25/08/2013

[Studyplan] CAT 2012 (Common Admission Test): Booklist, Strategy, Tips, How to Get more than 95 Percentile by maintaing diary of mistakes Mrunal

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JULY 23RD, 2012

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[Studyplan] CAT 2012 (Common Admission Test): Booklist, Strategy, Tips, How to Get more than 95
Percentile by maintaing diary of mistakes
Before starting CAT preparation or dreaming to get admission in IIMs, one must take
three oaths.

Paheli Kasam [First Oath]

There are two types of CAT aspirants.
1. Those whore sharp in maths so they just keep doing maths 24/7 because it feels
good, but dont touch the English portion. (Vocabulary, Sentence Correction,
Reading Comprehension)
2. Those whore pathetic in maths (myself included), so they just keep doing maths 24/7
in hope to master it.
Both approaches are wrong CAT is not made up of maths only. There exists a section II (30 questions) on English! So be well
prepared for both.So you first oath must be:
Ill prepare well for both sections and wont become a quant-maniac..

Dursi Kasam [Second Oath]

From Auguest to November, Most CAT aspirants donot prepare GK, Current affairs, group discussion or profile based interview
questions.
They wait until they recieve the interview calls from IIMs and other assorted MBA factories. This is second mistake, you start
preparing for GDPI only in January-February and your interview is in March you cannot do justice to every topic in such a short
time. So daily newspaper reading, business GK etc is must throughout the year. And by Newspapers, I mean The Hindu or
Indianexpress only.
Second Oath:
Ill read newspapers Daily. + Ill note down the difficult words in a diary to expand my vocabulary.

Teesri Kasam [Third Oath]

Many CAT aspirants start feeling guilty and insecure because of their pathetic scores in 10,12 and college graduation, lack of extra
curricular certificates, no work experiance etc.etc.etc. It affects their performance indirectly, during the interview. You must remember
that there are people who get admissions in IIMs, despite all of above shortcomings. (Just try to score as high as you can in CAT, to
compensate whatever few marks youre loosing the profile-weightage and be thoroughly prepared for GDPI.) If your 10,12 and
graduation marks are bogus, you cannot go back in time machine and fix it. So please stop feeling guilty or inferior for that.
And thus, the third and final Oath:
I shall not feel guilty about myself for whatever Ive done or havent done.
Now talking about the CAT booklist and strategy. Google search will throw up all the ideal strategies for CAT preparation, but many
of them are just ideal but impractical.
So here Im sharing my ragtag strategy for CAT success (or atleast getting 95+ percentile), based on my misadventures in CAT2011.
I did not do this for CAT
But I did this for CAT
Finally My CAT result

The Beginning
I gave first CAT in 2011 and was totally (and that means totally) lame in aptitude stuff.
Just 4-months of preparation and coaching from TIME: 2 hours lectures, 3 days per week. (Not a fan of coaching myself but given the
short amount of time before exam and absolutely no idea about how to prepare for CAT, I had no choice.)
Anyways,

I did not
The so called ideal strategies on google, prescribe following but I didnot do any of it.
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I Didnot read any philosophy books, novels for Reading Comprehension practice. (there is hardly any time left to breath, let
alone browse through Alchemist and similar stuff)
I Didnot prepare any dictionary / list for vocabulary.
I Didnot try any method for speed-reading.
Had totally bogus AIMCAT scores 6, 9 etc, never did post-analysis of questions and later stopped giving them altogether, as
they were wasting my time and hurting my confidence.
Skipped trigonometry, coordinate geometry, games n tournaments and any topic that I couldnt grasp on first two tries or
anything that wouldnot go in my long term memory.
Didnot do much arithmatic series and logarithm. because most of them would require application of some special magic-move,
which wont go my long term memory.
Am still confused about Chinese remainder theorem.
Skipped most of Pagalguy quant/LR threads & discussions. (Well most of their sums go above my head anyways.)
Cant do much speed-maths or mental calculation of percentages for DI/Quant.
Cant solve most quant-problems without filling up half page+ calculation: Was scolded many times by the coach that I use pen
too-much for CAT standards.
Dont know squares upto 50.
Can remember multiplication table upto 25, but 13,14,17,18,19,23 still give nightmares.

But I did

I did solve Arun Sharmas book on Quantitive Aptitude (TMH publication) (done twice)
I did solve and Sarvesh Kumars Quantam CAT (Arihant Publication) (done twice)
I did solve Demystifying Number System by Nishit K Sinha (Pearson Publication). (done twice)
I did read Word power made easy by Norman Louis (not done twice, only once.)
I did all questions from booklets & handouts given from the coaching class (done twice).
Please note: IF youre not a student of TIME coaching class, you can still get their study material
at a very convinient price from Flipkart. Here is the link: http://www.flipkart.com/author/time
I noted down the methods of solving questions (weight-misuse by shopkeeper, allegation etc)
from them and kept revising the moves.
Last 15 days before exam: only did online sectional tests @TIME website. (not Aimcats).
Even in those online sectional-tests, I would get Quant/DI/sentence correction answers incorrect
most of the time, but it taught me the hard way about :
which questions to attempt and what to skip altogether because you get in wrong everytime
(sentence correction in my case)
and which questions take too much time to solve (LR sitting arrangement, DI graphs in my case).
Also whenever and wherever I solved any question (be it maths or english grammaer), If I made
mistake or had trouble solving it, then I would note it down in my diary of mistakes for future
revision.
Similarly I would note down the difficult words I came across during daily-newspaper reading
and find their meaning using a free software called Wordweb and noted down those
meanings in a diary.
Total 3 full-scape notebooks filled up in this exercise. 2 for maths, 1 for English grammar &
vocabulary. Kept revising it in last days.

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My CAT result Score card

Finally My CAT-2011 result

I got overall 96.00 percentile : Attempt 44/60
QA: 90.41 : Attempt 17/30
VA: 97.05 : Attempt 27/30
Anyways 96 percentile feels good only for a few days bragging in front of friends and relatives, otherwise 96 is as bogus as 55
percentile cant get you admission / interview call in any big IIMs. (Especially when you dont have those fancy paper
certificates to prove work-ex and extra-curricular activities and no good marks in 10, 12th and college and GDPI turns into a fish
market.) So try to work harder than I did.
My articles on Aptitude Made Easy without Formulas can be accessed by clicking ME
All the best to all CAT aspirants of 2012.

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[Studyplan] CAT 2012 (Common Admission Test): Booklist, Strategy, Tips, How to Get more than 95 Percentile by maintaing diary of mistakes Mrunal

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194 comments to [Studyplan] CAT 2012 (Common Admission Test): Booklist, Strategy, Tips, How to Get
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more than 95 Percentile by maintaing diary of mistakes
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RAHUL Z
Reply to this comment
Hi Mrunal
I intend to appear for CAT 2013 and havent started preparation as yet. I am currently working and want to prepare at home without
coaching. I appeared for CAT in 2009 and didnt fare too well. I want to know if using reference books like arun sharma will be enough for
cracking the CAT as i dont have any coaching material like IME,CL etc. Kindly let me know exactly which books shall I buy to prepare for
each section throughly.
Again do these books guide us in solving certain questions faster using common sense and not just learning formulae. I really want to crack
CAT and get into IIMs. Kindly guide me as to how to prepare while working.

shubh mission cat 2013

Reply to this comment
Hello mrunal can you please tell me how were you able to complete the whole time material twice as they provide advanced material also
along with tpbs and handouts and also complete arun sharma and sarvesh verma twice please tell me i will give cat in 2013 and iam starting
my preparation during may plz reply asap

Mrunal
Reply to this comment
In those months, I would go out of home only to attend class. Otherwise from morning to night I only solved questions. Even at home,
No facebook, no movies, no random surfing on internet.

RAHUL Z
Reply to this comment
Mrunal kindly reply to my comment above

shubh mission cat 2013

Reply to this comment
Thanks for the guidance

ansuya
Reply to this comment
which books are best for preparing LR and english for CAT 2013

Praveen
Reply to this comment
Dear Sir,
This is Praveen from Bangalore. I want to give a shot at CAT 2013 and I am about to start rigorous preparation from 1st June, 2013. I am
pretty weak in Quants, especially with managing time. I am pretty confident in Verbal because my passion is creative writing (Have written a
few poems and some shorts stories not published).
The problem with my preparation is that, I am working and on a daily basis reach home by 8PM after starting in the morning at 6AM. So,
given this I may have only 2 2.5 Hours of time on a daily basis for my preparation.
On a brighter note, I have the weekends completely to myself. I ensure to completely dedicate this for my preparation.
Will this preparation be sufficient. PLEASE SUGGEST!!!I believe your comments can really instill hope and confidence in me.
I do understand that I have very little time left. Please make your comments.
Thanks & Regards,
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Praveen

Reply to this comment

I guess if you start now , that much time daily is more than enough.
Try to steal around 15-16 hours on weekends out of 48hrs for studying. That will easily do.
Been there, done that. #92.77%iler 2011.

Praveen
Reply to this comment
Thanks a lot for your encouraging words.
I have indeed started preparing for CAT with study material from IMS. Is this really material really sufficient to crack CAT?
I will try my best to conquer all the questions in the material.
With this, will I have a chance to transcend the 90+ percentile barrier in CAT 2013?
Please post your reply as soon as possible, as it can help my preparation significantly.
Eagerly, awaiting your reply.
Thanks & Regards,
Praveen

Reply to this comment

If u revise them for 4-5 times i guess its sufficient. But I would suggest you to buy either Arun sharma or Sarvesh Verma.
These two books are like Bible for the Quants section.
The solved examples given in IMS are good but the unsolved ones are basically copy paste from the above two books.

Rahul
Reply to this comment
Hey Mrunal ,
I just want your suggestion that i m solving quant from TIME material. So tell me two thing one-Is that material is sufficient?? another the level
of TIME material is equal to CAT or somewhat tough, coz i m not able to solve more than 30 % of question without seeing the solution.

Reply to this comment

Level of Cat is way far lower than TIME material. Its just that you will start doing those 70% wuestions,when u revise it for the 2nd -3rd
time.
Out of 18 odd questions of quants 6-7 will be tough . If you do them , ofcourse after doing the easy ones, your rank will shoot up.
You will shoot this question again when you give AIMCATS. :D

Bhagyashree
Reply to this comment
Respected Sir,
Please suggest some good books for GK for CMAT,XAT,SNAP,Nmat,IIFT etc other competitive exams

shambhawi
Reply to this comment
Hi everyone,
I am looking for Career Launcher material for cat 2013. can anyone help me in this regard?

aMiT
Reply to this comment
I have the CL study mat but its from Last year.if u r interested i can give a good deal.Reply me through this thread.

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rANJITHA
Reply to this comment
hi amit , i need the CL material.Can u provide me details ?

aMiT
Reply to this comment
Reply Me through my Shop EmailID indimaal@gmail.com

venkat raghavan
Reply to this comment
sir, can u pls suggest me books for english grammar questions for cat. and also for bank exams pls
also give us some tips or ur notes regarding sentence correction as soon as possible
ur guidelines are very very helpful to me and ma friends also .:-) really very thank u for all

himanshu
Reply to this comment
Hi Mrunal,
could you please suggest me where to download full sarvesh k vermas wuantum cat from?

Harsha
Reply to this comment
Hi sir,
As there is only 4 months time for cat, Which book is better for QA?
Arun sharma or Sarvesh verma?

pulkit dahiya
Reply to this comment
dont worry at all ,currently i am 15 year old and want to get admission in top iim insitutes ,trust your abilities and move on to crack cat ( train
yourself like a dog as dog can tackle a cat efficiently

Mak
Reply to this comment
Hi Mrunal. You are doing a great work man, keep it up. One suggestion I have for you. why dont you use RTI to get previous year CAT
papers and their official solution. As in GMAT, official guide clearly explain what kind of thinking is expected by the person giving
examination. No matter how much the Coaching classes tries to produce solution for the question paper, the official solutions would be far
far authentic. Specially in case of Reading Comprehension questions.

RAHUL Z
Reply to this comment
hey is it necessary to solve all questions of all exercises from sarvesh kumar verma.
I find geometry to be really boring and although have finished introductory exercises and did only few questions from level 1 & 2 but i got
bored and geometry happens to be my weak area. How to ace geometry
Please reply

AM15
Reply to this comment
Hello Mrunal
I am doing self study .Solving Arun Sharma and Sarvesh kumar parallely. I wanted to ask it there is no need to enroll for any mock tests in
the market.please also tell me where to do the verbal part from, that too from Arun Sharma? VA part is confusing

Shashank lucknowee
Reply to this comment
MOCK TESTs are probably the MOST important part in ones prep dudeIt will let you know where you stand among serious
aspirants and what strategy would suit you the best in the real exam.CL test series is probably the closest to actual CAT
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paper.Aimcat is a notch higher in difficulty level & Simcats VA section is the best !! Choose any 1 or two but do follow any one of
these religiously !!!
For verbal part solve 1000 rc question set.You can easily find them on NET.& for VOCAB download GRE big book word list & learn as
many words as you can.
& last but the MOST IMPORTANT part HOPE that after all the hard work you have put in NORMALIZATION doesnt spoil your party in
the end or IIMs doesnt come up with another bizarre criterion that only people above 95 percent in X/XII/graduation will be shortlisted
:P
All the best !!

Mrunal
Reply to this comment
for maths, youre on right track
for VA, I had used
Wordpower made easy by Norman Lewis.
TIMEs booklet for grammar rules and handouts for practice.
you can also try Pagalguy forums threads for sentence arrangement and comprehension.

Amit ranjan
Reply to this comment
Sir, im very thnkful 2 u fr d cntributn ur doing through ur website. I owe a lot. Im prparng fr cat n my quant is so poor. Oneday,i cam across
dis website n since tht tim it has changed my attitude towrds cat prepratn. Ur quant sectn is extrmly helpful. Sir, i want 2 knw how u improved
ur va section espcaly RC, error finding(grammar) bcz this is d where im lackng rit nw. I hv wrd pwr made easy. It is indeed best book fr
vocab. Reply me asap sir
Thnx

ravi
Reply to this comment
BREAKING NEWS :
CAT SCAM
80 PEOPLE WITH LOWER MRKS GOT THEIR MARKS INFLATED CHECK PAGALGUY.COM

ravi
Reply to this comment
OUT OF 80 10 ARE NOW IN FMS DELHI

ravi
Reply to this comment
CHECK MBA UNIVERSE.COM

rANJITHA
Reply to this comment
drop me a mail @ ranjitha.nie@gmail.com

ekansh
Reply to this comment
What is the best source for practising quant

nakul
Reply to this comment
sir i am not able to read many books and newspapers..
please guide me how to read them and what actually to grasp from them while reading..
and sir vocab to itni saari hai sumtyms i get a feeling ki kitne words yaad kare .. iska bhi koi solution please bata do ??
thanks a lot

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deepak
Reply to this comment
hello mrunal sir , i want to know if coaching is necessary for cat preparation , i am doing desk job , and i am not in touch with studies from
one year a , i am very much frustated nowadays, please help me ,, how should i prepare , i gave ssc cgl and my marks will be around cutoff
, do i have a chance that i could go through mains. i will be very thankful to you if you can give me 5 min time to answer me.
regards, deepak

Praveen
Reply to this comment
Dear Sir,
Thanks for posting your reply on my question.
I have started preparing for CAT with study material from IMS. Is this really sufficient to crack CAT.
I will try my best to conquer all the questions in the material.
With this will I have a chance to transcend the 90+ percentile barrier in CAT 2013.
Please post your reply as soon as possible, as it can help my preparation significantly.
Eagerly, awaiting your reply.
Thanks & Regards,
Praveen

deepak
Reply to this comment
hello sir please reply to my question , also i want to ask i am from obc category , and my 10th marks are 76%,12 marks are 68%,btech
marks are 65.32 %, how much minimum %tile should i have to get in to iims or fms..?????????

swagat
Reply to this comment
really nice of u man to share such experienceopened up many bottlenecks i had in ind regarding CAT..thanx a lot

gaurav
Reply to this comment
hi, there are four important books:
1.VA+RC Arun Sharma TMH.
2.LR Arun Sharma TMH.
3.DI Arun Sharma TMH.
4.A modern approach to Verbal and Non Verbal Reasoning RS Agarwal S.Chand.
Can you please tell us MINIMUM number of above book to buy keeping in view BOTH set of exams viz.
I.Management related CAT MAT XAT etc.
II.Govt. sector related SSC, LIC, SBI, IBPS etc.

devanshu
Reply to this comment
sir in arun sharma it is written that in the same paper of cat 09 the scenario was: 14 attempt 1wrong 98.3 and 19 attempt 3 wrong 92.6
how are wrong ans so penalised?
i am unable to figure out.

Sashi
Reply to this comment
Hi,
I am Sashi and wants to tell something about the The Gate Academy that it is having the
best Gate Mock Test Series.It really helps students in getting success.It is conducted
in classroom environment, where a candidate is required to answer by shading OMR Sheets similar to GATE Exam. It consistently provides
Rank and Percentile, and will
continue till the GATE Exam .
It is really very good about THE GATE ACADEMY that it is having different types of
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correspondence Programs .The Gate Academy is having different types correspondence exams like Regular, Advance and premium.The
students can go through it as per his/her requirements. Correspondence Learning Program consist of complete GATE syllabus in the form
of booklets with theory, solved examples, model tests, formula and questions in various levels of difficulty in all the topics of the syllabus. The
material is designed in such that way that its proven to be ideal material in-terms of an accurate and efficient preparation for GATE.
If you are thinking of GATE,then you must make efforts for it and go through some
coaching Programs,because the Diamonds are also need to be polished.As per me THE GATE ACADEMY is having the better class room
training Programs. Here the Classroom
Training Program is designed for Students who wants to start their preparation early
and would like to take the advantage over the others in terms of spending more time
on fundamentals of the Subjects. Focused sessions of Concept buildings will orient
the students approach towards solving GATE problems in minimal time.

sai kiran
Reply to this comment
hello mrunal,
i am preparing seriously for cat 2013.
QUANT- I AM DOING TIME MATERIAL IS IT SUFFICIENT . BUT IN TIME MATERIAL WE ARE NOT GATING BASIC QUESTIONS WHICH
WE ARE GETTING IN OUR AIM CATS. SO, I AM UNABLE TO ATTEMPT SIMPLE QUESTIONS ALSO.SO, SHALL I DO EVEN ARUN
SHARMA OR SARVESH VARMA. SUGGEST ME 1 BOOK OF THE 2 AS WE HAVE LESS TIME.
DI- I HAVE LITTLE FEAR IN THESE I AM UNABLE TO ATTEMPT DI QUESTIVA & LR I AM PRACTISING TIME MATERIALS .
ALSO I AM PREAPRING FOR NMAT SO TELL ME THE BOOKS FOR NMAT ALSO .
PLEASE SUGGEST ME IF ANY CHANGES HAVE TO BE MADE IN MY PREPARATION

Anuj
Reply to this comment
is the paper pattern for english section somewhat same as that of SSC-CGL.
please guide how to prepare english section.
plzzzzzz

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