Here’s the Interview of Jatin Singla who cleared the CAT exam with 99.3 percentile.
Q: Today we have with us an Aspirant who cleared CAT with 99.3%ile. We have with us Jatin Singla who works in a Top company – Reliance and yet managed to clear the CAT exam with such good marks. So Jatin, Let’s start off by knowing how you managed to prepare for the CAT exam while having a full time job and what did a day in your life look like?
JATIN: Basically Reliance follows a culture of 5 days a week which includes 45 hours of work which is roughly 9 hours a day so even if you manage a good sleep of 8 hours then also you will find a good time for the preparation including your coaching, self study and all. So, this was the calculation that I had in my mind, that okay this is how I can do it. Along with this I had a positive factor that I had motivation that I can do this, so this thing really helped me a lot in my preparation.
I had a target of attending the office for a strict 9 hours. I made sure that I did not spend even a single minute at the office and that was a thing that I followed for 5-6 months of my preparation, when my preparation was at its peak. I used to come home after office at 7pm and iQuanta classes used to begin at 10 in the night. So for me it was 2 hours before the class and 2-3 hours after the class for self study. I used to sleep at around 2:30 am and get up at 8:30 am in the morning and then repeat the same cycle everyday. Apart from this, there were times when I used to feel burnt off so sometimes I took 2-3 days off from my office. So, this is how I managed to do my preparation.
Q: When according to you is the ideal time to start the CAT preparation and what study material and reference material you used for your preparation?
JATIN: I believe before you start your preparation, it is good to do a basic evaluation of what your current standing is so that it can form a base for your entire preparation journey because if you are good with basics then there is no need to go for some basic level books or references and waste time. So, a general evaluation is one thing that I think one should definitely follow.
And then, subsequently one should go for a full time CAT course according to their preferred timings and decide how they want to proceed because no matter what study material you follow you just need to find what suits you the best. In my case, I never followed a particular material. I just followed the iQuanta group. I used to solve the doubts in my office time whenever there was a doubt posted in the group. The positive advantage that I had was that I already had my basics cleared in all the 3 sections so I started in June and still managed to study and clear all the concepts. So, if your basics are clear then yes you can start the preparation in the month of May or June. Just start from the mock season ( May, June and July) and go till the end if your basics are already clear.
Watch Jatin’s Interview here :
Q: According to you, when should an Aspirant start giving mocks, how many mocks he/she should give and do you really need to complete the entire curriculum before you appear for the CAT exam?
JATIN: As I said, if you are clear with your basics then straight away just start with the mocks because the first set of mocks are very basic level mocks and these are the confidence boosters for most of the aspirants because you can easily score more than 50% marks in these mocks and if you are not scoring 50-60% in these mocks then it means that your basics are not clear and you need to start from the basics. So according to me June is the time when everyone should try to give mocks and see where they stand.
Secondly, the number of mocks one should give depends upon how you are doing in the mocks. 2 mocks a week is enough if you are scoring good but if the score is not good then the number should be increased. The most important thing about the mocks is analyzing the mocks rather than the number of mocks that you are giving. If you are scoring good in mocks and analyzing it well then you are pretty much sure that I am going well and you are focused more on what is required rather than how many mocks you should give. But still, In general I would say 30-40 mocks are sufficient if it’s of good quality.
Q: There are many Aspirants who get discouraged when they don’t get good marks in the mocks. So, what’s your advice to them?
JATIN: This used to happen to me also. So for that I followed the advice that you once gave me in a motivational video that “One should not take these mocks as a final exam, these mocks are just a tool for your preparation”. So if you are doing well then do not get carried away and if you are not scoring good then it is the perfect time for you to analyze these mocks and know where you need to work. Once, I also scored 10%tile in LRDI mock so i have gone through that phase too but if you keep working on those areas then you will definitely make it.
Q: In your case, you took an online coaching rather than offline. So, why did you take that decision and how it helped you in your preparation?
JATIN: One of the major reasons was the timings of the iQuanta classes and secondly I would say that what is the output that you are getting because if you go for an offline coaching, the teachers don’t ask you to give the feedback of the classes. I took some demo offline classes but no one asked about any feedback but in the online classes, especially in iQuanta I found that the teachers are always there to take the feedback of the students and implement what is required. So, this was the major difference that I found between the online and the offline classes.
And talking about how it helped me, It was always there to help me. I could take out my mobile phone and start studying. There was no time wasted in traveling here and there, so there was no limit to learning once you are enrolled in an online coaching.
Q: One final question to you before you head to IIFT Delhi, what’s the one advice that you would like to give to all the other CAT Aspirants?
JATIN: As a mediocre student, I do not have a good profile that these top B schools look for, I do not have the interests and hobbies that the interviewers look for. So, for candidates like me it always comes down to how good you perform in the interviews. So along with the CAT preparation, don’t forget to prepare for the interviews. You can prepare for the interviews with continuous reading, read 3-4 articles daily, it will help you in the VARC section too. One of the good things that I liked about iQuanta was that they used to post daily articles. I remember a day when Indrajeet Sir posted a link called “excel reader”, where you can test your reading speed and improve it and he also used to put up the articles and ask the students to summarize it in limited words, which really helped. So, these are some things that everyone should follow because CAT is not only about the entrance exam, it’s much more than that.
