Sound Strategies that helped Priyanka score CAT 99%ile

Got my IIMs GDPI result and finally got through IIM Kozikode. Even if you don’t have time to read my debrief, I would say one thing – Give importance to the last few days, It added 5%ile to my score. I am a super procrastinator. I started my preparation in June with the aim of clearing CAT in December. However, I have had a wonderful experience and here is my chance to give back. My Preparation If you want success in exam, go join classes! but I went into self study mode and took books from my friends. Later I realised the need for being more focused so joined cetking thane classroom program. I found Quant book to be relatively well laid out for a refresher. It was perfect for me as I needed a bit of theory and them problems to perfect the skills. I could easily skip the topics to go to the practice problems. I finished the quant book in 30 days. All in all a solid grounding in concepts. Similarly I completed Cetking verbal basics book.. I then moved to advance green verbal book and hit a wall. I started reading but could at the most 10 pages a day. This was shocking because I had just completed basic book in flat 10 days. I was putting in 2 hours on weekdays and 4-5 hours on weekends. After 15 days, I had completed 5-6 chapters and while I had learned new things, I was not certain if I retained much. So with 2 months gone, I gave a first mock and scored 63%ile. I felt pathetic. I knew that I had a long way to go. Moreover, I realised only doing basics and books were not going to cut it. I looked out for shortcut workshops. I really liked Cetking Curriculum because they have the most shortcuts. I could finish 2-3 modules in a day including solving 30 – 40 problems. Cetking keep uploading videos on study plan which is very motivating. I finished the complete advance course in about 45 days and took the mock again. Got a 87%ile this time. Did much better. I had more confidence. At this time, I got serious as I felt that I was within shooting distance of 95%ile plus. For quant, I focused on doing difficult problems on the quant advance books. The strategies in the verbal online sessions was an eye opener. I gave my next mock on Dday mock On Nov 30. Even though I had to rush through last 10 questions (16 mins), I did much better in 94%ile. RC remained the same (14/24). With last one month left, I put all my energies into practice and scored 99.23%ile. Priyanka Kini Cetking Thane Student