Aditya Biyani
Batch of 2000-02.
IIM-Ahmedabad.

I took the CAT 99 only for the 6 IIMs. I didn't want to go to any 2nd rung B-School. Further , I believe in "Burning your Bridges"- if you have only 6 schools, you are bound to work extra hard. I got calls from all the six IIMs and converted all 6, and here I am in IIM-Ahmedabad. My preparation was gradual and steady. I worked for about 1.5-2 hours for about 2-3 months till Aug. and then for about 3-4 hours till Oct. In Nov. I took a number of Mock CATs to fine tune my strategy.

TIPS

Be REGULAR. This is most important.

Join a coaching class, but make sure it is not a shady one.

Read a lot, specially abstract topics, like sociology, psychology... Ideally your reading speed should be around 400 words and above (depending on the type of passage) by the mid-Nov.

Pace your preparation steadily. Ensure that you "peak" around 1st week of Dec.

Practice mental maths, like 2 by 2 and 3 by 3 digit divisions. This would give you the requisite speed in Data Interpretation.

Practice Maths regularly.

After taking Mock CATs , ANALYSE your mistakes, as to where you could have done better. Also make sure that you read the whole paper and not leave out any "sitters". These are generally placed after a "toughie".

Find out your strength areas, where you need to maximise your marks.Also spend a separate 1 hour on your weak area DAILY.

All the best!

Aditya Biyani
Batch of 2000-02.  IIM-Ahmedabad.