitely) that praise, this book is not meant to bea surrogate plug for PaGaLGuY.com. We obviouslycouldnt have selectively edited out the praise


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phrases (phraises?) and still kept the gist of thestories intact.

A big thank you to everyone who contributed to theAll I wanted to Speak About CAT thread onPaGaLGuY.com(http://www.pagalguy.com/allaboutcat ). A specialthanks to the Moderators on PaGaLGuY especially prem_ravi (Prem), rmbt (Rajat), nikhilkulk (Nikhil), Maverick (Anil) and Oxymoron (Girish) who

helped keep the sacred discussion thread cleanand immensely valuable to lakhs of MBA aspirants.

Putting this book together was a mammoth taskcontributed to by among others Pooja Lapasia andShivangi Narayan. Devadatta Sahoo was thetechnology brain behind making sure you got apersonalized copy.

See you in the second edition.

Apurv PanditEditor, PaGaLGuY.comJune, 2009


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The BabelFish of this book - GlossaryA beginners guide to PaGaLGuYSpeak

Like any counterculture, the online community of PaGaLGuY.com has developed their own set of peculiar words, which the Oxford Dictionary isgoing to absorb in the year 2018. That lastsentence was a lie. Oxford Press has promised todo no such thing. However, you need to absorb just

a little bit of these words and their meanings totruly appreciate some parts of All I Wanted toSpeak about CAT.

You may gloss through these words before readingthe book, or refer to them on demand. Although themethod we really recommend (for best results, asthey say) is to print this Glossary on clean A4-sizepaper, crumple the printouts into a ball andswallow it with two glasses of wheatgrasslemonade. On second thoughts, please dont.

CAT test-preparation coaching institutes

T.I.M.E. : Triumphant Institute of ManagementEducation, a popular MBA entrance testpreparation institute

CL or Career Launcher : a test preparationinstitute based in New Delhi but with a pan-Indiapresence


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IMS or IMS Learning Resources : one of the largertest preparation institutes of India

PT or Professional Tutorials : a test preparationcoaching institute

Mock Cats, MOCK CATS, mock cats : differentaliases for simulated versions of the CAT exam,meant to provide the actual feel of the exam

environment to prepare oneself for the actual CAT exam.

AIMCAT, AIM CAT, AIMs: The brand name of thepractice/mock CAT tests offered by T.I.M.E., a testpreparation coaching agency.

SIM CAT, Sims, SIMS : The brand name of thepractice/mock CAT tests offered by IMS LearningResources, a test preparation institute.

IMS BRM : 'Basic Reference Material' - textbooks onelementary math, English and data interpretationoffered by IMS Learning Resources.

Team-based Study Groups on PaGaLGuY.com

BBLT : Bol Bachan Losers team - one of the many teams formed on PaGaLGuY.com every year,centered around the CAT exam. The team is basedon the manifesto, "BBLT is a team of the have-nots,by the have-nots and for the have-nots. Not that


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the contenders of this team don't have (what) it(takes to crack the CAT) in them. It is just that theyare yet to (but hope to eventually) translatepotential to performance."

UDT : Under Dogs Team - a team of CAT takersformed every year on PaGaLGuY.com around themanifesto, "A UDT member should not have rankedin top 100 of a mock/practice CAT test. more thana maximum of one time. At the same time, he or

she should have great motivation to do well in CAT and show PG that he or she can bell the CAT."

DT : Dream Team - a team of CAT takers formedevery year on PaGaLGuY, consisting of people whohave consistently been scoring very high orappearing in the Top 100 list of a mock/practiceCAT test organized by various test preparationinstitutes. Players of the Dream Team havetraditionally had a reputation of making it to theabsolute top 10 b-schools of India.

Relating to areas tested for in the CAT exam

DI/LR : Data Interpretation / Logical Reasoning -one of the three main areas tested for in mostmanagement entrance exams in India.

PJ : (not to be confused with Poor Jokes) Paragraph jumbles or para jumbles - a typical format of questions in English usage wherein 4-5 sentencesare to be arranged to form a coherent paragraph.


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FIJs : Fact Inference Judgement - a format of English usage questions wherein three sentencesare to be identified as factual, inferential oropinionated based on their individual meanings.

EU/RC: English Usage and ReadingComprehension - one of the three important areastested for of the CAT exam.

Of services offered on PaGaLGuY.com

QQAD: The Quant Question a Day - an extremelypopular service on PaGaLGuY.com, wherein thosesubscribed get a sufficiently tough QuantitativeAbility question in their email every morning. Thesubscribers then dissect various ways of solvingthe question on the PaGaLGuY Forums, therebymaking for collaborative learning. The answer tothe question is sent along with the next day'squestion.

SB : Shout box - the community chatroom on thePaGaLGuY Forum homepage(www.pagalguy.com/forum)

PG : Depending on the context, it may meanPaGaLGuY.com, or the person who foundedPaGaLGuY.com, or Post Graduate, or Paying Guestaccomodation.

id : the username used to post on PaGaLGuY.com


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Words related to MBA entrance exams

CAT: Common Admissions Test, the toughestentrance exam in the world, used primarily toselect students who shall join the coveted IndianInstitutes of Management for the MBA courses.

TR no: Test Registration number, the uniqueidentity number give to every CAT taker.

CGPA: Cumulative Grade Point Average - aninternationally prevalent method to calculateperformance across a degree course at a universityor college

XAT: Xavier Admission Test, the entrance examorganized by the Xavier's Labour RelationsInstitute, Jamshedpur. The XAT score is used by alot of other b-schools, largely belonging to theXavier-branded institutions.

JMET: Joint Management Entrance Test, themanagement entrance test held and accepted bymanagement schools belonging to the Indian

Institutes of Technology (IITs).

AIR: All India Rank, as in a competitive exam.WL : Wait list of a college's final admission list, nottoo different from WLs in railway booking.

C-day : CAT day, the day of reckoning when youappear for the CAT exam.


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GD-PI: Group Discussion and Personal Interview

Related to Business Schools and theirnicknames

WIMWI: 'Well-known Institute of Management inWest India'. A fond nickname for the IndianInstitute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad.

IIM: Indian Institute of Management

IIMA or simply A : IIM AhmedabadIIMB or B: IIM BangaloreIIMC or C: IIM CalcuttaIIMI or I: IIM IndoreIIMK or K: IIM KozhikodeIIML or L: IIM LucknowIIMS or S: IIM Shillong

Consequently,

BLACKI : IIMs at Bangalore, Lucknow, Ahmedabad,Calcutta, Kozhikode and Indore. So when someone

says 'I got BLACKI', it means that they receivedinterview calls from the IIMs at the above places.

Note: Since 2008, the new IIM at Shillong hasresulted in BLACKI extending to BLACKIS.


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Table of Contents

Purnachandra Rao Duggirala , IIM Indore, Batch of 2004-06 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1

Anupam Majumdar , IIM Bangalore, Batch of 2006- 2008 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------17

Deepa , Mudra Institute of Communications,Ahmedabad, Batch of 2004-2006 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------39

Amit Agarwal , IIM Calcutta, Batch of 2008-10 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------44

KIMSTER , Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi, Batch of 2007-09 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------58

Surreptitious , Institute of Management Technology,Ghaziabad, Batch of 2008-10 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------63

Zion1729 , IIM Ahmedabad, Batch of 2009-11 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------71

Himanshu Nigam , IIM Kozhikode, Batch of 2008-10 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------83

IAYF , IIM Bangalore, Batch of 2008-10 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------95


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Niranjan Prabhakar , Xaviers Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur, Batch of 2007-09 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 110

Soham , IIM Calcutta, Batch of 2008-10 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 115

DILSERE , Indian Institute of Management,Ahmedabad, 2006-08 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 126

Govar , IIM Indore, Batch of 2004-2006

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 138 Praveen Kusnoor , Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Munbai, Batch of 2008-10 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 143

Tripurari Prasad , IIM Shillong, Batch of 2008-10 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 148

Ajith B Prasad , IIM Kozhikode, Batch of 2008-10 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 156

Harshad Karandikar , IIM Kozhikode, Batch of 2008-10 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 162

macora , IIM Calcutta, Batch of 2008-10 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 195

Madhav , SP Jain Mumbai Batch 2005-2007 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 202


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The best of All I wanted to speak about CAT PaGaLGuY.com

1

Purnachandra Rao Duggirala, IIM Indore,

Batch of 2004-06PaGaLGuY Username: ChandooCAT 2007 percentile: 99.56Blog: http://chandoo.org/wp/ Calls: IIM Bangalore, IIM Kozhikode, IIM Indore, IIFT Delhi, MDI GurgaonFinal converts: IIFT Delhi, IIM Indore, MDI Gurgaon

At last, I have completed this marathon post. It isdivided into several sub-sections to facilitate easyreading. Hope it helps all CAT aspirants out there.

CAT 2002 and the Aftermath

During my engineering second year, I decided totake the CAT. Basically, I didnt know why I wantedto go that way. But some reasons I could think of

were,

1. A very decent pay Rs 4-5 lakhs per annum 2. A comfortable life for me and my family

3. The challenge that the CAT poses

4. I was tired of my tryst with technical courses:first a diploma and then engineering

So, I started looking for information onmanagement education in India. Soon, I figured outthat I needed to crack the CAT to have any chancesof entering a business school. After some more


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investigation, I found that, lots of reading and goodmath and calculation skills are necessary forcracking the CAT. I decided to improve my verbalability, communication skills and businessknowledge to considerable levels before I started toattend CAT coaching classes.

Subscribed to a BusinessWorld 3 year subscriptionoffer in late second year (of engineering). I alsostarted reading Reader's Digest, India Today and

other magazines. All the while I also tried to doreasonably well in my academics.

Come December 2001 and I decided to join a CAT coaching class. There was not much choiceavailable in Vizag at that time. So I joined T.I.M.E.for CAT 2002 coaching. I used to attend thoseclasses daily from 6am to 8am in the morning andused to feel proud about doing something extra. Inthe first 4 months nothing improved. It was justclasses and some sectional tests. Never ever were

we tested with actual CAT papers. Then came thesummer vacation. I convinced my parents aboutstaying back in Vizag so that I could attend classesas well as take some tests. But I had absolutely no

plan and no idea of the amount of work requiredfor cracking the CAT. Nor was I sure about whatcolleges I wanted to apply and what it is that I waslooking for during the whole ordeal. The first twomonths were a breeze well, actually they were thehottest two months of my life with the summerpeaking at temperatures of 45 degrees. At the end


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of the second month, I took my first ever mock CAT and believe me, it came as a shock. Whateverpractice I had done so far seemed to be useless.

The results also turned out to be bad. At once Irealized the importance of solving more mock testsand practicing CAT-like questions.

Then the academic session started. Not that Istudied for exams, but we had to do two projects inthe final year, and the pressure was building up. I

have always liked to do my work for myself. So Istarted taking my project seriously and by the timeit was September 2002, I had lost my momentumin mock tests. My ranks in the AIMCATs (mockCATs offered by T.I.M.E) plummeted below 300 andsettled there. But they never went beyond 500.Somehow I had a strong feeling that I could crackthe actual CAT if I maintained my AIMCAT ranksbelow 500. Apart from CAT, I was also consideringother options such as FMS, IIFT, XLRI, IRMA,NITIE and JMET. I was desperate to pursue MBAright after graduation.

Well, at last the D-day arrived and I was sitting inthe CAT 2002 examination hall. As usual, I started

of with the verbal ability section. But since theverbal section was the weakest link of the chain forme, I spent a considerable amount of time on thatsection and did almost 40 questions. By the time I

was done with it, I was already 50 minutes into thetest.


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I quickly rushed to the quantitative ability section.And if any one of you has seen the CAT 2002 quantsection, you know what I am talking about here.

That section was tough. But quant was always mystrength. So I put a full 40 minutes and attemptedsome 27 questions there.

There were only 30 minutes left now and Iproceeded to the smaller DI sets. If you look at theCAT 2002 DI paper, you would know that there

were 7-8 such sets with 3-5 questions each. Anygiven day, one could attempt 30 plus questionsthere and easily score above 25. But since I hadmanaged to mismanage my time, I could only solve19 questions in 30 minutes. But, I didnt think it

was that bad, because in the T.I.M.E. AIMCATs 19-20 questions was always a very good attempt rate.Little did I realize that T.I.M.E. AIMCATs were verydifferent from the original CAT.

After the exam I had a feeling that I could get atleast 2-3 IIM calls. All these were illusions and aresult of my poor understanding of the CAT andlack of overall perspective. I had assumed that Icould get a score above 58, which according to

T.I.M.E. was the predicted cutoff. This was again was due to my poor analysis of the AIMCATs. I hadnot figured out my Accuracy and Strike rates yet.

The Results

They came one after another. First IIM Bangalore,


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then Calcutta. Then Ahmedabad, Indore,Kozhikode and Lucknow, in that order. All of themhad the same message for me - 'Sorry... .'

I was devastated. I could not do anything for acouple of days. The thought that I was a loser hadconsumed me completely. In the mess, I even feltlike I was shameless to be eating food. It was myfirst ever major failure in life. And with no job inhand I was down in the dumps.

By the time it was the last week of April, I had onlyone final admission- from the Institute of RuralManagement, Anand (IRMA). I was not sure about

joining it. I told my parents that I want to attemptthe CAT again in 2003 and for that I wanted to stayback in Vizag. They expressed their difficulty insupporting me after engineering and suggested thatI should join IRMA. I started applying to companiesfrantically for a job. But few seemed to beinterested in hiring a fresher. I started considering

working as a faculty in an engineering college. Allthis because, somewhere in my heart I knew thatIRMA was not the place from where I wanted to domy MBA.

At last, in the first week of May 2003, I got a joboffer through campus placements at myengineering college. There was decent pay and nobond. I accepted it immediately and decided toattempt CAT 2003.


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What was wrong with my approach in crackingCAT 2002?

1. I never worked on the study material given bythe coaching institute

2. My preparation for English was veryhaphazard. All I did was read the newspapers,

write unknown words in a book and do some sillygrammar exercises. I never solved practice papersand I never paid attention to Reading

Comprehension. I did not even know what myreading speed was like. 3. I never analysed my AIMCAT papers. Whatever

little analysis I did was focused on the quantsection. I never knew what my strengths or

weaknesses were. I paid little attention to myaccuracy and strike rate. My single focus was toattain a high rank in the AIMCAT.

4. I did not know the difference between a sitterquestion and an ordinary question. My approachhad been start from question 1 and solve till the50th question.

5. My preparation was completely random. I neverhad a proper timetable. Even if I had one, it wascluttered with non-important non-urgent tasks. I

thought that reading books would help me incracking RC in CAT. But more than reading books,I needed to work on my reading methods.

6. My time management was poor and emotional.By emotional, I mean that if I felt that I was notdoing a section well, I used to spend some moretime on it to satisfy my ego. This lead to an erratic


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and random score pattern. Nothing was consistentin my mocks. Not just marks, but the number of mistakes also varied.

7. Lack of overall perspective and competition.

CAT 2003

May - August, 2003

I took a one-week break to adjust myself to the new

workplace I had joined from the campusplacement. In Mid-May 2003, I took a DiagnosticCAT test offered by one of the coaching institutesand my scores were reasonable. But I knew that Ineeded a systematic approach to crack the CAT.So, I planned the next 3.5 months for each day.

My work schedule kept me out of home everydayfrom 7 am to 7 pm. So, I had 3-4 hours in the nightto study and slog. I categorized the entire CAT syllabus into four broad areas.

- Logical Reasoning (LR) - Data Interpretation and Data Sufficiency (DI/DS) - Quantitative Ability (QA)

- Verbal Ability (VA)

I had identified the important topics in these areasand decided to give more preference to VA.

For each topic in first three areas I had allottedone/two days and my aim was to complete that


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topic from either the coaching institute studymaterial or class X textbooks.

During office hours I used to solve problems postedon CAT 2003 YahooGroups and PaGaLGuY.com.

Mock CATs

The first one was in June end, the AIMCAT 401. Atthat time my preparation was only half done and I

had so many topics to complete. But, theexperience from last year helped a lot. I managed tosecure an All India Rank of 60 in that test, eventhough my net score was just above 30. But thiskind of thing happens with the first T.I.M.E. mockCATs. After this mock, I made it a point to recordmy mock performances in an Excel sheet. Thecolumns in each row of the sheet had

Serial Number Date and Mock No Vocabulary Reading Comprehension Quant DI, DS and Logic

Comments

I recorded almost all mock test scores in this sheet.I also used to write about unknown words,shortcuts, question numbers, silly mistakes I madeand mistakes in my strategy in that sheet. Beforetaking another mock, I used to first go through that


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sheet. This helped me in consciously avoiding themistakes I had committed in earlier mocks andfine-tuning my strategy.

Some guidelines for taking mocks

- Stick to the time. If you are taking a two-hourtest, take it for two hours only. Be merciless,especially if you are taking them in your home.Dont let anything disturb you in those two hours.

- Make it a habit of using a watch.

- Have a strategy in mind before you start the test. Take 2-3 minutes to analyse the paper and say to yourself something like, VA is heavy there arefour RCs, quant has some diagram-based sets of questions, DI has lengthy sets and some DSquestions, and there is no LR. So let me start withVA and then move to QA and then finish with DI.Once you know the order of sections, set timelimits to each section and stick to them. Never let

your ego surface in those two hours. This is what Iused to do I used to give time limits of 35 minutesfor each section. And in the end I used to visit thetoughest or easiest section and make up for a goodoverall score.- Most importantly realise that you have to getmost out of the test. Dont be egoistic and sit on aproblem beyond 2-3 mins. If you get it in 1 minute,its ok. Beyond that, learn to leave problems. Try toread as many questions as possible and decide


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which ones you can solve quickly. This knack of identifying the sitter questions comes from taking30-40 mocks in a span of three months.

- After the paper, dont rush to the answer key. Take a break, relax for sometime and then startlooking at the paper. Try to find out correctanswers without looking at the key. Analyse youranswers and see if there was any faster or bettermethod to solve the questions. Try to reason out,

why you did not attempt that RC or DI set andcross check whether that was really as tough as you thought. Try to estimate your score before jumping to the answer key. This will help you inlearning about your accuracy. After the analysis isover, verify your answers with answer key and if needed, go through the detailed answers. Mymistakes used to mostly surface in the analysisphase. Checking with the answer key was moreabout validating my analysis.

- Always try to share your mock score and analysis with others. This will give you a better overallpicture and good understanding of your relativestanding. Use PaGaLGuY.com or Yahoogroups for

this purpose. Many people use these groups foronly posting scores. They dont realise that thesegroups are not notice boards. What you shouldinstead do is to try and analyse the paper and postthat also. With that you are helping no one else but

yourself.


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- Always calculate accuracy and speed figures forindividual sections and the overall paper. And tryto maintain a stable figure of speed and accuracy.If there is an abrupt change in those figures, try toinvestigate why the change happened. Ideally, 60pc speed (attempts) with 80 pc + accuracy will help

you in getting good scores. But speed sometimesvaries with easiness of the paper. Identifying thetrends of speed and accuracy in August orSeptember will help you to fine tune your strategy

before the D-day. I was a 75 percent speed and 70percept accuracy person earlier. After some hard work, I was able to cut down on my speed andimprove my accuracy.

Some guidelines for Individual Sections

Quantitative Ability

I cannot emphasize enough on the need foridentifying sitter questions in this section. Most of the time, solving 15-20 questions in a 50-questionquant section will give you a percentile of 90 andabove (sometimes, even 99). For me, QA had alwaysbeen a strong point. So I used to solve more than

25 quant questions in most mock CATs and getgood percentiles too.From what I have learned from my preparation

- Everyone has weak areas in quant. For me they were probability, permutations and combinationsand I used to leave all questions from those topics.


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- Most of the times, solving questions sequentiallyfrom 1-50 will not work.

- It is always better to give a shot to sets of questions. Something like 'A and B started from Pand Q with 20 and 30 kmph speeds at 10 pm on aday...' followed by 5 questions. If you know theconcept well, you can crack all the questions inthat set.

- You must know three of the following topics tohave an easy sail through the quant section Algebra, Number Theory Mensuration or Geometry.See the last 3 years CAT papers and you will know

what I am talking about.

- Before starting the first mock, try to learn asmany fundamental concepts as possible on QAtopics. Use notes to jot down the unknownformulae and shortcuts.

- While analysing the QA Section, try to find out thesitter (easy) questions that you missed during themock. And try to reason out why.

- have some thumb rules based on your strategy. Ialways

- read and try to attempt 1-2 liner questions underany circumstances


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- read and try to attempt questions on mensurationand geometry (you can recognise them easilybecause they have accompanying figures)

- read and try to attempt questions on logarithmsand algebra

- start from somewhere in the middle of the section.Never work sequentially from 1 to 50.

- read and try to attempt sets of questions

- Most importantly, dont over-compare yourself with others. If QA is not your strength, dont evenbother about how much the toppers are scoring inthat section. Just try to clear the cutoffs and leaveit at that. Dont crib about people attempting 35questions. Instead, try to beat them using yourstrong points.

Data Interpretation

I have only one thing to say about DI PRACTISE!

Verbal Ability

Well, I have talked about my poor English skillsbefore. So, I am not the best guy to be commentingthis. I never have been a topper in this area. Butreading a lot surely does help.


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The last mile to CAT 2003

August - November, 2003

During this period, I took at least 50 mock tests.My opinion on different mock tests

- T.I.M.E. AIMCATs - definitely the best as far asQA, DI, DS and LR are concerned. This year the VAand RC questions have been better. But they are

nowhere near what the CAT VA and RC are like.

- IMS SimCATs, ACT, MCTs and FCTs - very goodVA and RC papers. DI and QA are calculationheavy and sometimes kilometers away from whatthe actual CAT tests. But overall, decent papers.

- Career Launcher MockCATs and FLTs - decentEnglish, QA and DI. Sometimes, brilliant DI. Andno doubt one of the cheapest packages available inthe market. I got some 30 tests for Rs 2,000.Apart from the above three mock CATs, Isubscribed for Ascent mock CATs,10 papers forabout Rs 900.

I made it a point that I took as many mocks aspossible between August and November. In thebeginning I used to take two mocks a week. In earlySeptember I increased it to three mocks a week andstuck to it till the end. Now, you might experience'burnout' at times and if you feel that, you areprobably going too fast and reach your peak


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performance before the actual CAT day and that isnot a desirable thing, because you should bepeaking on the CAT day. So if you feel a burnout,take a full one-week break from mock CATs andstart again. Moreover, dont take too many mocktests in a week. At the most 4 mocks a week shouldsuffice. But again, this is a personal choice and youshould decide based on your performance.

During the final 30 days to CAT, I analysed my old

mock tests once again. During this period I madeoptimum use of the Excel sheet that I hadcompiled. I also realised that my accuracy wasbeginning to going down. So I tried to record all myerrors in a notebook. And this helped me a lot incutting down on my mistakes.

[Editors note We should point out that in 2003, the IIMs found that the CAT 2003 paper held on November 22 had been leaked and decided to cancel the paper and hold a retest in February 2004. The author of this article has decided to skip his experience with the cancelled test and has instead written only about the retest that happened on February 15, 2004]

December, 2003 - February, 2004

Throughout December and the first few weeks of January, I spent time on other exams and on work.I tried to do some RC preparation and wassuccessful in improving a bit. After the FMS exam,


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I tried to focus on CAT. I did nothing fancy in thisperiod. It was all the same mock tests andanalysis.

The D-Day

At last February 15 came, the day of the CAT retest. I was excited about my results in otherexams (IIFT, JMET and FMS). As usual I startedthe paper with the verbal section and solved 36

questions in 35 minutes.

I then moved to QA and tried to maximise my gainsthere. It took 40 minutes and in that time I hadread most of the questions and attempted 32.

I then started with the DI section. Contrary to whatpeople think about CAT 2003, I thought thissection was tough. I could do only 25 questions inthis section.

I did overall 93 attempts in CAT 2003. There werebutterflies in the stomach, but my result turnedout to be better.

And the rest, as they say, was history.

Wish you all the very best in your efforts.

Regards, Chandoo


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Anupam Majumdar, IIM Bangalore, Batch

of 2006-2008

PaGaLGuY Username: anupam will return

The story of an average guy who dared to dreamBIG!

I was never interested in CAT. In my Engineeringdays at Institute of Information Technology,Calcutta (IIIT-C), I always aspired to be an IT nerdor should I say programming Geek! Id my eyes onGRE. The trend then was work under a set of distinguished Professors, take the GRE when youare fully prepared, apply to the US Universities andthen get a big chunk off your expenses using thosecoveted recommendations. My target was nodifferent. But then what drove me to CAT ? I found some of my classmates glued toIMS/T.I.M.E material right there in the second

year. Holla ! what was that?and what exactly wasCAT ?

One of them replied: you don't know CAT ? ( with abig frown on his face! ) CAT is supposed to be anextremely tough exam (realized later, CATs nothingbut an extremely hyped test). You crack it and youmake your way to the prestigious Indian Institutesof Managements. Wow. Sounds attractive but why


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the hell should I pursue it ? Afterall, I always wanted to become an IT nerd!

My NDA dreams still disturb me

I always wanted to be in the Airforce. I knew beingthe only child of my parents I would bediscouraged, but what the heck. I decided to takeextreme steps..

When I was in the 11th standard, I purchased theNDA (National Defence Academy) form, appearedfor the test, got selected and was called for an SSBinterview for the Indian Airforce at Dehradun. Wentthere, aced and got selected! And all these withoutcaring to inform my parents! Gosh! When the final call letter came, I got thebashing of my life. And for the first time in my life Icried. This is what I wanted to be.

Coming back to CAT. In the third year of Engineering we had to do a summer internship inan organization. Id offers from Price WaterHouseCoopers and Tata Consultancy ServiceLimited ( well wasnt a Limited then) and was verysure to do it from PWC. But one of my pals came tomy room one lovely evening and told me.. Hey,ditch PWC, were going to IIM A!

My reply : IIM A? pagal hai kya ? what am Isupposed to gain from there? I need corporate notIIM exposure


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Somehow this pal of mine convinced me to ditchthe corporate offers and join him. So here we went.Come June'03 and we were on our way to theMecca of Management!

All it takes is just 2 months. No more.

I still remember my first reactions when I stoodright in front of IIM A. The reaction of a wow onmy lips and an awe in my belly.

The next two months were breath taking. Me andmy pal were put up in one of the dorms of IIMA.The work load was extreme to say the least, butfun never deserted us. I took my time to make a lotof wonderful acquaintances there. I saw peoplerunning with sandwiches clubbed in their mouthsand hands in their zips; trying to zip the last thingbefore entering the classrooms. Aw! what was this? Weve a surprise test now, will catch u later wasthe reaction. I was dumbfounded. The next 15-20days, I made it sure to take some time out of my

work and observe the life of an MBA student, andthe results were tempting!

The two months at IIM A were good enough tomotivate me for CAT. Now, since Id to dosomething filmy, I went to a rock ( they call it theCEOs rock primarily because most of the IIM A

junta sits there and sips tea ), touched the rockand promised to crack CAT! (To be very specific I


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promised to return to IIM A; only this time as aPost Graduate Program (PGP) student)

My first MOCK. Quant + DI are my strengths!

Motivated, I returned to IIIT-C. This time with adetermination to crack the CAT. Now what was thefirst thing to do? Take some material and startover? Nah. I decided to follow what IMS would askus to follow.

So, one fine Sunday morning I set off for thenearest IMS center to take the preliminary test. Thetest was modeled on the pattern of CAT 2002, and Ispent one hour with Quantitative Aptitude and thenext one hour with DI/LR.

"2 hours up. Now Students please calculate yourscores and let us know. Please note at this stageeven if its a 20 you should be glad" was theannouncement.

10-13 people took the test and their score hoveredaround the 15-25 mark. I calculated my score. It

was an encouraging 44.75 ( with a negativemarking of 0.25 ). Wow, remarked the counselor,"did u take CAT before?". NO I said with a broadsmile. Oh boy, was I to crack CAT without anypreparation?

The counselor asked my sectional breaks:


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I replied : 23.50 in Quant and 21.25 in DI. Thesmile on her face trimmed down to a frown. Whatabout English?"

English. why the hell should I go for English whenI can score in Quant/DI ?"

What followed was a hoard of laughter (and it stillrings!) Never had I felt so embarrassed before! Thecounselor explained to me that in CAT I need to

perform equally well in all three sections; only then will I be eligible for the IIMs..

Afflicted and determined. I returned home.

CAT03 : The prelude to my CAT expedition.

I enrolled for the IMS Simcat that year. Since Istarted preparing on August 03, I had had verylittle time to go through the basics. Honestlyspeaking I touched nothing of Quant/Di. The onlything which I worked on was RCs and a bit of vocabulary and grammar.

I never performed excellently in my mocks, but I was consistent. I usually hovered around the 97 to98 percentile and could clear the cutoffs only on 2occasions out of 8! (thanx to a section they callverbal ability! )

Then comes D-day and with it Goosebumps,henpicks, turkeysnippet and everything else.


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The paper was given to us, the first thing I did wasto smell it! At 11:00 am sharp, the invigilator saidSTART.

11:35 am and I was still stuck with verbal ability.Would you believe it? didnt touch a single RC bythen. I could sense sweat everywhere.

12:00 pm done with verbal ability and one RC (somuch for English & reading speed). With one hour

left I ahd two sections but the best part was, they were my strengths.

12:30 pm done with DI attempted 26 questions.

1:00 pm done with Quant attempted 25questions.

I quickly checked my attempts : 26 + 25 + 32(English) = 83 attempts!

With a feeling not so good. I made my way back tomy hostel. Was disappointed for not performing

well in English. As soon as I reached my commonroom, someone came shouting : CAT03 stands

canceled, thanks to Ranjit Don"

Pagalguy.com : another forum on the wall ?

I knew God wont give me any better chance thanthis. Here I screw CAT and the test stands canceled

what more can I ask?


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I have this habit of surfing the net during my freetime and on one such occasion I bumped into aninteresting forum named www.pagalguy.com Thename struck me. 'Pagalguy', sounds cool, maybesome resemblance. "Let me check this", I thought And what did I find there? with some 400-500 oddmembers, here we had an MBA forum whichdiscussed almost everything under the sun! whoa!thats my cake!

I found Gods like philiptj (100 percentiler),puneet(100 percentiler) and many more who postedon the forum. Now I needed to jump in. What wasthe first thing? well create an ID and register. So here it went: My first id on pg.com :vision_mission

I used to spend most of my time reading about howPaGaLGuy.com was created. (thanks to Allwin),CAT03 scores, strategies. Slowly I started gettinginvolved into a lovely community. It was so muchfun to take a mock and post your scores andanalysis; and the interaction was of high quality.

Then we had wonderful threads where we usuallyhad heated discussions. PG.com was a part of life

now.

CAT03 : the retake

I may fail once, now that Gods given me anopportunity, let me make best use of it.


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These were the words I said to myself when Ientered the exam hall.

11:00 am sharp we started answering. I discoverQuants/DI was tougher than the previous time

while English looked the same!

11:25 was still stuck with verbal ability. "What thehell, was I going to repeat the same performanceagain?" YES I did!. I repeated the same

performance.

11:55 pm done with English ( full VA and two RCs!) with just 65 minutes at hand, somehow I made hayof the other two sections. My attempts : 21 (Quant)+ 27(DI) + 34(English) = 82 and anotherperformance to crib!

As soon as I left the exam hall. I could hear peopleshouting: I attempted 105, arrey I 110 and so on.I knew I hadnt done well! With a lot of courage I calculated my score laterthat evening :

Quant: 14

DI : 21 English : 14.33 Overall: 49.33

All coaching institutes came up with their analysis with cutoffs at a strict 58 plus for at least one IIM (


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IMS went to extremes declaring 78 plus for at leastone IIM call).

That night I wept. All my aspiration were goingdown and to add to my woes, I was so confidentthat I had skipped the placements at my institute.

SP Jain & MDI to the rescue

97.33 (99.40 in DI, 96 in Quants and 78 in

English) was bad. I mean pretty bad considering Idmy eyes on the IIMs. However I got calls from MDIand SP Jain. I attended the interviews since Idapplied to them. I was elated to know that I couldmake it to the merit lists of SPJ and MDI. For a few moments I let go of my IIM aspirations,first attempt at CAT and I could get into two of thebest institutes in the country. Wasnt it anachievement?

That evening, I called my pals at IIM A andinformed them of my results. They were happy butone of them said, Good. But dont u think you cangive CAT another short? Remember your promise I soon realized my promise. All my joy was out inseconds. I knew Id a mission to accomplish.

anupam will return : boy! what a strange Id?

Those days we had this points concept on PG wherein you could add colours or sparkles to youronline profile on PaGaLGuY in exchange of points.


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The points were generally earned and we had somegenerous divas who actually donated them too! One could also change his user id in exchange for3000 points and this is exactly what I did.

Overnight vision_mission vowed to return forCAT04. This time as: anupam will return!

Final year in engineering , the first thing I wantedto do was to get placed and then prepare for CAT. I

needed a company which could offer me a cool life.After some analysis I chose TCS.

I also felt the need to network, form study groupsand go on with the preparation. Being in Calcutta Iknew very few people from PG there. Most of mytime Id to be online on PG trying my hands at theQuant threads/ verbal ability sections.

One day I come across Praveen Agarwal (whocarez)a Pgite preparing for CAT04. The platform was set.. I enrolled for the T.I.M.E AIMCATs this time. I feltthe need to enroll for another Mock CAT series andhence enrolled for CL too.

Every Sunday we had AIMCATs and every Monday whocarez and I used to meet and spend the nextthree to four hours analyzing the paper at Baristaor CCD outlets. They issued us regularmembership coupons for our cinematic visits!


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This group study thing worked. My performance inthe Mocks skyrocketed. The first 8 AIMCATs, I gotinto the top 100 on six occasions (and cleared thecutoffs every time!)

Consistency is the key to success and I was provingit again and again!

18 mocks in T.I.M.E : I got into the top 100 on 11occasions.

10 mocks in CL : I got outside the top 100 onlyonce!

I was pretty sure I was going to make it BIG thistime. At nights I used to sleep and imagine thesame Rock at IIM A. I knew I was getting close tomy dreams.

I was soon placed at TCS and had to go to Trivandrum for my initial learning program. Tendays into my training (in October), one night I got acall from my mother: My father was ill and I wouldhave to rush back home.

CAT04: Turbulent times

My father was serious but thanks to the almightyhe was recovering. CAT had slipped out of my mindfor some time.


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12th November: I realized Id to rush to Khozikodefor my CAT. After all Id spent two years preparingfor it.15th November, I made my way to the spicecapital of India.

CAT04 had this one and two markers which testedour on the spot judgment skills as well. I rememberthe day. It was one of the worst days of my life. I always thought DI and Quant were my strengths.CAT04 proved me wrong!

This time I completed my verbal ability in 20minutes and went on to attack DI ( supposedly mystrength! 99.40 in CAT03). But alas! What is thisDI? I misread a one-marker caselet in DI and spent10 minutes there without attempting a singlequestion. The pressure was mounting and I hadattempted a paltry eight or nine questions in 30minutes. I was sweating. Never ever in my life had Icome under so much pressure in a comfort section.I cursed T.I.M.E/CL/IMS for not introducing me tosuch a pattern! But I had to attempt questions,curses could come later on.

Jittered, I moved to Quants. The relatively easy

Quant section helped me cool down my nerves.Once Quants was done I moved to RCs and thistime completed three RCs in 25 minutes. With justten minutes remaining, I moved back to DI. Thenext 10 minutes were nightmarish, couldnt thinkof a strategy to attempt the DI section. Shame onme," I said under my breath.


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1:00 pm : STOP was the call. I knew Id come up with another award winning performance!

Pune gets a son. I a family

After my Initial learning program at TCS, I wasasked to move to Pune. A new city, new friends,anew environment were all I needed for a recharge. Iresolved to continue with the combined studygroup formula. With whocarez getting into IIM C, I

knew this formula was a sure success. The need of the hour were some like minded people.

The first person whom I met in Pune was SachinKadam (Govi ). A guy who by appearance lookedthe academic types. "Wow seems Im going to enjoysome serious gyan session now," I thought.

Together we penned down a plan to form a studygroup. The way to find people would be through aPune PG meet.I heard from Govi that Pune PGmeets were usually dull with very few peopleturning up every time. We resolved to changethings this time. So the stage was set for the firstever Pune PG meet of 2005!

At the same time I got a PM from someone namedAarav (Rahul Sharma).


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Aarav.. hmm.. who the hells he?". I remembercoming across so many PGites but Aarav? Hadnever even heard an 'A' of him before.

The Mystery shot off when we met. I was sitting inBarista with the legendary Ghulam (a.k.a Aarav ) aperson whom I respected ( and still do) for hismoral and ethical values (not to mention hisQuant).

The first Pune PG meet was a big success andhelped me get in touch with some really seriousaspirants : Govi, itsrahul, Catalytic, Jackal,Subu,Aarav and I.

I got the family that I had always wanted!

Way to CAT05! Fun, frolic and a friendship tocherish

Pune PG meets became the routine of the day.Every week we had a PG meet with most of theregulars turning up and everytime we had thisburst of newbies who seldom came the next time!

The first All India PG meet was held in Essel World

in Mumbai. Pune was well represented byManpreet, Aarav and I. It was a wonderful meet! Imet the likes of Allwyn(pagalguy), Apurv, Subu(urMad), Sowmya (Simba) amongst the biggies.. I made two new friends : Monil (reachmonil) andRohit (estranged_gnrs).


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thus I bumped into a geek (Aditya aka HAHAHA)and a clown (anandv).

It was a lot of learning from the two; be itattempting five RCs in 25 minutes or attemptingMockCATs in 90 minutes! Competition wassomething these two guys taught me. Not to forgetthose analysis sessions when all of a sudden theclown would crack the weirdest of PJs and bringdown the mood of the discussion to more bearable

levels.

CAT05 : The grand finale.

I wasnt more prepared this time. Realisticallyspeaking, I was more mentally strong this time. Iknew lady luck had been eluding me for quitesometime but if I remained patient and persevered,my goal was not far away.

The moment I saw it was a 90 question paper, I gotthis in my mind that the paper would be slightlytougher than the previous ones and the focusneeded to be on accuracy.

I always started off with English (as this was notonly my weakest section but also the section whereI marked more number of bubbles in the leasttime), I gave some 42-45 mins to English andattempted questions worth 41 marks. I did havethis feeling that I may not end up with asatisfactory score in this section but thanks to my


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pathetic accuracy (ended up with a net score of 17.66) I decided the only way out for me was toattempt more number of questions.(People strongin English will surely come up with better methodsof tackling this section).

Next, I came to my strength: Quantitative Aptitude.I realised I had more scoring opportunities in thetwo markers, hence gave 20 minutes to the twomarkers and attempted six of them. The next ten

minutes were spent with the one markers where Iattempted just six questions.

My net score in quants in 30 minutes was 15.33(got one two-marker wrong).

Now I had 45 minutes in my hand. I decided tomove on to my next strong section: DI and LR, butfor a moment thought I needed a better score inEnglish, hence moved back to Verbal. With almostall questions answered in verbal, I found I hadn'tanswered the Derrida RC (my BIGGEST mistake!). Ispent some 6-7 minutes on the RC and to myhorror found none of the questions answerable! Idecided to mark one answer (went for a blind fluke!

: mistake number 2).

I realised I'd around 35-36 minutes left forDI.CAT'04 I was murdered in DI.. for a moment Ithought I was going to repeat that performance yetagain. I again found that there were one markersand two markers present here.. Although the two


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markers were more scoring, I decided to attemptthe one markers first ( to give me bits of confidence). Spent some ten minutes there andattempted questions worth seven marks.Next, Imoved to the two markers. Since I had 25 minutesleft, I first attacked the tennis caselet and finishedit off in ten minutes. Next I went to the Olympiccaselet, spent some three to four odd minutesthere, but couldn't make much sense of it. For amoment, I made up my mind to take my chances

and so some guesswork but Holla! CAT'04performance's haunted spirit stopped me fromdoing so. Next went to the UP/Bihar caselet andcracked it just in time.

My net score in DI was 15.33 I knew Id not done as well as I wanted it to be.. Frustrated.. I wrote down a suicide note. A note

which made me famous.

The response to that note was tremendous, eventoday when I sit back and remember those days, Iget emotional.

2nd January,2006 - I end up with BLACKI. Alas

lady luck smiled.. The results were declared at12:00 am on 2nd January. I didnt have the guts tocheck my results, the man on mission Aarav ( theman with golden lips ) informed me of my calls. I was overjoyed, punched the air a la Brett Lee, butalas my joy was short lived. Most of my study


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mates (Aarav, Govi, Monil, rohit,,teesra) couldn'tmake it to the next stage.

Next comes Vengeance: The GD/PI journey

It was sheer fun, waking up at 5:30 in the morning,strolling my way across Banjara hills and waitingfor Aditya (HAHAHA) and his bike. He seldom cameon time.

The two of us used to go for T.I.M.E classes atSecunderabad. Attended GD sessions andanalysed our performance while returning. That

was good!

Refugee at Mumbai!

Networking has a lot of merit and refugeeing atestranged_gnrs place proved it right! For all my five interviews I must admit I troubledRohit and Vijay (teesra_banda) with food, internetand sleep; Beers must have enjoyed thoseparanthaas, not to mention Aryak!

I thought Chicken pox affects only kids saysshrikanthk

well I agree Im an exception and heard just then,kools the second exception! 11th April,2006 : I rested on my hospital bed, awayfrom PG.com with every hour. I grew restless.Results tomorrow. "Will my fate be sealed


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tomorrow? Do I have the courage to contest for onemore year?"

That night I got a phone call from Aarav, a typicalRahul Sharma type: Hello Sir, kya hala chaal hai?("Hello sir, How are you?")

I knew this was one guy who made me feel good forthe first time in three years. I knew he had anothermission.

Man on a mission, 12th april kal hai and you aregoing to let me know my results. No matter whathappens, good/bad, you are calling me andinforming me

Man on mission : Aye sir.. as you wish!

Redemption or .. The Return!

12th April,2006.. I still lay in my hospital cabin..Aaravs call wakes me up at 12:06 am.. Congratulations Sir, youve done it! IIM C bothPGDM & PGDCM

I woke up. Was it a dream? No, it wasnt. My CAT journey had ended. I couldnt believe it! Joy and tears compounded me. Another Brett Leepuncho!

Morning, Aarav came up with the remainingresults: that of B, L , I and K. My story with CAT


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comes to an abrupt end!.. but I shall post morepretty soon..

PGites whom Ive not yet mentioned but owe alot to

Vahgar : For all the support you gave to me intorrid times. You stood by me when it mattered themost!

Dr.Watson : Alas, very few people would be lucky tohave roomies like you. You sacrificed a lot for me.Still remember those days when I would bestudying in my room and you would do everythingin this world to make me comfortable.

Somneel : You just rock dude, if Ive learntperseverance, its from you. Now rock IIM C andMerryl Lynch!

estranged_gnrs : (I agree this one is a repeatition!) Thanx for all those days when I was put up as aRefugee at your place. You rock dude.

teesra_banda : My Indian Idol , a person who got

selected in IIM L thrice and rejected it thrice. Youare for the Big one Vijay. Keep rocking!

Rest of PG.com : I still read my suicide note, a note which arguably made me famous on PG.com. I cannever forget the amount of love and support you


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gave me. You guys deserve the best in life! All thebest.

-Vengeance (once named awr) PGPM Batch of 2006-08, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.


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Deepa, Mudra Institute of

Communications, Ahmedabad, Batch of 2004-2006

PaGaLGuY Username: DynaMICA

T he Early Years: The first time I heard about CAT

was in Class XII, when I thought MBA was forCommerce graduates.

The second time was in first year of graduation. I was wondering what I should PG (postgraduate) in.I knew it had to be a communications/journalismrelated field. Looked up the MICA site and saw thatthey select through CAT. At that time I thought,"Oh... CAT's that super-tough test. Not worthslogging it out if I'm going apply to only oneinstitute."

Over the next couple of years I met people who hadactually taken the test, and it didn't really soundsuper tough. Still, the profile of the average CAT-taker appeared to be Techies-who-hate-coding orEngineers-who-wanna-do-something-else.

Summer of 2003, my decision was finally made. Thanks to a combo of friends in B-Schools, an oldMath teacher from my school days, CNBC -corporate India suddenly appeared very glamorous.


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IMS, CL successfully sold CAT to me. I decided,management, or more specifically, communicationsmanagement was my calling.

The Preps

So, I targeted MICA, signed up at IMS, Hyderabadin April-May 2003 for the classroom course. Alsostarted with the customary worship of ET, BT, BW,and CNBC India.

I took the prelim test at IMS and found I almostmaxed the VA/RC section. Quant, I wasn't so good.LR & DI were cool. Religiously attended the 6:30am classes at IMS. Rushed back home, grabbedbooks and rushed to college in the oppositedirection. I'd be solving Quant sheets duringImmunoGenetics lectures in college. I enjoyed everyminute of the preps, because I liked Math.

Never "worked" on VA/RC. I don't believe inconcepts of Reading Speed & stuff that IMSprescribes. Instinct helped a lot in this section.

For DI, I tried to learn the speed calculationtechniques etc, but on Test Day, I don't think Iused any of it.

So, CAT preps took up about 1 or 2 hours a dayfrom April-September. Most of it was for Quant.Solved every problem from BRMs & section tests.


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Dug out my CBSE math books & worked withthose too.

The Mock Tests

I took tests at IMS & PRIME. Also solved all the TIME mocks at home. Invariable fell short of thecut-offs in Quant. I cleared all SIMCAT cut-offsonly 3 times. Lowest rank was in 1800s, highest

was 21 (IMS). Averaged between 50 and 400

otherwise.

I found the feedback sessions awfully frustrating."Recognizing sitters" was something that I couldn'tperfect. The take-home tests were decidedly easierbut somehow, I couldn't carry the form into theSIMs.

November 23rd & After

LeakCAT came and went. I felt I had done decently.But not close enough to the scores posted on PG. Shut my books till Jan 1st. FMS was around thecorner, so I restarted preps. Panicked a bit becauseI had no material left to solve. So, I signed up for

the CL take-home tests. Suddenly I had a deluge of papers to solve. Went at the rate of a-paper-a-day,till ReCAT. Got calls from FMS & NMIMSmeanwhile.


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Feb 15th

Felt decently prepared. Did the test. Came outfeeling I had messed up DI, I should haveattempted more. I was a nervous wreck till theonline solutions came out. Then it hit me: DI wasokay, it was Quant that I screwed up royally.

Still, I had hopes. But the minute I entered my CAT No. On the IIM-B GD/PI call page, they crashed.

IIM-B was my dream-school for a while, but I guessLady Luck listens only to your first wish.

Final position in CAT: Overall a 99.38 percentile;99.57 in VA/RC, 97.3 in DI. 77.7 in Quant. Applied: IIMs, SPJain, MICA. Calls: MICA

Interviews

In hindsight FMS was a sad story. They hated myprofile, suspicious about the "BSc in Genetics"background. NMIMS was disgusting too, lastperson in panel to be interview in a session where90 people had GD/PI. Didn't have any hopes.

MICA was far far far better. Profile was appreciated,even respected. Questions were friendly. GD wasdull, but still managed to make a point. A "feel-good" experience.


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The Wait

Was shocked to find that I was waitlisted at MICA.An excruciating 20-day wait, & I was in.

So, The pre-MBA experience

It had highs and lows but it was a wonderful 10months. Met a lot of people, made some wonderfulfriends (at IMS, at PG, at interviews), learnt a LOT.

There were some sacrifices made too. Had to giveup freelance assignments which popped up duringcrucial prep days; missed out on a lot of collegeactivities, quizzes etc; also went through a break-up.

But those were ten months of my life that I'llalways treasure. Getting admission ensured asweeter end to the pre-MBA process. Because I'mnot sure whether I'd have had the will to gothrough it all again.

Lessons learnt

I don't have an MBA-call-getter profile: "Life

Science graduate from Hyderabad" (as opposed to"Engineer" or "Grad-from-swanky-Delhi-college")and no full-time work-ex. Still, no regrets, I can'tcomplain because I ended up getting to what Iinitially aimed for - MICA.


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Amit Agarwal, IIM Calcutta, Batch of

2008-10Username on PaGaLGuY: amitnsitian

A Journey called CAT

IIM The acronym every B-Schooler aspires for inIndia. I being not too different from others hadsimilar aspirations, desires and dreams. Oh yes,forgot to mention the common full form of IIM isIndian Institute of Management; but I came toknow of another full form during this journey,

which will be eventually revealed to all.

!Ummwhere do I start from? Let me go back toApril of the year 2000. It was the time when mysister made it to the well Joka land. it was thetime when I was preparing for my engineering andhad already made up my mind to make it to an IIM. ! First two and a half years of Engineering went finebut it's generally in the third year when one startsthinking about what next! Then I joined Career

Launcher in Delhi in my fifth semester and littledid I know that I was not the only one aspiring inmy batch. I met the junta of Netaji SubhashInstitute of Technology (NSIT) there. The classesstarted and very soon I realized the weakest link forme to the ultimate goal the VERBAL part.Anyhow, my senior gave me this wonderful adviceof taking CAT in the third year to get a "feel" of the


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exam. I liked the idea and finally took it. And yes,at that time, CAT had no rule which barred peopletaking the exam who are not in their final years. Ithink it is because of people like me that theythought of this rule. It's good to be a reason whichmade IIMs take a policy decision. ! !

CAT No. 1: Year 2002 in November !

It was a normal 3 section paper in which I had no

pressure to perform. The paper went fine and it was the first time wherein the percentiles were tobe revealed. Moving to the results, QA was 99.5percent with an 86 odd in DI and some 65 inverbal. This clearly told me where I had to work on

as if I didnt know it before. ! ! Jan 2003 Oct 2003 The time when all of my friends, classmates and

everyone and anyone was a CAT aspirant. It wasgood to be in excellent company and I think thatcompetition forced me to prepare for the exam

which eventually I think I did. ! !


Was I nervous??!! I WAS. This was the day, thetime, the 2 hours which are going to decide thefuture for me. I still remember how the exam went.

The sound of opening the sheet, the answer sheetbeing filled, the sweat, the tension everything isstill like a movie in my mind. Anyhow, in the end I

was quite happy with my performance in DI andQA . Also, I knew that I had done well in Verbal


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because the two RCs which I attempted in theexam were luckily from some of the test mockpapers of the institutes. !But then disaster struckas soon as I crossed the gates of the school of mycentre when my mother told me, "Amit, CAT iscancelled. The paper got LEAKED last night. " !I waslike noooooooooooooo, it's difficult to give your bestagain. Well, with no option left in life, I startedpreparing for my semester exams. !Forgot tomention this, three weeks before CAT, I had a disc

collapse in my back which forced me into bed restfor two weeks which also meant no studies,nothing. However, I think that did not have anyadverse effects on my CAT preparation. ! !Ah yeah,had that CAT not been cancelled, I would havenever joined PaGaLGuY.com. ! ! Year 2004 came and Ihad already done the greatest mistake of my life by

filling just 3 forms CAT, XAT and MDI. The XAT exam was next and with so much verbal focus thatI knew it was difficult to clear it. But then trying

was important, which I did and eventually failedalso. But since CAT was still there, I thought tomyself that I still have a chance to make it to mydream school. ! !

CAT No. 3: Year 2004 in February !

After being there already, I was not as nervous but yeah, pressure to perform kills you. The exam waslittle on the tougher side but it went fine. In thisInternet age, the solutions were out by the eveningbut I had decided not to check till the next day.


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! !Next day, I started checking my paper. As always, Istarted here also with Quant. The performance wassufficient enough to clear the cut-off. I don't know

what prompted me to check verbal next. I did and was amazed to see my score and was already jumping in my room but hang on, story is not over yet. ! I checked DI then and my world came crashingdown. I had attempted four caselets and got two of them ABSOLUTELY WRONG!!! I scored a singledigit in DI; it was something I was not prepared for,

why why why!!! After not being able to make it inIIT-JEE because of Maths, again DI did me in. ! ! Crying made me no better and I knew that it wasbye bye IIMs and MDI. ! ! The results came out asexpected and I was prepared for it. Some of myclose friends had all six calls or single call or somecalls at least. Most of them made it and then we

parted on our different paths in life.! ! I joined HCL Technologies in Delhi in July and was sure of

cracking CAT this time. One intelligent thing that Idid this time was widening my B-School list IIMs,XLRI, NITIE, MDI, SPJain, IIFT and FMS. Thismeant I had to take four exams this time and thattoo with my job. Also, somehow I got a really goodproject in the company which required me put in alot of effort. I could have avoided work butsomehow it's in my nature to give 100 percent toeverything that is entrusted on me. That year, I

went to office for 29 days in October, 2 days off being 2nd October (Thanks to Gandhiji) andDusshera (Thanks to God Ramchandra); else I

would have been in office then also. Add to this was


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a family problem which required me to spend 3months(nights) in hospital as my grandfather wasill. When I look back, I wonder how I managed allthis. Oh one more thing, my sister wedding plans

was also underway which required my inputs andparticipation too. ! !

CAT No. 4: Year 2004 in November

! The exam time came. CAT, XAT, IIFT and FMS.

Results: calls from IIM-L, MDI, IIFT and NITIE. I was confident of converting one call at least thistime. CAT percentile overall was 98.94. Also, this

was the time when PaGaLGuY shot to fame withthat result link getting exposed and all. This wasthe first CAT in which differential marking wasintroduced. ! ! Jan 2005 MDI interview, my first B-School GD/PI experience. Somehow managed theGD and went in the interview. Interview was okie-dokie. With next three interviews in March, I hadloads of time to prepare for them. ! !Feb 28, 2004 MDI results were out. Not selected, not even in the

waitlist, was I that bad? Maybe yes. With aroundten days to go, I left no stone unturned to preparefor the other GD/PIs. Next interview was NITIE inMumbai on 8th March, 2004 (which was mybirthday too). ! !March 7, 2004 Disaster will be anunderstatement with what happened. I slept with alittle back pain but just could not lift myself upfrom the bed. The pain in my lower back was killingme and even lying straight was not helping. Werushed to the hospital and I was diagnosed with


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slip disc. Three weeks bed rest, no movementnothing. My NITIE interview was the next day, IIFT in three days and IIM-L in ten days. No way was Igoing to miss them. ! ! I had to get admitted in thehospital and doctor did not allow me to move at all.

This meant, all pleadings for attending interviewsfor NITIE went waste. IIFT also went by and I satthere; could not do anything about it just cry abit, ok, not a bit but a little more. !I had on mymind, come what may I will attend my IIM

interview. When the doctor heard the word "IIM",he also became a little soft and asked me topostpone it as much as possible. We tried our bestbut the next date given was still within my bed restperiod. With some change in is heart, he allowedme to take the interview. ! ! The GD was bad for me asthe pain was still there and it was bad. I had to

wait for nearly three hours for my interview andthat aggravated the pain. Somehow, I braved it andfaced the interview panel. It was an above averagePI but performance in GD was still enough toensure that I didnt get in. ! The results came and I

was waitlisted at 107. This is when I joinedPaGaLGuY.com and my first post was on the IIM L thread. After months of praying and tracking theWL day and night, it closed at 102!!! ! !I applied for atransfer to Mumbai to stay with my parents andtake care of my back. Eventually the company didtransfer me and I landed here in Mumbai. I joinedthe TIME test series and was doing pretty fine butthe office culture here was really bad. For the first


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six months from July to December, there was not asingle day when I did not contemplate resigning. ! !


I added one more exam in my list JMET. Examscame and went and somehow I screwed ALL of them. CAT 97 percentile, XAT 99 percentile, JMET

500 plus rank and similarly all. All but one FMS. Had calls from both the courses and went to

Delhi for the interview. MS GD was average, PI wasalso average. Then came the FT day. That time,people having both FMS calls did not have theprocess the same day, unlike today. Since I hadbecome quite visible on PG, I met many familiarpeople. GD was excellent and PI was also good butFMS thought otherwise. My name did not figure inboth the list, not even the waitlist. This was thevery famous 1:1 ratio batch of FMS. ! ! Oneinteresting thing about XAT. Had a 99.9 pluspercent in both DI and QA but 86.80 or somethingin Verbal. Basically I missed the verbal cut-off by0.01 percent. With two years work experiencealready in my kitty and entering the third year, theGMAT option was also available (just hang on for abit, the other IIM is coming now). In April, Iregistered for a June date for my GMAT and also

joined TIME classes for CAT preparation. I knew it was NOW or NEVER. PG was a really big help forGMAT and after 3 months of study, I scored a 710.

This is where I found the other IIM which standsfor Indian IT Male. Most of the applicants from


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India fall in this category and no wonder it is reallydifficult to get in US B-Schools when you are anIIM . ! !Had plans to apply to only three schools ISB,CMU Tepper and Goizueta Emory. The applicationprocess in these is a pain but in the end, it is quiteinsightful. One comes to know so much aboutoneself . Coupled with this, I was attending classesin TIME and working too. Somehow, I stuck theright chord in Mocks and was posting on PG bigtime. I earned the label of "sophisticated spammer"

which I still disagree to. I am not and never was aspammer. ! ! October, November 2005 Had interviewcalls from all three schools ISB, Tepper andGoizueta. CAT day was also coming. I was done

with my ISB interview (which was very very arbit)and Tepper interview over phone before CAT. Thelast interview was scheduled in Mumbai inDecember as a part of the World MBA Tour. Boththe US B-School interviews were pretty straight-forward Why MBA, strengths, weakness etc. !

!CAT No. 6: Year 2006 in November

! The five options paper for CAT, man I had seen itall. Started with Quant and killed it. Moved to themost arbit verbal paper ever and then did DI. Whenthe solutions came in the evening, verbal had leftme hanging, well almost. By the way, SP Jain wasout of the hit list. ! ! Dec 2006 Jan 2007 > Worsttime of my life. Rejects from ISB, Tepper andGoizueta. CAT result out. 100 percentile in QA, 95in DI and 82 in verbal. It was over for me. With just


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5 days to go for XAT, I had no option but to give itmy best. It was verbal and verbal and just moreverbal. ! !7th Jan, 2007 In the XAT paper itself, Iknew that finally verbal is cracked. Meanwhile,

JMET had given me a rank of 39 and calls from IIT B, D and KGP were on. MDI also found me suitablefor college, even NITIE thought the same. ! !20th Jan,2007 The evening before the FMS paper. Just

went online for something and saw the XL resultlink. With all my confidence, I punched in my roll

number and saw the line "Sorry." WTF !!!! howhow how, then clicked on the scorecard link. QA 99something, Verbal 95.42, scorecard is not over yet,DI 77 percentile This was just not possible, gave upall hope of MBA.

! Took the FMS exam and also prepared for theupcoming GDs and PIs. Then someone advised meabout the MAT route to JBIMS and MH-CET wasalso added on the exam taking list. MAT wentawesome and 99.99 percentile with a compositescore of 800 ensured that JBIMS was there now.All the interviews came one by one and I attendedall of them. Some in Mumbai, some in Delhi, GOD!it was maddening. Filling forms, carrying the

requisite stuff etc was quite arduous. !Finally camethe news I was waiting to hear all my life. !13thMarch, 2007 2230 hrs. A friend of mine called fromFMS and here it was WL 1. FMS it was. MS wasWL 7. By the way, I attended my MDI and IITBinterviews after my FMS convert. Though, peopleadvised me against it but they had taken a lot of


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my hard earned money so I decided to takethem. ! !Well, in the end, I had all converts FMS(both), JBIMS, IITs (all 3), MDI and NITIE. It wasDelhi again for me. I resigned from my job and thendecided to utilize my time by teaching in TIME.

This is where ARKSS Sir (ARKS Srinivas, TIMEDirector, Mumbai) said to me, "Amit, CAT ek baaraur likh de." ( Amit, please write the CAT once more

for me ) I was like no, never sir. I was tired of writingit. We left it there. ! ! July came and I was in here

FMS. Met some of the sharpest people in thecountry and some awesome faculty. After onemonth of grilling, I called up ARKSS and told himthat FMS is not chill at all. And people, I amserious. During that phone call, again the CAT thing came up and he said "Mere liye likh de."(Please write it for me). I told him I can't do it nowanymore, no time to study and all. He somehowconvinced me to fill the form and I did it. Just filledthe form and no preparation. No test series. There

was no time in FMS. Initial work there, thensummers, then exams everything was packed. And

whatever time I had in life, I ensured that I sleep well.


CAT was on the 18th and our first semester examsgot over on the 15th evening. 15th and 16th werespent in chilling out in life and 17th was takenaway by room cleaning. The only sane thing I didon 17th was sleeping at 2230 hours. Next day, I


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went to the exam centre which was nearby to thehostel, thankfully. From there, I called ARKSSagain and told him that I still don't know why I amdoing this. Finally, the paper started and it wasexciting to do Math after so many months. Did QA,then Verbal and finally DI. Came back to the roomand slept. In the evening, got up and checked thescore. QA and DI were fine but as always a 20 inverbal according to TIME keys. My score variedfrom 15 to 25 depending on institute keys. In either

case, I was not clearing cut-off for verbal accordingto any of the institutes. So, it was over. ! ! Life movedon, then came the day of the results. However badone performs, there is always a desire to check theresult (ok, I have it. ) The link given on the CAT IIMsite was not working from the hostel. Then I cameto know about the result by SMS thing. I SMSedand received the following reply. ! !QA (percentile)99.98 with a score of 70 !DI (percentile) 99.97 with ascore of 76 !Verbal (percentile) 96.40 with a score of 30 !OA (percentile) 99.99 with a score of 176 ! !YESYES YES I HAVE CRACKED IT !!! Calls startedcoming in and had all 6 calls. I was elated. Butthen, I had another problem. What will I say in theinterview. FMS is awesome, why should one leaveit. I had no clue what to do. The interview schedulecame and the forms too. Took a lot of help fromARKSS for the same and prepared for the interview.I knew what to prepare MBA academics and whychuck FMS for an IIM. ! ! The first interview was IIML.A pretty decent GD and average PI. Next was IIM K.An average GD and bad PI. Indore was next but


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had a very important class to attend in FMS sodecided against it. By the way, both K and L askedabout FMS. ! ! The Big One was next Indian Instituteof Management, Ahmedabad. And man, I wasnervous. The essay was fine and PI was a dreamone. They just could not believe that someone

wants to leave FMS and come to IIM A. I think I dida pretty decent job there and rest of the questionsvaried from work experience to MBA Academics togeneral stuff in life. ! !IIM Calcutta was next. A decent

case study discussion followed by stress interview.Was asked Maths, Sub Prime, Telecom War, Quiz,FMS and everything. ! Bangalore was the last one tobe held. The date clashed with my second semesterexams of FMS and it must have taken like 10,000calls to them to get it shifted. Finally, it was shiftedto the evening slot of the same day with my examin the morning and another exam the next morningand interview sandwiched in between. The casestudy was the Scrablous one and the group wasquite decent in discussing the stuff. I was last to beinterviewed. It was HORRIBLE. It was so so so badthat they would have left a seat vacant in thecollege rather than taking me. ! !With interviews over,summer internship was something which wascoming up. But, Supreme Court had other plans. I

was also a part of the waiting pain but had no window to vent out the frustration because it was asecret I wanted to keep. By the way, my FMSclassmates came to know about it somehow in

January itself. I know who did it but have not doneanything to that person. But I still have time to do


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it. ! !May 1 was about to dawn, I slept without muchtension in life. Was woken at 7 a.m. by a friend'scall informing me about IIM B results being out. Ichecked and as expected, did not get through. Ihad to go the office and was on my way.Meanwhile, another friend called me and told me tocheck the WL of IIMB. He checked for me and no; I

was not there, as expected though. ! I reached officeand realized that Wi-Fi was not working on mylaptop (Murphys Law at its best). I went to IT guys

and they needed "some" t

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