Chirag Bhardwaj, 99.31%ile
VARC percentile: 98.33
DILR percentile: 96.84
QA percentile: 99.02
Overall: 99.31
CAT 2019 score was declared on January 4, 2020. One of our students shared his CAT preparation success story. Chirag Bhardwaj, an IT Engineer made it to the 99+ percentilers club. Chirag hails from Delhi and is studying in Maharaja Agrasen Institute popularly known as MAIT, New Delhi. He said that appearing for CAT was one of his dreams and scoring 99.9+ percentile was “just captivating”.
Q. Congratulations, Chirag! Are you satisfied with your score? How much score were you expecting?
A. After the official response sheet came out, I knew I was scoring about 175+ and my final scaled score was 179.27. But after I came out of the exam and before anything was declared, I was pretty scared if I’ll be crossing 150, but this was a pleasant surprise.
Q. Was this your first CAT attempt?
A. Yes, this was my first attempt.
Q. When did you start your CAT preparation ? What was your overall preparation strategy?
A. I started my preparations in September 2018, which is when I started my third year of engineering. I joined Mindworkzz classes for CAT coaching. Then for 5 to 6 months I was referring to these CAT preparation materials and understanding concepts and going through what all needs to be done and how should I go about my preparations. From April onwards, I started attempting mocks and analyzing them. Even in mocks I was consistently getting a decent rank, usually I was in top 10 all over India. Quant and DILR were my strengths and the verbal section was the weak part. So once I knew that I started working on my English to get a decent score and in Quant and DILR section I was doing fairly well.
Q. What was your Strategy for the D-Day?
A. Being a B-tech Student, I was more bent towards Maths. So, I focussed on quants the maximum. My personal focus was to score maximum in this section. I was prepared to do around 25-30 attempts. The coaching and the books from Mindworkzz really helped me. I focussed on doing 5 to 6 sets in the DI Section depending upon the difficulty. VA was a shocker for me as well where I was reluctant and not confident to attempt maximum. But at the D-day, mere focus helped me understand the passages better.
Q. Which books did you refer to for CAT preparation?
A. Like every CAT Aspirant around India, I used Arun Sharma sir’s books with McGraw Hill Publication (which was included with the other study material provided by Mindworkzz).
Q. Did you join any coaching institute? How did it help?
A. I was enrolled with Mindworkzz which was my primary study help for my preparations. The study material was good enough, and I think a good study material is the secret of a 99+ percentiler, but clarity and experience of the questions is also important.
Q. How many mock tests did you attempt?
A. I appeared for around 35-40 mock tests.
Q. Any tips for future CAT aspirants?
A. Focus on your Dream B-School and stay honest with yourself. CAT is not that difficult exam to crack. With shear will and focus, you can easily crack it.
All the Best!!
Q. Which IIMs/institutes are you targeting?
A. Like any other aspirant, I am targeting the top IIMs like IIM A, IIM B etc.
