CAT 2016: 'Tips & tricks of no help if not practiced'; Success mantra from CAT topper Omar, NITIE student

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MBAUniverse.com News Desk |
September 30, 2016
CAT 2016 aspirants will need a well devised preparation strategy in next 60 days as they cannot depend upon only on tips and tricks
You can read a variety of materials and learn by heart several tips and tricks but it won't help much if you don't practice it Omar Razi, CAT topper & NITIE student

To crack CAT 2016 you will need a well practiced preparation strategy for next 60 days as the tips and tricks can work well only if you can devote sufficient time to practice them. These are the preparation tips shared by Omar Razi, CAT topper with 99.71 percentile and NITIE student of 2016-18 batch.

Omar Razi hails from Muzaffarpur. He is a B Tech in Electronics and Communication with 41 months of work experience. He has interest in blogging and in playing football. He attributes his success to his source of inspiration, his father.

In fact the CAT aspirants who are also working professionals and are preparing for the exam also need to balance CAT preparation with professional responsibilities. Omar began his CAT preparation in the month of May and initially focused to overcome his shortcomings. Omar prepared for CAT without joining any coaching and scored 99.71 percentile and chose to accept admission offer from NITIE Mumbai.

MBAUniverse.com has brought a round of CAT toppers’ success stories for the benefit of CAT 2016 aspirants. Sharing his success mantra Omar highlights his experience in preparation journey to CAT and modestly attempts to give the guidance to CAT 2016 aspirants

MBAUniverse.com: What was your preparation strategy for CAT?
Omar (CAT topper): Since I was a working professional, I had to prepare an effective strategy to target CAT. I started out somewhere in May by joining a test series and honestly evaluated my shortcomings. Analysing the general trend of the papers from the last couple of years I was able to conclude that the focus was turning more towards the verbal section. I took a risk by giving the lion’s share of my time in preparing for the verbal section and I am glad it paid off.

MBAUniverse.com: How did you prepare for each section QA, VARC & DILR? What study materials and books did you use?
Omar (CAT topper): I used to read lots of articles daily from a variety of topics to prepare myself for VARC section. I read ‘The Hindu’ on a daily basis and mixed it up with an eclectic mix of  articles from websites like aldaily. In the end, there were 24 questions in the test from RC and I felt really comfortable comprehending them.

I solved Arun Sharma for Quant preparation. This book is as important to the MBA aspirants as the ‘Concept of Physics by H.C Verma’ is for IIT aspirants. It explains all the concepts thoroughly and provides ample number of questions to practice on almost every important topic of CAT.

I also used Arun Sharma for DILR. DILR which is mostly about practice and number crunching. There is no fix recipe for success here. I also solved all the previous years’ questions for DILR and created a framework on how to proceed each type of problems.

MBAUniverse.com: Was there any particular section that you were weak at? How did you overcome this challenge?
Omar (CAT topper): I was troubled by geometry and number system in quants. Number systems is one of the most exhaustive but equally important topic from CAT perspective. There is no way a candidate can go in the examination hall without knowing their numbers. To overcome this problem, I went old school and practised a lot.

There are no other alternatives when it comes to Number System, you can read a variety of materials and learn by heart several tips and tricks but it won’t help much if you don’t practice it.

For geometry, I tried to tread with caution because it usually consumes a lot of time if you get stuck in a question. I focused on perfecting some sub-topics of geometry rather than doing it all. It also helped me in identifying the questions which I could leave alone

MBAUniverse.com: How can candidates use Mock tests better? What is your advice?
Omar (CAT topper):  Mock tests are the most important part of the preparation. In order to gain the maximum advantage out of it, these tests should be treated as the actual test. The focus should not be on getting the maximum marks in these tests, instead, it should be used to find out your weaknesses and strength.

My only advice to aspirants would be to be as honest as possible to yourselves as you can be. Avoid guessing the answers you are not reasonably certain of, always remember that the only score that will matter in the end is of the D-day.

MBAUniverse.com: Did you go to offline coaching centre? What role does a coaching centre play?
Omar (CAT topper):  I did not join any coaching centre for classroom programmes but I enrolled for AIMCAT. I believe that coaching centre can be useful in providing the right direction to the candidates but eventually the long walk has to be taken alone. However, I would once again reiterate the importance of test series and suggest that aspirants should join at least one of them.

MBAUniverse.com:  Which institutes did you apply for admission?
Omar (CAT topper):  I applied at all the IIMs, IIT-D and NITIE.

MBAUniverse.com:  Please share your strategy for the CAT Day. What was your last-minute preparation? How did you plan your CAT test taking?
Omar (CAT topper):  I was quite relaxed the day before CAT, I went out a day before the test and hardly opened the books. The anxiety did make it a bit difficult to sleep well the night before but I managed.

The new format of CAT leaves little scope to create a strategy for the test. Unlike before, you don’t have to worry about selecting a section first and managing time between all the sections. One of the most common mistakes that everybody, including myself, does is to get stuck in a tricky question and thus miss the easy ones. I tried to change this habit by going through all the questions once to make sure that I don’t miss out on any sitters.

MBAUniverse.com: Please share your GD/WAT topics & PI questions at different institutes and the ones who offered you admission?
Omar (CAT topper): My WAT topic for IIM Lucknow was ‘Freedom of speech is being used to divide the country’. It was a fresh topic because of the JNU incidents that had created a furore in the country. I was able to balance my opinion highlighting both the aspects of the story.

I didn’t have the best of interview at IIM-L, I had missed to sign at a place in the application form and the panel spotted it at the beginning. Owing to the stressful nature of the interview, I managed to second guess some answers which resulted in disaster.

The GD topic at NITIE was ‘Should primary education be provident in the local language’. It was a pretty broad ended topic and the discussions went well. I was able to begin the GD and then entered it 3-4 times more. I was able to put my points forward and refrained from getting involved in any one on one altercations. The PI also went well, NITIE is renowned for the high importance given to your technical knowledge so I had to brush up my basics for the interview. The interview was a perfect mix of variety of topics ranging from college to work experience, there were a couple of socio political and sports question as well.

MBAUniverse.com:  Which B-school you decided upon and why?
Omar (CAT topper): I decided to join NITIE because of the great ROI this institute offers. Since I have a meaningful amount of work experience, I wanted to select an institute which can provide justice to my work ex. NITIE boasts of one of the highest ratio of candidates with high work experience, so, I opted for NITIE. NITIE has a great brand value in the industry due to its huge alumni base, the institute itself is more than 50 years old and it is one of the most important criteria while selecting a B-school.

MBAUniverse.com:  Any message you would like to share with the candidates preparing for CAT 2016.
Omar (CAT topper): I would just like to tell everyone to never give up. There will be many days where you would feel frustrated to the extent of giving up. Don’t let temporary failures discourage you, always keep the ultimate goal in mind.

I would also like to add that with the recent focus on diversification, many engineering candidates feel a little disheartened. I would suggest them to focus only on getting a good score for now and leave everything else for later. Try and give a little extra emphasis on improving your verbal, RCs in particular, because there is a slow but sure paradigm shift towards getting CAT closer to GMAT.

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Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more success mantra stories and CAT 2016 preparation tips from toppers