Preparation Strategy of CAT Toppers: Check Preparation Tips

Preparation Strategy By CAT Toppers: While there isn't a specific formula for success in the Common Admission Test (CAT), which is a highly competitive entrance exam for admission into prestigious management programs in India, there are certain common strategies that many top scorers tend to follow. Consistent hard work, dedication, and adaptability are key factors that contribute to CAT's success. A detailed preparation strategy that CAT toppers often adopt is detailed in this article for reference.

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CAT Preparation Strategies for Non-Engineers | CAT Preparation Tips

Common Strategies Followed by The CAT Toppers

Below listed are a few common yet most useful preparation strategies that are used by the CAT toppers for preparation. Not only for CAT, these strategies can be useful for many other entrance exams be it an MBA exam or even a non-MBA exam. Check these strategies below.

Understanding the Exam Pattern and Syllabus

Toppers begin by thoroughly understanding the CAT exam pattern, which includes sections like Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC), Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR), and Quantitative Ability (QA). They go through the syllabus for each section and identify their strengths and weaknesses.

Formulating a Study Plan

CAT toppers create a comprehensive study plan that covers all three sections of the exam. They allocate specific time slots for each section and for practicing mock tests. The study plan is often divided into daily, weekly, and monthly goals, making the preparation structured and focused.

Building Conceptual Clarity

Toppers start with building a strong foundation of concepts in each section. They refer to standard textbooks, study materials, and online resources. They focus on clarity and depth of understanding rather than rote learning.

Practice and Mock Tests 

Regular practice is key. Toppers solve a wide variety of questions from different difficulty levels to enhance their problem-solving skills. They take regular mock tests to simulate the actual exam environment. Analyzing mock tests helps identify strengths and weaknesses and fine-tune the preparation strategy.

Time Management

Managing time during the exam is crucial. Toppers practice time-bound sessions to improve speed and accuracy. They learn to quickly assess the difficulty level of a question and decide whether to attempt it immediately or skip it and come back to it later.

Section-wise Strategies

• For VARC: Toppers read extensively to improve reading speed and comprehension. They practice a variety of reading materials, solve previous years' papers, and focus on vocabulary enhancement 
• For DILR: They practice solving complex puzzles, graphs, and data interpretation sets. Developing logical and analytical skills is essential.
• For QA: Toppers focus on practicing a wide range of mathematical problems, including arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and number theory.

Adaptive Learning

As they progress, CAT toppers continuously assess their performance. They focus more on their weaker areas while maintaining their strengths. They modify their study plan based on their performance in mock tests and practice sessions.

Revision

Regular revision of concepts and formulas is crucial to retain information. Toppers allocate time for periodic revision of all sections and notes.

Mental and Physical Well-being

Toppers understand the importance of maintaining good health and stress management. They allocate time for relaxation, exercise, and hobbies to keep their minds fresh and active.

Confidence and Positivity

Toppers maintain a positive mindset throughout the preparation journey. Self-confidence plays a significant role in managing exam pressure.

Seeking Guidance

Toppers often seek guidance from mentors, previous CAT toppers, or coaching experts. They clarify doubts and gain insights into effective strategies.

Last-Month Preparation

In the last month before the exam, toppers focused on taking more full-length mock tests to fine-tune their time management skills and enhance their exam-taking strategy. Also, they do not pick any new topic and simply revise the basic formulas, theorems, and concepts.

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CAT Previous Year Toppers

We have presented below a list of previous year CAT toppers for the candidates' reference. Check these toppers below.

List of CAT 2022 Toppers and Percentiles

List of CAT Toppers 2021 and Percentiles

A list of CAT 2021 Toppers along with their percentiles is provided in the table below:

List of CAT Toppers 2020 and Percentiles

A list of CAT 2020 Toppers along with their percentiles is provided in the table below:

How A Candidate Should Deal With Weak Areas?

Some tips on how to deal with weak areas in the CAT exam are listed below.

• Identify your weaknesses: The first step is to identify your weaknesses. This can be done by taking a practice test or by reviewing your previous test scores. Once you know your weaknesses, you can start to focus on improving them.
• Find resources to help you: There are several resources available to help you improve your weak areas. These resources include books, online courses, and tutoring. Find resources that are tailored to your specific weaknesses and that will help you to learn the material in a way that makes sense to you.
• Practice regularly: The best way to improve your weak areas is to practice regularly. This will help you to become familiar with the material and develop the skills you need to succeed. When you practice, focus on the areas where you are weakest.

Additional Preparational Tips By CAT Toppers

Some CAT preparation tips from toppers are as follows:

• Start early: The sooner you start preparing, the more time you will have to cover all of the material and practice with enough questions.
• Create a study schedule and stick to it: Make sure to create a study schedule that is tailored to your individual needs and that you stick to it. This will help you to stay on track and to make sure that you are covering all of the material.
• Take practice tests: Taking practice tests is a great way to get used to the format of the exam and to improve your speed and accuracy. There are many good resources available online and in libraries that offer practice tests for the CAT.
• Work on your weaknesses: Identify your weaknesses and focus on improving them. There are several resources available online and in libraries that can help you with this.
• Get enough sleep: It is important to get enough sleep on the night before the exam. This will help you to be alert and focused on test day.
• Arrive at the testing center early: This will give you time to relax and to get settled before the exam begins.
• Join a CAT preparation course: A CAT preparation course can help you to learn the material and to get practice with the format of the CAT exam.

Also Read: CAT Preparation Books Recommended by Toppers

CAT Previous Years' Toppers & Their Strategies

We have curated a list of the previous year CAT toppers and their preparation strategies that helped them achieve nearly 100 percentile in the CAT exam. Check out these toppers and their strategies listed below.

CAT 2023: Kartik Bhageria, 99.99 percentiler shares CAT preparation strategies

For the DILR section, persistence is a key but it could get a bit tricky. Sometimes, if you just think about a question for another minute the whole question might get solved but in doing that, you might waste time which can be spent on other questions. So, with practice in CAT mocks, you can get a better idea on how to give time to each question set.

For the Quant section, try to attempt the easier questions first and leave the difficult ones. If you are left with time, you can re-attempt those questions but it is mandatory to at least get the easy questions right.

I attempted 35-40 CAT Mocks tests. Mock tests are incredibly crucial as they simulate exam conditions, help manage time effectively, and identify areas of improvement. Analysing mock tests played a pivotal role in refining my strategy.

CAT 2022: Risshi Agrawal, 99.99 percentiler shares CAT preparation strategies

I started my preparation with VARC subject by identifying 2 out of 4 RCs which are easiest to solve (24 min to solve). Rest focus on the VA aspect. In DILR, start by doing the DI question (often easiest of all) and then focus on 2 of the remaining 3 puzzles. In QA, start filtering the questions as per your strength and attempt them first. For VARC, I read newspapers on a daily basis. I preferred reading topics which were of interest to me like sports and politics. For DILR, I tried to solve a variety of DILR puzzles. My focus was largely towards the LR section since I messed it up the last time. For Quantitative Aptitude, I didn't devote additional time towards it since I was pretty confident in this subject.

CAT 2021: Chirag Gupta, 100 percentiler shares CAT preparation strategies

Chirag started preparing in March 2021. Talking about his preparations he said, "For VARC, I read a lot in general. You can read anything you like. I read fiction mainly and even that helped me a lot. For DILR, I focused on identifying certain types of sets and getting familiarised with them. I applied this strategy in the mock test and read every set in first five minutes. I began the section by doing the easiest DI set/s, then attempted the easier sets of the LR section. It will ensure that you will always clear the sectional cutoffs. For the Quant section, I focused on getting my basics right at the beginning of the preparations. I focused on doing only easy questions first, and later attempted the harder ones."

"I took about 50-60 CAT mock tests, as I think that it is probably the most important aspect of CAT preparation. My exam day strategy was just to stay calm and not think too much about the results."

CAT 2021: Bir Anmol Singh, 99.94 percentiles shares CAT preparation strategies 

Bir Anmol had internship commitments and did not get time to join a coaching institute. He achieved 99.94 percentile through self-study. Talking about his CAT preparation, he said, “I started preparing in April 2021. I solved Arun Sharma sir's CAT books for VARC, LR, DI and Quant. I attempted as many past year CAT questions papers (timed attempt) that I could attempt, on weekends. I used to analyse my shortcomings to improve further.

For Quant and DILR, my academic background helped me a lot. I just practiced and solved many questions without relying on a calculator. For VARC, I read editorials from The Hindu and Mint. Vocabulary was improved after reading "Word Power Made Easy" by Norman Lewis. My VARC strategy was to read more and to improve more. Para jumbles and summary based questions need a lot of practice and critical analysis for understanding the gist of solving such problems.”

CAT 2020: Kshitiz Singhal, 99.99 percentiler shares CAT preparation strategies

Kshitiz Singhal started preparing in July. “Being from an engineering background helped me in my preparation as I am good in Quants. I started my preparation by knowing about the CAT exam pattern and syllabus. Once I completed the syllabus, I started taking mock tests. Although I did not enroll into any coaching institute, I bought study materials and took a mock test series from noted institutes for practice purpose,” he said.

Quant was my strong area and Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC) was my weak area. To improve the VARC section, I took the help of my seniors who are currently pursuing MBA. They told me to work on fundamentals. I reworked on my approach to solving the question. I also analysed my mock tests in detail and identified the areas where I needed to improve. After following this method, my mock test scores started improving, he added.

CAT 2019: Somansh Chordia, 100 percentiler shares CAT preparation strategies

Somansh Chordia practiced a lot of similar questions in VARC together to understand the common types of mistakes that he was committing and this gave him a major boost. After that, he just practiced and analyzed the section through mock tests. In DILR, solving a few questions of each type and practicing through mocks seemed enough for him.

“Practice was specifically important for increasing the speed since accuracy is generally not a concern in this section,” he said. In QA, training in ABACUS helped him solve questions much faster.

CAT 2019: Rishi Mittal, 100 percentiler shares CAT preparation strategies

Rishi Mittal said, “People have this notion that if you read a lot, you can score well in VARC. I think even a non-reader can score in this section, I haven’t ever read a single novel.” When Rishi started his preparation, he was inconsistent, scoring 62 out of 102 or even 18. His seniors and mentors advised him, to work on RC separately, and for each type of question he prepared a strategy. For DILR, he solved TIME and IMS study material. “The more mocks you give the more sets you solve, it’ll get easier for you to crack DILR”, he said.

He practiced a lot for Quant as well. “Similar to DILR, Quant is also experience based. The more you solve [question] the more you learn about new concepts.”

CAT 2018: Rounak Majumdar, 100 percentiler, shares strategies on CAT preparation

22-year-old Rounak Majumdar started CAT preparation in August and would study for 2-3 hours daily. He attempted 30-35 mock test series in total and believes that mock tests conducted by reputed coaching institutions are a must for all CAT aspirants. “My entire preparation was based on taking mock tests. I attempted two mock tests every week and around 40 mock tests in a year. I used to do practice tests on the weekends and analyze my results during the week. Analysing mock tests is more important than actually appearing for them; it helped me understand my shortfalls and device a test strategy,” 

CAT 2018: Swapnil Suman, 100 percentiler, shares strategies on CAT preparation

Swapnil Suman, a Mechanical Engineer, attempted about 54 mock tests for CAT preparation. Swapnil attempted CAT for the first time in 2017 but was not satisfied with his performance, so he decided to give it one more shot in 2018. “I started preparation in August and took mocks of popular coaching institutes. I used to give 3-4 mocks on weekdays during evenings and 1-2 mocks on Sundays. In total, I took 54 mocks. Learning from the previous year, I made sure to analyze each mock and observe what mistakes I was making and tried to learn from each mistake. I believe that turned out to be the game changer this time,”.

"I always had a strong penchant for puzzles and I treated solving DILR as solving puzzles. This is considered to be the most difficult section in CAT, but if one practices enough number of problems, most questions would seem repetitive and can easily be tackled,"

CAT 2017: Chhavi Gupta, 100 percentile, shares strategies on how to prepare for CAT

Chhavi Gupta, 24, found little time to prepare for CAT as she had a full-time job. She studied mostly on the weekends and joined a coaching institute. From the very beginning, she used to give mock tests at least every other weekend and used to analyse for improvement in performance.

"I used to go to work for 5 days a week, and found almost no time during those days. However, I tried to cut down my relaxing time at night and started waking up a bit earlier to get an extra hour to study in the morning. However on weekends I would solely focus on CAT preparation, which meant cutting down going out and meeting my friends and all, but I had to do it as that was the only time I got for preparation," 

CAT 2017: Meet Agrawal, 100 percentile, shares strategies on how to prepare for CAT

Meet Agarwal from Surat, scored 100 percentile in CAT 2017. For this Commerce graduate, the best way to prepare for CAT was attempting mock test papers and analyzing them well to ensure you are moving forward.

“For me, attempting and analyzing CAT mock tests was the best way to prepare. So, I took more than 80 mock tests. After each mock, I analyzed the mistakes and maintained an error log. If you simply avoid making the same mistakes again, the performance improves,” he said.

“I had opted for commerce with math at school, so I was quite comfortable with the QA section. But even for non-Math students, the section shouldn’t be seen as something beyond reach. This is because the section does not test your mathematical prowess but your basic aptitude and comfort with numbers. The focus should be on understanding the logic behind each formula,”

CAT 2017: Madhur Gupta, 100 percentile, shares strategies on how to prepare for CAT

Madhur Gupta, one of the toppers of CAT 2017, and A Mechanical Engineering graduate from Delhi Technological University, Delhi started preparing almost a year before the exam, but boosted up his preparation just four months before the exam.

“I started preparing for CAT 2017 from January and joined TIME for coaching. I ramped up my preparation only in August after quitting my job at Amazon, as Operations Manager. I joined a small start-up alongside CAT preparation from August onwards. In the last-three to four months I gave over 70 mock tests, of different mock series. The number of mocks don’t matter alone. What is important is that one attempts variety of questions so that the possibility of surprise questions in the actual exam is negated. To be able to handle surprise questions is important and that can be done only by attempting a wide variety of mock tests,” he said.

For CAT 2019 aspirants, he said, “They should really focus on attempting lot of mocks but do so only at the later stage when they have completed the course. If they start attempting mocks in the initial stages, without completing the course, they will not score well and that will make them anxious. So don’t start with mock test series before you have completed your course."

CAT 2016: Avidipto Chakraborty, 100 percentile, shares his CAT preparation strategies

CAT 2016 topper Avidipto Chakraborty emphasizes the importance of attempting mock tests. He attempted almost 80 mock tests.

“CAT is a random exam, in the sense that one wouldn’t know what questions will be asked. It is necessary to attempt mocks as they familiarize you with and prepare you for all kinds of scenarios-easy, moderate, difficult, lengthy, vague etc. If you’ve attempted good enough numbers of mocks, nothing will surprise you. It helps you keep your cool while writing the test,” he said.

Another key advice Avidipto suggests for the future CAT aspirants is, “Find people around you who are preparing to take the exam. Be it social media or your own friend circle, connect with people who are doing the same thing as you are, to keep the motivation going."

CAT 2016: Akshay Mehndiratta, 100 percentile, shares his CAT preparation strategies

CAT topper Akshay Mehndiratta feels since it is an aptitude test, what matters is the candidate’s preparation for the exam day. “CAT, I feel is less about knowledge and more about aptitude. And the right way to build that is by practice (mock tests). It is more about how smartly you prepare in the limited time you have. I guess a period of 5-6 months, with concentrated effort for 2-3 days in a week works fine. You would be able to see significant improvement with each passing week.”

About his preparation strategy for CAT he shared, “Typical of an Engineer, I was quite weak in Verbal and RC Section. So my preparation time on Saturday was basically spent on improving that. I used to prepare from TIME Workbooks, Internet and perhaps Sectional Tests. I won’t say my English has improved considerably, but the desired knowledge in Verbal was gained appropriately."

CAT Topper Tips for Exam Preparation

Read more about the previous years' CAT toppers to get key insights on how to prepare for the upcoming CAT exam. 

CAT Preparation Techniques by IIM Toppers

Admission to the prestigious Indian Institute of Management is a dream for almost every CAT aspirant. However, getting to IIM is not that easy after all. For those aiming IIMs for MBA programs, we have curated the best preparation strategies from the toppers themselves. Check these CAT IIM-worthy strategies below.

IIM Kozhikode - Tanya Gupta

Before her admission to IIM, Tanya was working with JP Morgan as an investment banker. She scored 99.97 percent on the CAT exam and bagged IIM Kozhikode as the MBA college. She aims to become a financial market expert post her completion of the course.

According to her, one should start preparing for the CAT exam at least 5 months before and first focus on solidifying all the basics of all the sections. Go for exhaustive numerical practice and solve individual section tests. For her, practicing numericals is the key to performing well in the quant section, and reading regularly aids with the verbal ability & reading comprehension section.

As per her, start practicing mocks 1.5 - 2 months early and assess your strengths and weaknesses rigorously. On the exam day, be calm and go in with a positive approach.

IIM Indore - Soumik Biswas

Soumik is an ex-IBM employee and a 99.94 percentiler in CAT. He says that one should focus on speed, techniques, and choices to ace the quant section and focus on reading to improve the vocabulary. According to him 140 minutes per week are enough to prepare for CAT with a proper schedule and systemized mock tests. 

As per him, time management is the key to ace the exam and one should plan their time effectively and almost perfectly for each section.

IIM Calcutta - Ajit Kumar Gorai

Ajit topped the CAT exam with a 99.87 percentile. As per him, the key to cracking the CAT exam is accuracy and not maximizing the number of attempts. He suggests that one should not waste any time on questions that they are unable to solve, and it is best to just skip those questions and move on to the next question. However, he says that you should read all the questions as you may not know but some problems might be very easy to solve.