If you think it is impossible to crack CAT without formal
coaching, and that too if you are a working professional, think again.
There are examples for you who have done it with élan and so can you.
Vishal Vyas is such an example, who scored a score as high as 99.98
percentile in CAT 2011 and cracked calls of several top B-schools, of
which he decided to join IIM Indore. In today’s Topper Mantras series,
we will present to you the success story of Vishal Vyas.
Vishal
is a B.Tech in Electronics and Communication from ACEIT, Jaipur of the
batch of 2011. He has worked with Accenture Services Pvt. Ltd. for eight
months as an Associate Software Engineer.
Excerpts from the interview:
Q: Why and when did you decide to do MBA? What is your plan after you complete your MBA?
A: The decision of pursuing MBA was made during the third year of college, after an extensive search for possible career options after engineering. I decided to take up management due to my interest in logics, decision making and quantitative subjects.
By the time I complete PGDM, I hope to have secured a decent placement with one of the finance majors. My medium term goal will be to add value to the work of the organization by means of a thorough understanding of the economy and prompt decision making, thereby making a place in the senior management of the organization. In the long term, I wish to pursue my interest in Actuarial Science, thereby adding another niche specialization into my domain knowledge and to be known as a knowledgeable individual.
Q: What was your CAT 2011 percentile? Which other MBA entrance exams did you take?
A: I have scored a 99.98 percentile in CAT 2011. Apart from CAT, I appeared for XAT 2012 where I scored a 98.37.
Q: How did you start the preparation and what was your overall strategy?
A: I appeared for CAT 2010 and had scored a 91.92 then. After completion of engineering, I re-worked my strategy and started preparing right after final exams in May 2011 with a brush-up of fundamentals like Vedic Mathematics, Vocabulary for VA and logical puzzles for reasoning. Only when I had gained some pace and confidence, did I jump to systematic problem solving and a test –series of T.I.M.E. in end June.
While working with Accenture, I tried to keep in touch with CAT preparation with the help of the test series and a thorough performance analysis after each test.
Q: Please share your WAT/PI experience in detail.
A: WAT and PI were the two vital stages of IIM Indore selection process. WAT was somewhat tricky with a question on précis writing and another asking about my opinion in a given situation where a choice was to be made between a family managed business and a professionally run organization.
PI probably was the most challenging part, with the interviewers asked extensively about by job profile and nature of work apart from a good amount of general knowledge. Work experience was somehow a difficult part to tackle with questions ranging from basic programming concepts to industry quality standards and their constituents.
Overall, it was a mixed kind of interview which had its own high points and lows. I was hoping to convert with a good performance on almost all the measures which I later did.
Q: Which B-schools offered you final admission? Why did you choose IIM Indore?
A: I was offered final admissions into IIM Indore-PGP, IIM Lucknow-ABM, MDI-PGDM, SJMSOM, VGSOM and XLRI-HRM. The decision to choose IIM Indore was driven by my inclination to finance and the excellent reputation of the institute.
Q: Do you think it is possible to crack CAT without taking formal coaching? What would you suggest the CAT 2012 aspirants who would like to prepare by themselves?
A: I can present my own example where CAT was cracked without any formal coaching. All we need to have is a thorough understanding of high-school mathematics, a logical and structured way of thinking, some smart effort to build vocabulary and a habit of reading. One can later strengthen the preparation with systematic problem solving and a test-series. For a test-series student, the performance analysis is very important to help you understand your strengths and weaknesses. If you get a call, take a brush up of current trends and happenings with some GD-PI program and read as much as you can. Success will be all yours.
sincere word of advice, never lose heart, it is perseverance that counts much more than intelligence.
Q: CAT saw a major change in the format & pattern in 2011. How did you prepare for it? Did this new pattern cause any hindrance in your preparation or exam taking strategy?
A: The new pattern of CAT actually is a boon for students who lack on Verbal Ability or Quantitative Aptitude. With the high-scoring section of LRDI split into LR and DI, the chances of success are very high for those who can score well in this one third of that particular section. A somewhat low performance in the other two third (VA or QA) can thus be compensated.
Q: What was your preparation strategy for the Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation and Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning?
A: QA has always been the better part of my preparation; all I needed was a timely brush up of formulae and vedic mathematics. I started with vedic mathematics and with calculation speed going up, there was a considerable time-saving, so now I could attempt more. For DI, any popular problems book as Arun Sharma will suffice, just keep practicing.
VA requires a great vocabulary for which newspapers, novels and books like Word Power Made Easy are the best resources. RC passages require practice for the correct interpretation. Lastly, for logical reasoning puzzles are the best means; they broaden our horizons and we are open to all kinds of questions.
Q: What was your strategy for time management?
A: Every time you practice questions, do them with a timer on, so as to optimize your performance. For students, make the most of every available minute, try to solve the questions in different time-slots and identify your best time for making an attempt well in advance, this helps a lot in maximizing performance. For professionals, regular studies are too difficult sometimes but try to keep in contact with preparation with test-series and post-analysis. In my case, CAT almost clashed with the final test of my job-training, so I had a tough time managing preparation and I used to take the practice tests late at night, as late as Midnight3 am.
Q: What is your message for the MBA aspirants who will take CAT 2012 and other exams of the season?
A: Keep faith in your ability and in God, for every honest effort is rewarded sooner or later. Manage your time well and learn to persevere. Those who succeed are actually those who didn’t give up when they failed. All the best.
Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more Topper Mantras.
Vishal
is a B.Tech in Electronics and Communication from ACEIT, Jaipur of the
batch of 2011. He has worked with Accenture Services Pvt. Ltd. for eight
months as an Associate Software Engineer. Excerpts from the interview:
Q: Why and when did you decide to do MBA? What is your plan after you complete your MBA?
A: The decision of pursuing MBA was made during the third year of college, after an extensive search for possible career options after engineering. I decided to take up management due to my interest in logics, decision making and quantitative subjects.
By the time I complete PGDM, I hope to have secured a decent placement with one of the finance majors. My medium term goal will be to add value to the work of the organization by means of a thorough understanding of the economy and prompt decision making, thereby making a place in the senior management of the organization. In the long term, I wish to pursue my interest in Actuarial Science, thereby adding another niche specialization into my domain knowledge and to be known as a knowledgeable individual.
Q: What was your CAT 2011 percentile? Which other MBA entrance exams did you take?
A: I have scored a 99.98 percentile in CAT 2011. Apart from CAT, I appeared for XAT 2012 where I scored a 98.37.
Q: How did you start the preparation and what was your overall strategy?
A: I appeared for CAT 2010 and had scored a 91.92 then. After completion of engineering, I re-worked my strategy and started preparing right after final exams in May 2011 with a brush-up of fundamentals like Vedic Mathematics, Vocabulary for VA and logical puzzles for reasoning. Only when I had gained some pace and confidence, did I jump to systematic problem solving and a test –series of T.I.M.E. in end June.
While working with Accenture, I tried to keep in touch with CAT preparation with the help of the test series and a thorough performance analysis after each test.
Q: Please share your WAT/PI experience in detail.
A: WAT and PI were the two vital stages of IIM Indore selection process. WAT was somewhat tricky with a question on précis writing and another asking about my opinion in a given situation where a choice was to be made between a family managed business and a professionally run organization.
PI probably was the most challenging part, with the interviewers asked extensively about by job profile and nature of work apart from a good amount of general knowledge. Work experience was somehow a difficult part to tackle with questions ranging from basic programming concepts to industry quality standards and their constituents.
Overall, it was a mixed kind of interview which had its own high points and lows. I was hoping to convert with a good performance on almost all the measures which I later did.
Q: Which B-schools offered you final admission? Why did you choose IIM Indore?
A: I was offered final admissions into IIM Indore-PGP, IIM Lucknow-ABM, MDI-PGDM, SJMSOM, VGSOM and XLRI-HRM. The decision to choose IIM Indore was driven by my inclination to finance and the excellent reputation of the institute.
Q: Do you think it is possible to crack CAT without taking formal coaching? What would you suggest the CAT 2012 aspirants who would like to prepare by themselves?
A: I can present my own example where CAT was cracked without any formal coaching. All we need to have is a thorough understanding of high-school mathematics, a logical and structured way of thinking, some smart effort to build vocabulary and a habit of reading. One can later strengthen the preparation with systematic problem solving and a test-series. For a test-series student, the performance analysis is very important to help you understand your strengths and weaknesses. If you get a call, take a brush up of current trends and happenings with some GD-PI program and read as much as you can. Success will be all yours.
sincere word of advice, never lose heart, it is perseverance that counts much more than intelligence.
Q: CAT saw a major change in the format & pattern in 2011. How did you prepare for it? Did this new pattern cause any hindrance in your preparation or exam taking strategy?
A: The new pattern of CAT actually is a boon for students who lack on Verbal Ability or Quantitative Aptitude. With the high-scoring section of LRDI split into LR and DI, the chances of success are very high for those who can score well in this one third of that particular section. A somewhat low performance in the other two third (VA or QA) can thus be compensated.
Q: What was your preparation strategy for the Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation and Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning?
A: QA has always been the better part of my preparation; all I needed was a timely brush up of formulae and vedic mathematics. I started with vedic mathematics and with calculation speed going up, there was a considerable time-saving, so now I could attempt more. For DI, any popular problems book as Arun Sharma will suffice, just keep practicing.
VA requires a great vocabulary for which newspapers, novels and books like Word Power Made Easy are the best resources. RC passages require practice for the correct interpretation. Lastly, for logical reasoning puzzles are the best means; they broaden our horizons and we are open to all kinds of questions.
Q: What was your strategy for time management?
A: Every time you practice questions, do them with a timer on, so as to optimize your performance. For students, make the most of every available minute, try to solve the questions in different time-slots and identify your best time for making an attempt well in advance, this helps a lot in maximizing performance. For professionals, regular studies are too difficult sometimes but try to keep in contact with preparation with test-series and post-analysis. In my case, CAT almost clashed with the final test of my job-training, so I had a tough time managing preparation and I used to take the practice tests late at night, as late as Midnight3 am.
Q: What is your message for the MBA aspirants who will take CAT 2012 and other exams of the season?
A: Keep faith in your ability and in God, for every honest effort is rewarded sooner or later. Manage your time well and learn to persevere. Those who succeed are actually those who didn’t give up when they failed. All the best.
Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more Topper Mantras.
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