Here’s the Interview of CAT Topper Karal Maheshwari, who cleared the CAT exam in his third attempt by moving from 83%ile to 99.03%ile.
Q: Congratulations Karal on finally clearing the CAT exam with such a good score. Please tell us a bit about your journey.
KARAL: Hello, I am from Udaipur, Rajasthan and have done B.Tech from Maharana Pratap University of Technical Technology and engineering. I have 12 months of work experience. I had quit my job to prepare for the CAT exam and pursue my dream of doing an MBA.
Q: What were your scores in the CAT exam?
KARAL: Overall I scored 99.03%ile in the CAT exam. In VARC, I scored 95.61, In DILR it was 98.71%ile and 98.54%ile in the Quants section.
Q: How was your preparation, how many mocks did you give and how many hours in a day you took for the preparation?
KARAL: Talking about the sectional mocks, I gave 10 sectional mocks for each section and around 40-45 full mocks. For my preparation, I used to give 8-9 hours per day including the reading time.
Q: What was your strategy to approach the CAT exam?
KARAL: I started preparing for the CAT exam in the month of June. In the starting I gave some mocks to analyze my weak and strong areas and started working on it. For VARC, I would read 3-4 articles and 2-3 RCs on a daily basis for practice because the level of passage in the CAT exam is high and to solve that within the time limit you need to have good practice.
In DILR, there is no specific resource for preparation, So I used to solve the past year papers and solve 2-3 sets daily to analyze the difficulty level of the sets.
Quants are something that can be a game changer for someone because you need to have your basics strong otherwise you can mess up the whole question and that can become a problem in the exam as well. So, I used to give the sectional mocks, analyze my weak spots, work on them and then would give another sectional mock to see how much improvement I had made.
Q: You mentioned that you Quit your job to prepare for the exam. So, how difficult was this decision for you?
KARAL: Yes, it was a very tough decision for me. I was working in a manufacturing firm, where I used to give 14-16 hours to my work including traveling. So, Looking at the nature of my job, it became necessary for me to quit it and focus completely on my preparation.
Q: As we know that this was your third CAT attempt, So what was the difference this time that made you jump from 83%ile to 99%ile?
KARAL: I believe the major difference was the mock tests as in the first 2 attempts, I did not have any focus on the mocks and that was the mistake that I made because mock tests are very important for any CAT aspirant who is preparing for the exam. So, this time I started off my preparation with mocks only and paid full attention to the mock tests and gave as many mocks as possible.
Q: We know that giving mocks and analyzing them is a very important thing to do during the preparation. So, what was your strategy to analyze the mocks?
KARAL: I used to take around 4-6 hours to analyze the mocks. In the last 2 attempts, I just used to see the answers and would practice to make sure that I would get the correct answer on the next mock. But, this time I gave much attention to the mocks, as I not only saw that which of my answers were not correct but also paid attention to the correct approach and clarity.
Q: When you went to Udaipur, how did you do your preparation?
KARAL: When I went to Udaipur, I searched for a coaching because this time I wanted to have a structured approach and right motivation towards my preparation. For 10-15 days I kept on searching online coaching for CAT and then I found iQuanta.
Q: What was the reason for choosing iQuanta among all other coaching centers?
KARAL: I chose iQuanta because the timing of the classes was very tempting as the classes would happen at night. Along with that, the facebook community of iQuanta is very helpful as everyone in the community is very interactive and always ready to help each other. Apart from all these things there are mocks, daily practice questions and many other resources that helped me a lot to score 99%ile in the CAT exam.
Q: What was the biggest challenge that you faced in these 3 years of your Preparation journey?
KARAL: The toughest situation for me was when I had quit my job to pay full attention to my preparation. That time there was a pressure on me that I have to get a good score in this attempt as I have quit my job for it and also it was my third attempt. But with regular practice and study there were motivational sessions that Indrajeet Sir used to conduct and it helped me a lot to maintain my calm.
Q: One last question for you. What’s the 1 piece of advice that you would like to give to the other aspirants?
KARAL: The 1 advice that I would like to give to other aspirants is that you need to focus on the mocks but not get demotivated if you get low scores. Many aspirants are afraid of mocks and get demotivated when they get low scores and then they start comparing those scores with their overall preparation and at the end they end up not giving the exam. You need to remember that mocks are just a part of your preparation and the scores will increase after a period of time. So, just focus on your preparation and be positive during the exam as well as during the preparation.
