Here’s the Interview of CAT Topper Pavan Chaudhary who cracks the CAT Exam with a score of 99.73%ile and converts Top IIMs and IITs.
Q: Today we have with us a CAT Aspirant who clears the CAT exam with such a huge score of 99.73%ile, converting the top IIMs and IITs. Pavan, congratulations on that, let’s talk about your percentile in sectionals and all the top B-schools that you have converted.
PAVAN: My overall percentile is 99.73%ile. In the VARC section I scored 95.3%ile, DILR 96%ile and 99.9%ile in the quant section. I have been called for interviews from almost all the IIMs, IIT Bombay and MDI gurgaon. I have converted IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Calcutta, IIT Bombay, MDI and also IIM Indore.
Q: How were your Interviews and what questions were asked from you?
PAVAN: In the interviews, basically they have been focusing not on the profile but mostly on the general issues and in every interview, it is different. In the IIM Calcutta interview, it was more of a mathematics based interview and in the IIM Ahmedabad, it was more on economics. In the IIM Bangalore Interview, it was only on my profile and in the IIM Kozhikode interview, it was a graduation type of interview.
Q: I can see that you have 7 months of work experience, so did they ask about this also?
PAVAN: Not many of the times, I was asked about it in just 1 or 2 Interviews, they mostly ask about it when you have more than 1 year of work experience.
Q: How difficult was it for you to make a balance between your job and CAT preparation?
PAVAN: As I am from the mechanical engineering field, it was difficult for me to maintain a balance, So because of iQuanta only, i was able to make it and I didn’t have any other resources. There were daily practice questions and the night classes were the most beneficial for me because of the timings that were from 9 to 12 in the night. As I was a working professional, I had done most of my preparation at night time only and that’s where iQuanta helped me.
Q: When did you join iQuanta and what was the motivation behind joining it?
PAVAN: I had joined iQuanta in batch 2, where the classes started from April. Before that, I had been self-studying and searching study material from different sources on the Internet. I found that the study materials were not updated so I had to search for a good coaching center. I chose IQuanta because of the night classes and their assignment classes. What attracted me the most was the involvement of the founder in the classes and the 24/7 doubt solving. I used to put doubts at around 10 at night also and it was solved within 1 hour. So, these were the things that I really like about iQuanta.
Q: Which section of CAT were you more concerned about and how did you tackle it?
PAVAN: As I am an engineering student, So from childhood I was not that much focused on the VARC section, So for that I followed some basic principles like reading and Solving comprehensions on a daily basis. For the first 3-4 months I followed this pattern of solving and reading Comprehensions and reading various articles, like the gender based articles mostly and in the mock season, I had been focusing mainly on the strengths like on the science and history paragraphs.
Q: What were the sources from where you had been reading the articles and passages?
PAVAN: I have been reading mostly the business articles like the business columns in the Hindu Articles and the articles that were posted by iQuanta also.
Q: How was your performance in the iQuanta mocks?
PAVAN: In the VARC section, mostly my performance was not good enough and in the DILR and Quant Section my performance was above average. So overall, all of my iQuanta mocks were just average or above average. In the last 2-3 months I made improvements mostly in the VARC section.
Q: Did you write any other management exam rather than CAT and according to you, how important are they?
PAVAN: I had written the XAT EXAM where I had scored around 97 percentile. I had applied for XAT after CAT only because of all the speculations going around that the paper was tough. It gave me a lot of hope as I had scored this 97%ile only within 15 days of preparation as most of the syllabus was common. And the XAT exam is also an important exam as it is required for B Schools l IIFT Delhi and XLRI Jamshedpur. So, I had this exam as a backup.
Q: How did a day in your life look like when you were preparing for the CAT exam and what was your daily schedule?
PAVAN: My daily schedule was not on the time basis, it was on how much task I have to complete on a daily basis. I used to solve 3-4 RCs daily and would surely read at least 1 article, 3 DILR sets and 15-20 quant questions which on some days I used to increase it to 30-40 questions. So my target was to complete all these tasks before I go to sleep.
Q: Aspirants often go through stress and anxiety during their preparation, So how did you tackle it?
PAVAN: For that I just used to talk to my family. My father has always been very supportive, like when I was not happy with my job, he encouraged me so much. And apart from that on some days I just used to read books as meditation.
Q: What was your strategy for the exam day? Was it different from the other days while you were preparing or was it the same?
PAVAN: In the last month I had been giving mocks only so I was pretty confident that I would score easily around 97%ile so it was not like some other day. It looked to me as if I was going for a mock test.
Q: So after solving the mocks, analyzing it is the most important thing to do, So how did you used to analyze the mocks?
PAVAN: Mostly in the VARC section, I have been focusing upon how I have solved the question and if there is any improvement then I used to work on it.
Q: What according to you is the most important thing that an Aspirant should keep in mind while preparing for the CAT exam?
PAVAN: You should be able to know about your strengths and weaknesses within the starting 2 months of your preparation so that you can work on them first. In the quant section, everybody should just focus on the topics which have the most weightage rather than focusing on all the topics. So, from my point of view, selective study is more important.
Q: If there’s one tip that you would like to give to the other CAT aspirants, what would that be?
PAVAN: I would say that don’t be afraid and just be confident.
Q: What’s your feedback about iQuanta? The way that the classes happen and how are the assignments and the mocks? How would you rate it?
PAVAN: I would rate it nearly about 9.5 out of 10 and definitely because of the daily practice sessions, DILR sets, articles and the daily classes. And talking about the IIM ABC batch, it is one of the Prime things. In the last 2 months, I made most of my improvements in the VARC section and the faculty here at iQuanta helped me a lot. The 24/7 doubt solving that used to happen daily is the thing that was most different from all the other coachings and it definitely helps a lot.
