Hi guys, and welcome back to the channel. When I was thinking about exactly for whom this video is being made, I was confused among three choices: The person who started their preparation in the month of April. The person who has already started but may be struggling with motivation or consistency. And thirdly, the person who is retaking the exam, who appeared for CAT 2023 or has taken multiple attempts. So I thought that I can't play unfair with any category, that's why I have created three different sections in the timestamps for the three categories. So whichever category you belong to, you can directly click on it. We are starting with our first category, the person who has just started their preparation. Welcome to this CAT preparation marathon. Within it, you will need a master plan because it's quite a grueling exercise spanning 6-8 months, and you have exactly that much time. The first thing you need is resources, meaning what materials you will use to start your preparation. Firstly, you should know what the basics of CAT are. How long is the paper, what is the duration, how many questions, what is the pattern, and which sections are there. All these basic details will be available to you in a single video that I made a few months ago. So, watching this video will be the first step for you. The second thing is the syllabus of the CAT exam. For this, I have created a PDF file. You can directly check it out. It contains the entire syllabus, which chapters are included & even on the 2nd page, you will find a trend analysis indicating how many questions come from which chapter every year. The third resource you need is preparation material, such as which videos to watch for preparation, where to find questions, and which mock tests to use. In this, there are two ways. You can do self-preparation or you can take coaching. I will talk about both, but if you want to self-prepare, I have created a sheet that can be helpful for you. It includes videos, questions, and even mock tests. Now that we have covered the material & resources. How do we start our preparation? You will start with a demo mock. Demo mock is also referred to as a diagnostic mock. The basic idea is to take the past year paper of CAT 2023. You have to solve all three sections one by one, taking as much time as you want and attempting as many questions as you like. At the end of that mock, it won't matter how many questions you got right. What matters is which section you felt uncomfortable and which section you felt comfortable with. The section with which we feel comfortable generally becomes our strength, and the ones with which we feel uncomfortable are termed as weakness. By this, you will figure out in the coming months which section you need to focus on or which section is your weakness for covering your syllabus. Like when I was preparing, quant was my weakness, so I devoted most of my time to preparing for quant. So, this is your first step. After that, comes our preparation. For preparation, you first need to set a deadline. I would recommend that you set a deadline for yourself by the end of July or August, stating that you need to cover your syllabus by then. Covering the syllabus means that you should have practiced every single chapter's easy questions. Now, how many questions are enough? Within DILR, it's about 500 sets, within VARC, it's about 500 RCs, and within Quant, it's almost 2000 questions. Now, where will you source this material? As I mentioned, there are two ways. If you are self-preparing, you can use that sheet. Also, there are some self-preparation books such as Arun Sharma, Nishit K Sinha, Oswaal Books. You can try out any of these books. Most students opt for coaching either because they feel their concepts are not clear or they believe they need someone else's guidance and discipline to stay consistent. If you are considering taking CAT coaching, one good institute you can consider is iQuanta, which is also a partner in this video. In CAT 2023, iQuanta achieved record-breaking results such as 200+ (99 percentilers) & 750+ (95 percentilers). The reason behind such results is that iQuanta not only provides live sessions to complete its syllabus but also has a rigorous 7-step process through which you not only understand the concepts but also learn to apply them. The proof of this lies in the feedback from their first batch, which started in January. iQuanta has recently released its CAT books, which will be a set of 12 CAT books, designed at the level of CAT 2023. On the homepage of iQuanta's website, you will find an exclusive section for CAT sessions through which you can check their teaching style before enrolling. Just below that, you will also see a full course for CAT 2024 along with its features and timeline. In this course, you get 24/7 doubt-solving support. If you want to check out or join iQuanta's CAT 2024 batch, I'll add its links in pinned comment and description. You can go there and check it out. So, these were the two ways through which you can complete your syllabus by, let's say, the end of August. But you might wonder which chapter to start with and then by when I should finish that chapter. For this, I have created this timetable for those students who are starting from April. In this, you can click on a chapter listed at the top, and its deadline will be shown to you. Then, when you move to the next chapter, you will also see the deadline there. This way, you can map out your entire preparation, if you want to finish your syllabus by end of August, deciding what routine to follow. Now let's move on to our second type of students. These are my favorite category of students who started their preparation quite early. But at this point, the biggest challenge for them will be consistency or a lack of motivation. The reason why these are my favorite candidates. First, because I also started my preparation a bit early, almost 1.5 years of preparation for me. And the second reason is that recently, I've also been struggling with my motivation levels. So, I was very excited for this particular category because if I found a solution for motivating myself and overcoming the problems I am facing, I am sure I can share that solution with you too. I am very, very happy to share that I have found that solution. So let us start with your problem. If you want to feel fulfillment while doing any task, first thing you need is 'Passion', second 'Skills', and third 'Purpose', meaning why you are doing it. I came across this equation in Jay Shetty's book 'Think Like a Monk', and I absolutely loved it because it solved my problem. Purpose means why you are doing any task. You have to be absolutely honest with yourself. Your purpose can be anything—status, money, the tag of IIM, a flashy life, or perhaps the improvement of others, where you reach a level where you have money, power, and status symbols so that you can change someone else's life. Your purpose can be anything. You only have to be true to yourself. Behind that come skills. Skills mean what qualities you have. You don't need to be good at math; that is not the skill. Skills could be that you are disciplined, you can study for long hours, you are quite focused, you are very curious, you have the ability to learn, or your willpower is very strong; these are your skills. You should be aware of your skills, which are consistent when you perform any activity. And just before that what most people's problem is, that is 'Passion'. Now, you might ask, can I feel passionate about something like quant? At least, I cannot imagine myself being passionate about quant. No, that is not what passion is. You may be passionate about music. Can you combine music with your preparation such that your skills help achieve that purpose? Let me explain. Can you do it in a way that you solve quant questions while listening to music? Let's say you're a big foodie & eating food is your passion. In that case, can you reward yourself with treats every time you achieve your goal? Or if painting is your passion, can you use colors to practice equations? I remember in the movie 'Taare Zameen Par', Aamir Khan teaches Ishaan to write letters using colors because painting is his passion. Similarly, if you enjoy spending time in nature, can you take a book or an article & sit in a park to read it? Basically, what are we doing? We are mixing our passion with our skill set so that we can achieve that purpose. It will keep you motivated throughout your journey. We finally come to the third type, those who are repeating. Many people may have also appeared for CAT 2023, and it's possible they appeared in 2022 as well. It's possible that those were not their genuine attempts. Now, what does a genuine attempt mean? The attempt in which you prepared well, understood concepts, solved materials, and attempted at least 10-12 mocks. Look, there can be only four cases. Either you made a genuine attempt and your score was below the 80th percentile. In that case, it's necessary to understand your weaknesses. In the second case, you made a genuine attempt and your score is above the 80th percentile. In this case, your sole focus will become using mocks because you already know what your strengths and weaknesses are. You just need to focus on strategy. If you can score above 80, you can also score above 99. The 3rd case is where your attempt was not genuine and your score is below the 80th percentile. You will have to go back to the beginning. You will need to practice from scratch. The 4th case is where your attempt was not genuine, but your score is above the 80th percentile. This means that your basics are clear somewhere. You just need practice. For example, IITians. They may have already scored good numbers, but it wasn't their genuine attempt. That's because their basics are already clear. They just need practice. So, it's not necessary that if you have a weakness in any section or a weak chapter, then in that case, you have to excel in it or get the highest score. No. You just need to average it out. You need to bring it to a level where it doesn't pull down your overall marks anymore. So, for those who made a genuine attempt last year but scored below the 80th percentile, they need to strengthen their basics of their weaker areas, clarify concepts again, and practice. So that when they take mocks, they only and only analyze those weaker areas to see if they are averaging out or not. This is broadly the strategy to prepare for CAT 2024 starting from the month of April. I hope this video has helped you. If you have any questions, just type in the comments. See you the next time, guys.
