Most big things happen by chance. This popular saying
holds absolutely true for Mohit Srivastava, a first year student of IIM
Bangalore, who scored 99.93 percentile in CAT 2011. Unlike 99 per cent
of the CAT takers, who are generally sure of why they want to pursue MBA
or prepare for months, for Mohit, MBA happened by chance.
Not
only was it a sudden decision to take CAT but in spite of facing several
obstacles which left him with hardly a month for preparation, Mohit
secured a high score of 99.93 percentile in CAT 2011.
A Varanasi boy, who lived in several places in India courtesy his IAS officer father’s job, Mohit did his Computer Science Engineering from IIIT Hyderabad and worked for about two years in Amazon Hyderabad as a Software Development 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: For me MBA was never on my cards. Just like most big things happen by chance, this also happened to me by chance. In a sense I was happy working for Amazon.com as a Software Development Engineer and was looking at moving into bigger tech giants such as Google or Facebook. Till August I was completely point blank as to my MBA plans.
I had applied to Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California, U.S. After two rounds of phone screen and 5 onsites at the Google MTV campus, as luck would have its way, I got a rejection from Google MTV in mid-August.
During the same time my flatmate who was also from IIIT-Hyderabad and was working with Factset, was filling in the form for CAT, whose vouchers were supposed to go on sale from the 17th of August, 2011. Since he was preparing, I joined along in a bandwagon effect, and filled in the forms for CAT 2011.
My plan as of now is to not to follow the herd and do something different and big in this world.
Q: What is your CAT 2011 percentile?
A: My CAT 2011 percentile was 99.93 overall. The sectionals were QA/DI 99.93 and VA & LR 97.56.
Q: How was your WAT/PI experience?
A: The interview experience was very different at all the four IIMs. IIM Lucknow was focussed more on general affairs. IIM Bangalore was mostly academics and SOP based (they actually asked me an algorithm) IIM Calcutta was purely quant based in terms that the first five questions were based on Permutations and Combinations. After I satisfactorily answered them the interviews started asking me questions on Seattle and where all I had been in Seattle. IIM Ahmedabad was very unpredictable in terms that most of the questions were not from my strength. It was somewhat less academic.
Q: Which institutes offered you final admission? Why did you choose IIM Bangalore?
A: I attended the interviews for IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow and converted calls from IIM Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow and the new IIMs. I chose IIM Bangalore because it had grown by leaps and bounds in the past decade and also because it had a locational advantage over IIM Calcutta – Bangalore being the IT capital of India and growing at a tremendous pace. Another factor that played a part was peer learning. Since Bangalore, focuses more on the profile of a candidate rather than on CAT score, I thought I would learn a lot more being in Bangalore than in other IIMs. Having said that, there is hardly any difference between Bangalore and Calcutta or for that matter Ahmedabad, Bangalore or Calcutta and you would not regret joining any of these schools.
Q: How did you start the preparation and what was your overall strategy?
A: Since I was working and MBA never was on my radar, I started a bit late.
As soon as I joined a mock CAT test series and started giving mock tests, I met a serious road accident which left me badly wounded and I could not prepare much for almost a month and a week as I had high fever after I recovered from my injuries. After I recovered from my injuries I fell victim to high fever and was down for another week. So in a way my real preparation started in October while I took CAT on November 14, 2011.
For me the key to cracking CAT 2011 was taking a lot of mocks and analyzing them thoroughly. Analyzing mocks can be tricky because there is a right way and a wrong way to do the same. The wrong way for instance would be you doing some mistakes in some vocab question and you going back to Barron’s Word List to increase your vocabulary (Realize that this strategy can really bomb because CAT doesn’t really test how many words you know, it rather tests your understanding of English and your logical comprehension).
Another aspect of the preparation was since I was working, it was critically important to balance my work with my preparation as well. I deleted my FB account and worked in the office only from 10-4:30. I tried to wrap up most of my work by that time. I made sure that I reach home by 5 and take a mock/practise test from 5:30-8:00; have my dinner and start analyzing the mock for the next two days.
In terms of my overall strategy after taking a few mocks I had realized that I would be able to make the cut for Quant and English was my Achilles heel and it could hurt me badly. Since I had an abundance of mocks and there was no chance I was going to finish taking all the mocks by 14th November (I was taking a mock every three days including the time for analysing it for two days – which means a maximum of 15 mocks by November 14 – and I had somewhere around 30+20 mocks in total), for the other series that I had joined I started skipping the Quant section and only taking and analyzing the VA section. This strategy worked wonders because towards the end of October I started showing a systematic improvement in my VA scores.
I also took a strategic leave from my office two weeks before my D-Day. This was my marathon week, wherein I started taking three mocks for every two days. This week I had also decided to work on some of my weaker topics such as Combinatorics and Number Theory in QA and some caselets in DI apart from VA.
The last week was mostly revising what I had done over the past month and a half (the correct strategies and the wrong ones too), going through my book of analysis of mocks, making sure I do not repeat the same mistakes (such as leaving out on easy questions etc) and praying to God!
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: Yes it is definitely possible to crack CAT 2012 without a formal coaching. In fact I would say that it is best not to join a coaching. The guys in coaching teach at the pace of the class, and if you are a fast learner you would often find it difficult to move at their slow pace.
One thing however I would recommend for sure is that you must and must join a national level mock test series. In my opinion mocks are the one mantra you should be looking towards for cracking CAT 2012. They give you a real view of where you stand among your contemporaries. They also prepare you for all the nitties and gritties that might surface up when you take the actual CAT.
More than anything else, they would help you devise a strategy that best suits you (because only you are the best judge of yourself and your potential). Make sure that you analyze mocks thoroughly (this is really important). Typical ratio should be 1:6 (if you spend one unit of time giving mock tests, you must spend six units of time analysing it). If you believe in yourself you could actually bring it down to 1:3.
The other important piece of mantra is perseverance. Do not lose heart when you get low scores in mocks. It happens and it happens with everyone (the difference is everyone doesn’t tell you about it). Quite often failures and low scores are the events from which you end up learning a lot. Do not run away from them, in fact have the courage to face them and learn from them.
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: It is important to analyze the pros and cons of pattern change if and when they happen in CAT (and they do make these changes rather quickly). One advantage CAT 2011 provided me was that I was earlier spending less than 40 minutes time on English (when the sections were open) and was trying to use up that time to maximize my score in QA and DI. Since CAT 2011 had a restriction on spending a fixed amount of time on VA and LR I actually was able to spend more time on my VA section which helped me improve my accuracy in VA. The other side effect of this change was obviously that the QA and DI section had to be finished in the 70 minutes and hence I had to increase my speed in Quant.
Another important thing that needed to be kept in mind was that since VA was often very unpredictable for me it was critical that I had to correctly attempt all the 9 to 10 questions of LR in my VALR section (so I had to be more careful while doing those questions and had to ensure that I reach 100% accuracy in LR which is quite possible)
Q: What was your preparation strategy for the Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation and Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning?
A: My strategy in QA and DI was to pick and attack the QA questions first since this was my forte. The ideal mix of time for me was to give somewhere around 40 to 45 minutes for QA and some 25 to 30 minutes for DI.
For DI my preparation mostly revolved around getting a sense of familiarity with most data sets and some common caselets.
QA was more of strengthening my strong points and working on my weak points which included combinatorics and number theory.
LR again was more of getting used to the various types of caselets and questions and getting used to them. LR was trickier in the sense that time had to be managed more smartly. I made sure that I wasn’t getting stuck on a question for more than four minutes of my time.
VA was the toughest part for me. I had to do a lot to improve my VA. First and the foremost I had to work on improving my reading and comprehension speed which included a lot of stuff including getting the tone of the author and un-weaving close set of options. Then I had to work a lot on parajumbles and also inference based questions. Mostly it was practise and practise.
Q: What was your strategy for time management?
A: My strategy for time management was simple. Attack all the questions that were easy (irrespective of the fact that they were from my strength or not). You should not focus too much on a question if it takes more than two minutes to solve and trust your ability that if it takes more than two minutes for you to solve it is difficult for almost 90 per cent of the CAT takers.
Next attack all the questions that I regarded as my strengths. Again leave the ones that are taking more than say 2.5 minutes.
For the last iteration, go for everything. My ideal exam used to be the ones in which I used to finish my paper a good five minutes before the end of the time, take some 2.5 minutes to see if I can solve anymore question and for the last 2.5 minutes revise my answers. Quite often this strategy used to work wonders to maximize my score as there used to be at least some 1-2 questions wherein I had done some or the other silly mistake.
Q: What is your message for the MBA aspirants who will take CAT 2012 and other exams of the season?
A: CAT/MBA is not the be all and end all of everything in this world. You do not need an MBA to become Sunil Mittal. Prepare well, persevere and put in your hard work and the results would follow.
Beyond everything don’t lose heart. Failures do happen. Learn to accept them. Success is nothing but going from failures to failures without loss of enthusiasm. So if you fail, be rest assured that you are on the right track.
Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more Topper Mantras.
Not
only was it a sudden decision to take CAT but in spite of facing several
obstacles which left him with hardly a month for preparation, Mohit
secured a high score of 99.93 percentile in CAT 2011.A Varanasi boy, who lived in several places in India courtesy his IAS officer father’s job, Mohit did his Computer Science Engineering from IIIT Hyderabad and worked for about two years in Amazon Hyderabad as a Software Development 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: For me MBA was never on my cards. Just like most big things happen by chance, this also happened to me by chance. In a sense I was happy working for Amazon.com as a Software Development Engineer and was looking at moving into bigger tech giants such as Google or Facebook. Till August I was completely point blank as to my MBA plans.
I had applied to Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California, U.S. After two rounds of phone screen and 5 onsites at the Google MTV campus, as luck would have its way, I got a rejection from Google MTV in mid-August.
During the same time my flatmate who was also from IIIT-Hyderabad and was working with Factset, was filling in the form for CAT, whose vouchers were supposed to go on sale from the 17th of August, 2011. Since he was preparing, I joined along in a bandwagon effect, and filled in the forms for CAT 2011.
My plan as of now is to not to follow the herd and do something different and big in this world.
Q: What is your CAT 2011 percentile?
A: My CAT 2011 percentile was 99.93 overall. The sectionals were QA/DI 99.93 and VA & LR 97.56.
Q: How was your WAT/PI experience?
A: The interview experience was very different at all the four IIMs. IIM Lucknow was focussed more on general affairs. IIM Bangalore was mostly academics and SOP based (they actually asked me an algorithm) IIM Calcutta was purely quant based in terms that the first five questions were based on Permutations and Combinations. After I satisfactorily answered them the interviews started asking me questions on Seattle and where all I had been in Seattle. IIM Ahmedabad was very unpredictable in terms that most of the questions were not from my strength. It was somewhat less academic.
Q: Which institutes offered you final admission? Why did you choose IIM Bangalore?
A: I attended the interviews for IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow and converted calls from IIM Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow and the new IIMs. I chose IIM Bangalore because it had grown by leaps and bounds in the past decade and also because it had a locational advantage over IIM Calcutta – Bangalore being the IT capital of India and growing at a tremendous pace. Another factor that played a part was peer learning. Since Bangalore, focuses more on the profile of a candidate rather than on CAT score, I thought I would learn a lot more being in Bangalore than in other IIMs. Having said that, there is hardly any difference between Bangalore and Calcutta or for that matter Ahmedabad, Bangalore or Calcutta and you would not regret joining any of these schools.
Q: How did you start the preparation and what was your overall strategy?
A: Since I was working and MBA never was on my radar, I started a bit late.
As soon as I joined a mock CAT test series and started giving mock tests, I met a serious road accident which left me badly wounded and I could not prepare much for almost a month and a week as I had high fever after I recovered from my injuries. After I recovered from my injuries I fell victim to high fever and was down for another week. So in a way my real preparation started in October while I took CAT on November 14, 2011.
For me the key to cracking CAT 2011 was taking a lot of mocks and analyzing them thoroughly. Analyzing mocks can be tricky because there is a right way and a wrong way to do the same. The wrong way for instance would be you doing some mistakes in some vocab question and you going back to Barron’s Word List to increase your vocabulary (Realize that this strategy can really bomb because CAT doesn’t really test how many words you know, it rather tests your understanding of English and your logical comprehension).
Another aspect of the preparation was since I was working, it was critically important to balance my work with my preparation as well. I deleted my FB account and worked in the office only from 10-4:30. I tried to wrap up most of my work by that time. I made sure that I reach home by 5 and take a mock/practise test from 5:30-8:00; have my dinner and start analyzing the mock for the next two days.
In terms of my overall strategy after taking a few mocks I had realized that I would be able to make the cut for Quant and English was my Achilles heel and it could hurt me badly. Since I had an abundance of mocks and there was no chance I was going to finish taking all the mocks by 14th November (I was taking a mock every three days including the time for analysing it for two days – which means a maximum of 15 mocks by November 14 – and I had somewhere around 30+20 mocks in total), for the other series that I had joined I started skipping the Quant section and only taking and analyzing the VA section. This strategy worked wonders because towards the end of October I started showing a systematic improvement in my VA scores.
I also took a strategic leave from my office two weeks before my D-Day. This was my marathon week, wherein I started taking three mocks for every two days. This week I had also decided to work on some of my weaker topics such as Combinatorics and Number Theory in QA and some caselets in DI apart from VA.
The last week was mostly revising what I had done over the past month and a half (the correct strategies and the wrong ones too), going through my book of analysis of mocks, making sure I do not repeat the same mistakes (such as leaving out on easy questions etc) and praying to God!
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: Yes it is definitely possible to crack CAT 2012 without a formal coaching. In fact I would say that it is best not to join a coaching. The guys in coaching teach at the pace of the class, and if you are a fast learner you would often find it difficult to move at their slow pace.
One thing however I would recommend for sure is that you must and must join a national level mock test series. In my opinion mocks are the one mantra you should be looking towards for cracking CAT 2012. They give you a real view of where you stand among your contemporaries. They also prepare you for all the nitties and gritties that might surface up when you take the actual CAT.
More than anything else, they would help you devise a strategy that best suits you (because only you are the best judge of yourself and your potential). Make sure that you analyze mocks thoroughly (this is really important). Typical ratio should be 1:6 (if you spend one unit of time giving mock tests, you must spend six units of time analysing it). If you believe in yourself you could actually bring it down to 1:3.
The other important piece of mantra is perseverance. Do not lose heart when you get low scores in mocks. It happens and it happens with everyone (the difference is everyone doesn’t tell you about it). Quite often failures and low scores are the events from which you end up learning a lot. Do not run away from them, in fact have the courage to face them and learn from them.
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: It is important to analyze the pros and cons of pattern change if and when they happen in CAT (and they do make these changes rather quickly). One advantage CAT 2011 provided me was that I was earlier spending less than 40 minutes time on English (when the sections were open) and was trying to use up that time to maximize my score in QA and DI. Since CAT 2011 had a restriction on spending a fixed amount of time on VA and LR I actually was able to spend more time on my VA section which helped me improve my accuracy in VA. The other side effect of this change was obviously that the QA and DI section had to be finished in the 70 minutes and hence I had to increase my speed in Quant.
Another important thing that needed to be kept in mind was that since VA was often very unpredictable for me it was critical that I had to correctly attempt all the 9 to 10 questions of LR in my VALR section (so I had to be more careful while doing those questions and had to ensure that I reach 100% accuracy in LR which is quite possible)
Q: What was your preparation strategy for the Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation and Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning?
A: My strategy in QA and DI was to pick and attack the QA questions first since this was my forte. The ideal mix of time for me was to give somewhere around 40 to 45 minutes for QA and some 25 to 30 minutes for DI.
For DI my preparation mostly revolved around getting a sense of familiarity with most data sets and some common caselets.
QA was more of strengthening my strong points and working on my weak points which included combinatorics and number theory.
LR again was more of getting used to the various types of caselets and questions and getting used to them. LR was trickier in the sense that time had to be managed more smartly. I made sure that I wasn’t getting stuck on a question for more than four minutes of my time.
VA was the toughest part for me. I had to do a lot to improve my VA. First and the foremost I had to work on improving my reading and comprehension speed which included a lot of stuff including getting the tone of the author and un-weaving close set of options. Then I had to work a lot on parajumbles and also inference based questions. Mostly it was practise and practise.
Q: What was your strategy for time management?
A: My strategy for time management was simple. Attack all the questions that were easy (irrespective of the fact that they were from my strength or not). You should not focus too much on a question if it takes more than two minutes to solve and trust your ability that if it takes more than two minutes for you to solve it is difficult for almost 90 per cent of the CAT takers.
Next attack all the questions that I regarded as my strengths. Again leave the ones that are taking more than say 2.5 minutes.
For the last iteration, go for everything. My ideal exam used to be the ones in which I used to finish my paper a good five minutes before the end of the time, take some 2.5 minutes to see if I can solve anymore question and for the last 2.5 minutes revise my answers. Quite often this strategy used to work wonders to maximize my score as there used to be at least some 1-2 questions wherein I had done some or the other silly mistake.
Q: What is your message for the MBA aspirants who will take CAT 2012 and other exams of the season?
A: CAT/MBA is not the be all and end all of everything in this world. You do not need an MBA to become Sunil Mittal. Prepare well, persevere and put in your hard work and the results would follow.
Beyond everything don’t lose heart. Failures do happen. Learn to accept them. Success is nothing but going from failures to failures without loss of enthusiasm. So if you fail, be rest assured that you are on the right track.
Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more Topper Mantras.
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