Nov 4, 2008

CAT gyan...

Parcel's blog is tempting me to write this post that will be easily classified as RCP in this campus. :)
Still... Can't stop this thing I've started... :)

CAT 2007 for me was a rewarding experience. A year that has potentially changed my life.
But how did I do it? No idea. I am not joking. I do not have a concrete answer to what special did I do, that brought me here at IIMA. It was my pursuit for excellence that matched with luck and I landed up here.

On luck front, I cannot help you. But still let me give some gyan on CAT.

1. Formula for cracking CAT - I am sorry to disappoint you if you thought that I have a formula to share with you. In my opinion, there is no forumula that will give you sureshot output. One would just pray to God that let there be some chemical reaction saying-
Solve 2 books of DI questions + Rattofy one vocabulary + Read 100 RCs + 15 chapters from Quant book = Interview call from 7 IIMs + Biproduct ( Calls from other institutes)

Alas, it never exists. There is no formula to crack CAT.

2. Strategy - It is not the time to make new strategies. Make sure you are comfortable with the way you approach your paper. No creative or innovative risk now. If you have been attending mockCATs, stick to things that have worked for you all these while.

3. CAT is full of surprise. That's the best part about it. So make sure the surprise in the exam is the only surprise that comes your way on the D-Day.

4. Confidence - Last few days before CAT are the time you boost your confidence. If you have had good track record in mockCATs and are seeing a slump in last few ones, leave mockCATs. Yes, leave them. MockCATs do help but make sure they do not hurt your confidence in these crucial days.

5. It's ok to be a little tense - Just be yourself. If you have prepared well for CAT, you are going to do well. CAT is just an exam. You are approaching a day that will define the course of your life. It deserves this much effort.

6. Don't overdo it - This is one of the fear that haunted me a lot. Once I faced a situation where I got bored while writing my mockCAT paper. Every sunday 2 mocks, I was getting too used to it. That evening I got really scared about what will happen if I felt like this on the D-Day. I took a break to gain back my enthusiasm. It really helped. So make sure, you don't lose your interest. Enjoying the exam is really important.

I guess I am losing my writing flair. Still I guess above 6 points will sum up any CAT gyan that you would extracted out of me. Last buy not the least, here is my favorite quote that I have always kept with me. I hope it will help you too.

"End of the day you can have only two kind of feelings -
1. If I had done it.
2. Yes, I did it.
And you know which is more glorious."

If you have some time, listen to this talk by Harsha Bhogle. He gave it in IIMA. I am really jealous of the people who heard this live.

6 comments:

Siddharth Chaudhari said...

ARRRRR SEEEEE PEEEEE!!!!

Blog idea from parcel and the title from me! R C Peeeee! :)

"And you know which is more glorious." Nice punchline :)

Vitruvian said...

RCP ... RCP ...

In my case, as would be the same with most lazy "so called" engineers - last minutes efforts got me through ...

As GBang sayz, good punchline ... put some of those in OD tomorrow and you'll have the glory !

Pritesh Jain said...

sidkc... I really did not see your blog or even if I had seen it, I did not copy title from your blog. :D
I wish I had a witness when I was going through the title-giving ceremony. :D

Pritesh Jain said...

Parcel - That "so called" has lots of value. Ask me or for that matter many around here that "how much effort it was needed to be here?" A "lazy" engineer could never do that.

broca's area said...

my bro shd read this..!

Appu Prabhakar said...

wat is an RCP ? :)... and about the hits... lolz.. u r rite.. i have changed the settings...tc