By B.S. Jayakesh
IIMA PGP Class of 2006
I was working in a company during the time I decided to prepare for CAT and so there was not much time to devote for preparation. But I tried a simple systematic approach and that worked! Whatever preparation I did started during September. I gave a full length test one weekend and then analysed it and classified topics according to the need for preparation.

The analysis was such that for every unattempted question, I asked why I didn’t attempt it. Was it taking time or was I not sure of the concepts or not confident due to lack of practice. For the questions, which were wrong, I found the mistakes and saw why it happened. And for the right ones; I rechecked whether I took the fastest route.
After that deep analysis, I classified the various topics for maths and DI. For conceptual issues, I referred to the IMS material and for developing speed and confidence, I practiced using some short tests. DI is dependent on practice, so I did some short tests and concentrated on arriving at the answers without pencil. For English, I read a lot of news articles and a novel, deliberately trying to increase speed. Though I tried to do some wordlists, it did not work out. Actually vocab building shud be taken as along term measure.
In fact I gave very few full length tests during my initial preps. But towards send of November, I gave full-length tests to get that stamina for staying focused for 2hrs at a length. And the day before the exam, unlike some people advise, I gave one full length test during the same time slot to adjust my biological clock to the conditions.
I joined a coaching centre to get some practice for the GD and did some introspection to fill the forms and prepare for the interviews. From my experience, being true to oneself is the best bet for the interviews.
Jayakesh did his B.Tech from IIT, Delhi and Summered with one of India's leading Automobile companies.
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