I am one among the 2 lac students that appeared for CAT2006. I am in the list of 2.5 lac students that wrote CAT2007. And again, I'm here, writing CAT2008.
How the journey of preparation for CAT is one of self-realisation?
My major 'intellectual' transformation, if I can say, happened actually during these 3 years of my CAT preparation. Although business is not something people would associate me with, I would want to show how a business with a human face is all we need for such turbulent times as now. After writing an engg entrance exam and not getting into it despite getting a fairly good rank came as a blessing in disguise. I got a good peer group in my graduation and they helped me to start understanding the outside world. I started reading newspapers, yes you heard it right, I never read a newspaper before 19 years of age. It looked like Greek and Latin to me in the initial days, but now it is an integral part of my everyday life. I now can form an opinion of my own on most of the issues, especially that India face today.
Then I joined TIME to get the training for CAT. Although I've heard many debates regarding the efficiency of coaching institutes, I for one felt that coaching is indeed needed at least to get the initial push. Developing a good rapport with the lecturers and getting into conversations about the changing face of CAT is very much an essential part of the training. I had a good backing from some of the lecturers and despite not managing to get a decent score in CAT2006, I still truly respected the trainers for showing faith in me.
CAT2007 was very much a short journey with less practice and minimum preparation that ended up in me screwing up the paper. But I still thought that one more try is worth it. So began CAT2008. After a lot of hiccups, I started preparing slowly. Every time I used to make the best of schedule towards my preparation and ended up learning that planning without execution is a sheer waste of time. I understood the flaws in me. I thought my sedentary life style, thanks to the growing IT industry, coupled with my laziness had made me totally sluggish. I had still not overcome this weakness. I learnt that although I can put my best of efforts towards my preparation, I was actually not doing so. I had blamed my work pressure, besides other unsaid factors, for my weak preparation. Actually I was not wrong at pointing out the factors that led to my present situation; I could not still get over those things.
It is October now and it is just over a month to go before CAT. Am I prepared to face the challenge? No, sadly. I am on my way of seeing myself losing the same battle for the third time. I have been giving a half-hearted go at CAT all these years. But why am I spoiling my crucial time writing the same exam again and again without being sure that one day I would crack it? I do not know. I had been weak in English. All I could do was to manage to read newspapers daily. I round off the words whose meanings I do not know, but I almost never looked at them again. I did some sectional preparation too. I am 'ok' in quant. All I did was to analyse the aimcats and nothing more. I'm weak in DI. I am trying to practice and analyse the aimcats, which I think is sufficient to see me sail through the main exam. If I can manage to practice a lot in QA and DI and giving a good look at verbal section-wise, then who knows, I may be really ready to face the D-day.
But,..... I still can't find myself in the crowd fighting to get into the best of institutes to study MBA. :-(
