A Journey From 78 To 99.61%ile In CAT VARC | Highly Motivating Story
An inspirational and highly motivating story by a CAT Aspirant. Our today’s topper is Mithun Kumar. He has scored 96.59%ile in CAT 2021. He also improved his VARC score (from 78%ile in CAT 2020 to 99.61%ile in CAT 2021). In this interview, he will be telling the reasons for his improvement, the mistakes he made earlier, his exam strategy, etc.
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Profile details:Name:Â Mithun Kumar
Graduation:Â BE Mechanical (2020 passed out).
Work-ex: 14 months in Consulting
CAT 2021:Â 96.59 overall (99.61%ile VARC)
Check out his interview video here:
Mithun Kumar appeared in CAT for the first time in 2020. He was not satisfied with his score, and this year, he scored 99.61%le in VARC. He pursued a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical. Currently, he has been doing consulting for the past 14 months. We got in touch with Mithun, CAT 2021 topper, to know about his strategies during CAT preparation and tips for future aspirants. He comes from an engineering background working at a consulting firm as an analyst.
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Q: Can you tell us about your CAT Preparation Journey?
A: When I started with my CAT preparation in my second year of college, it all began with the dream of an MBA. So, when you talk about an MBA in India it’s obviously IIMs which are the dream ones for everyone and that’s why I got introduced to CAT and right after my college got over, right after I stepped into work I took a CAT attempt; it didn’t work very well. This year, I started preparing again and that’s how my CAT journey with Cracku actually started; I was experimenting with the different resources available everywhere and that’s where I got introduced to daily targets. Daily targets are something that you get to practice every day; so that’s how I got introduced to Cracku as well and this was the second year with Cracku.
Q: How did you manage time, how did you find time for your job, and how did you manage time for CAT preparation?
A: Most of the aspirants who appear for CAT are either in their college days or working. So, it’s almost an even ballpark for everyone. Everyone has to dedicate that extra hour of race. It was the same for me as well and personally for me, the most favourite time to prepare has been early morning somewhere around 7 to 9, and that’s the time when I’m free, and I don’t have any significant work. Hence, apart from that weekends, I made sure that I took a mock and spent at least some three-four hours every weekend. So, cumulatively put together some two hours every day during the weekdays. Everyone is busy with their work, but if you’re seriously interested in CAT, you could find that extra time.
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Q: Can you tell us how it went for you from 78 to 99.61 in VARC, what changes did you make to your preparation, and how did you improve your score?
A: VARC was my favourite section at one point in time. I was considering VARC to be my vital section because you have nothing to prepare in general in this section. It’s just about understanding the passage properly. Last year, one terrible mistake I did was, like most aspirants, I felt that just reading a lot would improve VARC score and that is a costly mistake. I did practise RC’s through daily targets and mocks, but reading alone cannot help your VARC percentile. Another mistake that I made last year was that since the pattern changed, I got nervous as I was in slot-1. The emotional quotient is very critical for VARC because if you’re worried, you’ll not understand what’s going on in the passage. So, this year I just made some subtle changes rather than just reading, I just made sure that I understood whatever I read, and comprehend it. I didn’t look into the details, but I looked at things like what the author was trying to convey, basically since the section says it’s about comprehending rather than reading the passage and it was a very subtle change. It worked wonders and helped me maintain the emotional quotient.
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Q: When you’re practising RC’s, you know there is this problem that you get stuck between two options. How did you tackle that problem?
A: Basically, there are two approaches by which you could go about VARC: either look at the options and look for the correct choice among those, or, what you could do is you could eliminate the three choices which you feel would be wrong, and naturally you’ll end up getting the correct answer. I felt the second approach suits me because mostly what I have observed is that at least one or two options could be eliminated. So it’s just about those final two, and if you could look into the find details given in the options, look at what is changing between those two options, look at the finer details and if you have correctly understood the passage, you would get them right (if needed, you could go back to the passage and end up getting the answer). And it actually works wonders, it also helped my accuracy a lot. I got 18 out of 20 correct.
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Q: How many mocks have you taken, and how did you come up with your final strategy?
A: I took around 30 mocks. I started somewhere in March mid and took at least one or two mocks every weekend. I ensured to stay in touch with all the sections. The best part I love about Cracku mocks is the final result dashboard that you get. It has detailed insights about everything that happens, and that drastically reduces your work of going and analyzing what actually happened within the mock.
Q: Any mistakes that you’ve made in your CAT preparation in the initial days, and how did you learn from those mistakes?
A: Many mistakes have been from the strategy point of view. What I thought was CAT is something which you could go learning a specific set of topics focus on that significant chance of that and get done with CAT and another thing that I made a drastic mistake last year as well as that getting too much nervous whether it is a mock or an actual CAT the more and more you get nervous more and more you take into your mind it’s going to completely ruin your attempt and this is I just made as mentioned earlier some shuttle changes whatever the course of Marcus I just stayed calm throughout the end I know that even at the final day. In the last slot, Quant was a terrible section for me. I felt that it was not going my way as the mocks went because mocks were going somewhere in 97 and 98 percentiles and once, so I know that it didn’t go as good as that. However, I still maintained my calm, and I went for it. Still, surprisingly it was a much better percentile than what I expected it would be, so you never know during the month what you in percentile would so stay on till there have been times where I’ve just attempted two RC’s and some handful of VA and still managed to get a 95 plus percentage in VARC. It’s just about staying on till the last minute till the last second and giving your most entire.Â
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Q: Anything you would like to tell the CAT aspirants for some advice and motivate would like to give the aspirants?
A: First of all, if you’re someone who’s freshly studying for CAT preparation, never take addition like this would be my target percentage because you never know how much worthy you were when I started with CAT. I thought even a 90 percentile would be a huge number for me. My best college at that point of time was IIM Trichy that was my dream college being a Southy that was my dream college but now I know that is something which I could have as a backup rather I could dream for something much better same applies for VARC as well when I started I thought clearing cutoffs would sectionals would be a great thing but now I know that I could have even now I feel that I could have got that additional one or two questions extra and could have pushed it a bit further. So, when you start, never decide how much capable you are and most importantly, never stop at any moment uh stay until the d-day and give your best what you could give your best and it trust me, there are a lot of instances where it could work Wonders.
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. Check his improvement, the mistakes made earlier, his exam preparation strategy. Inspirational CAT Success Story and Highly motivating story. #GetInspired){kind=link}