Here’s the Interview of CAT Topper Parikshit Tomar who cleared the CAT exam with an outstanding score of 99.99%ile and converted IIM Bangalore.
Q: Today we have with us a CAT aspirant who belongs to a small town near Ghaziabad called Pilakhua. He is pursuing his engineering from IIT Kanpur, currently in his final year and has scored a huge score of 99.99%ile. Parikshit, people generally have a notion that the CAT exam is relatively easier for the Engineers, particularly who are from IITs and NIITs. So, what’s your take on that?
PARIKSHIT: No, I don’t agree with that at all. In the first few mocks, my score was very low as I scored only in the 30s and 40s range so I knew that I had to work hard.
Q: So, what made you think of doing an MBA. Where did this idea come from?
PARIKSHIT: So, my father was from IIT Roorkee. He did civil engineering from there and later he left his job and came back to his hometown to teach and nurture all the middle class students. So, that’s the background where I come from. He was the one who pushed me to do MBA because I didn’t want to study much. My motive in the starting was to just enjoy my college life. But then, I got an internship at ITC in the third year of my Engineering. I met a lot of people there and what I learnt from them was that after a point of time you reach a certain limit and only an Engineering degree would not be enough for me. They told me that when a Management aspect gets added in your technical skills, then you get a good growth in your career and as I was a part of a debating society and my brother was also from IIM Indore, so these were the things that encouraged to me to finally think for MBA and appear for the CAT exam.
In May 2022, I gave my first mock test and gave around 20 mock tests in that time span as my summer vacations were also going on and I used to have fun giving the mocks. But the thing was that I was not getting good scores in them, so I took that as a challenge. I used to do mock analysis in depth and that was my primary way of learning and preparing for the CAT exam. After my ITC internship, I got into a proper zone of studying for the exam and then from June 2023 I started the preparation with full motivation.
Q: So, as you started your preparation from 2022 and it took you around 1.5 years to prepare for the CAT, it is quite clear that it is not that easy for the Engineers to crack the Crack exam. So considering that, what was your preparation strategy? Also let us know what were your sectional percentiles?
PARIKSHIT: In VARC, I used to score in the 20s range as I agree with the fact that yes engineers are a bit weak in the VARC section. I was good in English from my childhood but still I was not able to score good in the VARC section of the mocks and from there I got to know that it’s not just about being good in English, I had to work on Comprehensions. So, I used to analyze the mocks and see why my answers are getting wrong and which option is correct and why. initially, It was frustrating for me but later on when i started working on it, my scores started getting increasing in the VARC section
In DILR too, I was struggling a lot. I was scoring in minus also in the mocks so for that i started solving multiple DILR sets. I used to select sets and according to my speed I used to solve all the sets keeping the time limit in mind.
In Quant, I would say that yes JEE helped me in the QA section a lot as my basic mathematics was quite good. But the thing is you have to solve all the questions in the given time limit which is very important. So, in the CAT exam I scored very well in the VARC section as I scored 99.99%ile in it. In DILR, I got 99.8%ile and in quant i got 99.4%ile.
Q: So as we got to know that you had an IITian and IIM post graduate at your house already so for you how was the pressure and how did you handle that?
PARIKSHIT: Yes, there was a pressure of course but apart from that there was a lot of guidance too. My brother had already made it clear to me that okay you are an engineer but still it is not that easy and you have to work on quant to clear the exam.
Watch Parikshit’s full interview here:
Q: Were there any distractions and difficulties in your preparation journey?
PARIKSHIT: Not much but yes there were small distractions as I was in a boys hostel and I love football, so I used to watch the league matches and hang around with the other boys so these were some little distractions but it didn’t affect my preparation.
Q: So, In a period of 1.5 years, how many mock tests did you give?
PARIKSHIT: I gave a lot of mocks, I gave mocks while i was preparing and also when i was not preparing that much like in the winter and summer breaks. So in total, I gave around 100 mocks because as I said earlier, mocks were my primary mode of learning where I used to analyze them and then work on my weak points.
Q: What was your strategy for the mocks and how did you used it in your preparation?
PARIKSHIT: As my speed was good, I used to solve around 20-25 questions in the VARC section and used to analyze it just after the mock so that I remember what questions I attempted wrong and find a concrete answer that why the solution is not right so that i can wok on it. So here iquanta’s mocks helped me a lot as there was AI analysis.
In DILR, I would say that you have to attempt all the sets because that will help you a lot to prepare for DILR. I used to analyze it in the same way I did for VARC and then solve more and more sets.
In QA, according to me it’s about figuring out shortcuts. If your answers are coming out of a shortcut then I would suggest just writing down that shortcut so that you can apply it further and that is going to help you in the CAT exam as well.
Q: So you took our iCAT series and 120 was your highest score which also happened to be your raw score in CAT. What was the thing you liked the most about the iCAT mocks and how was your performance throughout all these mocks?
PARIKSHIT: When I started giving the iQuanta mocks, initially I used to score around 70-80 and then 2 months before the exam I worked hard and then I was scoring around 90-100 in the end. I loved the video solution in the iCAT mocks which was in detail because that helped me a lot. So, overall I will say that the AI analysis of the iCAT mocks was the feature that I liked the most.
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Q: Did you take any Coaching or classes to prepare for the CAT exam?
PARKSHIT: No, I did not take any classes or coachings, I prepared for it by myself. I just gave a lot of mock tests and it was where iQuanta helped me a lot with the iCAT mocks. 50% of my syllabus was done with self study and the rest I did with the help of iCAT mocks. This might not work for everyone but for me it was all that I did in my preparation. The AI analysis gave me all the ideas of where and how I have to work and prepare for the CAT exam.
Q: What if you used to get stuck or face any problem in any question, then how did you use it to solve it?
PARIKSHIT: Here my father helped me a lot. He used to just give me an overview of what I needed to do and rest he just used to leave it to me so that I could prepare myself to solve it on my own.
And for quant, my hostel boys used to help me but I had in my mind that I am the only one that has to do everything on my own so that was the mindset that I had.
Q: Let’s play a Rapid fire round and see how you perform here.
- IIM Ahmedabad or FMS?
PARIKHSIT: IIM Ahmedabad - Job in India or abroad?
PARIKSHIT: India - IIT Kanpur of IIT Bombay?
PARIKSHIT: IIT Kanpur - Startups or MNC?
PARIKSHIT: MNC - What’s your ideal day as a CAT aspirant?
PARIKSHIT: The days where I don’t want to give mocks
