Snapshots

Name: Harshal Parikh
Graduation College: DJ Sanghvi College of Engineering (Mumbai University)
Course: B.E. in Electronics and Telecommunications
Graduation Aggregate: 66.5%
Pursuing/Pursued MBA from: Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Raipur
Corresponding entrance test & score: Common Admission Test (CAT) – 99.87 percentile

GD/PI calls from:

• Indian Insitute of Management (IIM) - Calcutta
• Indian Insitute of Management (IIM) - Lucknow
• Indian Insitute of Management (IIM) - Ranchi
• Indian Insitute of Management (IIM) - Raipur
• Indian Insitute of Management (IIM) - Rohtak
• Indian Insitute of Management (IIM) - Trichy

GD/PI calls converted:

• Indian Insitute of Management (IIM) – Lucknow*
• Indian Insitute of Management (IIM) - Raipur
• Indian Insitute of Management (IIM) – Rohtak

*For Post-Graduate Programme in Agri-Business Management (PGP ABM)

Preparation:

I started in preparing for CAT in March 2010 which I felt was enough time to be well prepared for an entrance exam in November. I am not quite used to rigorous studying and this time again I just used my travelling time & lecture hours at college ;-) ...never studied anything apart from this.

I used the practice material provided by my classes and appeared for a few online tests. Verbal was where I needed to improve. I made it a habit to read newspapers & novels regularly. Reading online articles would help to a great extent as the final test is online too. To improve my vocabulary, I learnt up all the words using GRE flash cards which in turn boosted my confidence.

Quant was something that never troubled me and I persistently scored well in that section. I didn't have to spend much time on it and could concentrate more on my weakness which was Verbal. I worked so hard that in the end my verbal percentile was 99.82 whereas my Quant percentile was 96.66 !!

Advice to juniors:

Coaching classes are helpful, regular homework is a must and do not cheat yourself in tests as this would not help you in the actual CAT (they have good security measures!!). Improve your weaknesses, and strengthen your strengths. Study smartly, don't work like an ass. Online CAT is extremely easy when you are not nervous about it. DO NOT BE NERVOUS AT ANY POINT DURING ANY OF THE ENTRANCE TESTS.