CAT 2016: 'Prefer Self Preparation to coaching' recommends toppers; let coaching be need based

Add Review

MBAUniverse.com News Desk |
July 19, 2016
Past CAT 100 percentilers and toppers Pranjal Agarwal, Neha Manglick, Pranjul Gupta, Vishesh Patni among others preferred self preparation and advise the same strategy for CAT 2016 aspirants
Unless and until the Coaching add value to your preparation speed and help you out of the dilemma you are in, it may turn into wastage of time instead of providing you required assistance to crack CAT 2016

Past CAT 100 percentilers and toppers Pranjal Agarwal, Neha Manglick, Pranjul Gupta, Vishesh Patni among others preferred self-preparation and advise the same strategy for CAT 2016 aspirants. They are unanimous that the help of coaching should be need based to take you out of the sticky areas. A generalised coaching may not be of much help to the required standard.

Toppers recommend need based coaching
In addition to the key tip, the important advice the toppers share is to choose a coaching institute as per your preferences. This is also agreed by the Verbal Ability expert and mentor on CAT 2016 preparation Prof S K Agarwal who thinks that there are some CAT coaching or preparation institutes where the finest faculty on one section or few topics for example Quant are available. But it is not necessary that they have the VARC or LR faculty of same standard. This is applicable to all the coaching institutes and their different centres running in the country.

In view of the expert Prof S K Agarwal what you can do more accurately and with greater speed with your self-preparation may halt your fast strengthening movement at the coaching centre as it may be teaching you with different strategy which can altogether confuse you also.

Unless and until the Coaching add value to your preparation speed and help you out of the dilemma you are in, it may turn into wastage of time instead of providing you required assistance to crack CAT 2016 with higher score.

100 percentilers who did self preparation
Pranjul Gupta and Vishesh Patni 100 percentilers in CAT recommend ‘self study although coaching can help save your time on topics and questions where you are stuck’. Both of them made sure to go for serious self-study apart from joining need based coaching classes. The message is to go for a mix of study plan combining self study with guidance from coaching. Both advise the CAT aspirants that they should remain unbiased and must aim to crack around 85 questions with accuracy in CAT 2016.

Neha Manglick the only female 100 percentiler started her serious self preparation for CAT around May/June, just 5 months before the exam. Her major focus was on self study instead of running here and there to prepare for the exam, although she took some help from offline and online coaching in her preparation.

Neha preferred to search for more than one way to attempt and solve the questions with accuracy and this proved to be her greatest strength during the exam.

Pranjal Agarwal the 100 percentiler in CAT 2015 did not take any coaching to prepare for the exam. Even before he started serious preparation, he began solving practice questions of Mathematics and Statistics on websites. He took sectional mocks where he found he was weak otherwise he preferred taking full length mock tests.

Successful civil servants share same view
It is not only CAT 2016 aspirants who think that self-preparation is the best and coaching should be need based, but even Arushi Sharma, AIR 292 in civil services exam 2015 is also not in favour of the coaching for preparation unless you need it.

She is of the view “The decision to join coaching or not is very personal. There is no one rule to it. You may join a coaching which nobody else joined and succeed or you may join one that everybody joined and fail. You need to decide based on your strengths and weaknesses whether to join coaching or not. Also, what I understood over my one year of preparation was that coaching in itself is not useful for the classes. What they teach in class is very limited and you do need sufficient self study to be able to crack this exam. What coaching does help you with though is the structure it provides.” She further adds “If you feel you can structure your preparation without coaching, do not join one.”

Expert Advice
No doubt nothing can substitute your self-preparation but why then there is need to join a good coaching institute to give wings to your preparation? What do they teach and prepare you for CAT 2016 in Coaching Institute that you cannot study yourself- is a big question with a single line answer–They teach you, what to and what not to study in a time frame. You opt for the coaching to maintain your regularity, to keep away your laziness and to maintain your enthusiasm and inspirational level through-out.

Most of us feel shy of following a tough study schedule unless we are compelled to. It is also a fact that only coaching without follow-up self-study can’t create miracles and as such a CAT 2016 aspirant needs a mix of them- a very good coaching followed by suggested study schedule.

Common Admission Test (CAT) 2016 will be the mandatory entrance exam for admission to MBA/PGDM 2017-19 in 20 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and top rated Management colleges like FMS, MDI, SPJIMR, NITIE, IMT, JBIMS, TAPMI and many more B schools located across the country. IIM Bangalore renowned for its different and unique approach in management education is convening CAT 2016. You need to follow a systematic and meticulous study plan to score high in CAT 2016 given the fact that it may throw more surprises.

Related Article

CAT 2016: Aspirant's Insight-I messed up Quant in the exam; vow to get top IIM this year

CAT Data Interpretation: Expect 4-5 questions on Games in CAT 2016; know from expert how to approach

CAT 2016: Schedule exam with more than 1 day testing window; aspirants request convener

CAT 2016: Get ready for Registration, application process; key documents you need

CAT 2016: Notification in July last week; be prepared for innovative exam

CAT 2016: How IIMs help to hit high score in 1st attempt; more retakes confuse more

CAT 2016: Serious attempt not calls for a year-drop or job-quit; bell the CAT in available time

CAT 2016: your life can change in next 150 days; how! Know from expert and toppers

CAT 2016: Sectional scores more important than overall; maximize and balance equally

Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com to know how to choose a coaching institute for CAT 2016