Hi everyone and welcome back to the channel. I'm extremely excited for this video because in the entire CAT preparation journey, if there is one video that you should definitely watch carefully and in fact, take notes as well, Then, this is that video. Because if you'll be able to visualize the journey on a piece of paper, you'll have the exact idea by when to finish the syllabus, how much effort/hours/questions per day are required? All these questions that an aspirant may think of will be answered in this video. Before starting, let me introduce myself if you're new to the channel and if you're a regular viewer, I have a request from you. So, my name is Shweta Arora. I have completed my MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. I scored 99.09 percentile in the CAT exam. My dream upon completion of my MBA was to bridge that information gap. There was not a lot of info out there about MBA, so I had to struggle to find answers to these questions. And there was no MBA in my family to guide me. So, I really wanted to be that guide for someone who doesn't have one in their family. For the regular viewers, I have a request from you to support the channel with likes/comments because it helps in reaching more students and I'd really want that. Now, finally, let's start the video. It may be possible that when you're watching the video, CAT is 11 months away. Or it may be possible, you're watching this in Apr/May and you have only a few months left. It doesn't really matter because the tasks we're supposed to do and the order in which we're supposed to do them is the same, the only difference will be that if you have lesser time left, you'll of course have to put in much more effort in a day as compared to someone starting 11 months prior to CAT. The daily routine I'm about to share will span from Dec to Nov, but if you're a repeater or you're starting off late you can squeeze/alter it basis how much time you have left. So, let's start with the 3 phases of your CAT preparation journey. If I were to draw a timeline from Dec to Nov, I'll be able to divide it into 3 parts. The first stage is from Dec till Feb that is also called the Warmup Stage. To illustrate what the warmup stage entails, I'll give you an example of exercising. Whenever you start your fitness journey, you don't lift heavier weights initially, and the reason is you can get injured due to heavier weights. Similarly, if you're beginning your CAT preparation journey, and you're thinking of solving 50/100 questions a day, then you can surely do it, especially if you're a repeater but you may end up getting burnt out quickly. That is why we need a preparation schedule that is only a warmup initially and slowly, its slope keeps increasing, we practice more gradually. In this first stage, there are 5 tasks we are supposed to perform. First, let me share what those 5 tasks are and then I'll share their time allocation during the day. What are those 5 tasks: 1. Reading When you'll solve reading comprehensions, or you'll be reading Quant statements, you'll need a good reading speed. And that's why you need to read on a day-to-day basis. 2. Mental Math For all your calculations to become faster, you need calculation speed for this you can refer to Vedic Math or other calculation tricks videos on YT. 3. Getting accustomed to Puzzles In the logical reasoning section, you need a logical bent of mind, I've used this word several times on the channel, you need a bent of mind that enjoys solving puzzles and decoding them. To build such a mindset, you need to solve puzzles like Sudoku, Kakuro, that helps in developing this ability. 4. Solve some questions. On a daily basis, you need to solve some questions that I'll explain later how many questions from which section for now, just remember to solve questions on a daily basis. 5. Make your formula book. The questions you'll be solving in the Quant section will reveal some formulas you would never come across earlier You'll also find some new tricks there. Remembering all these mentally will become too much. A formula book is a notebook and I'll show mine for a reference in which you note all these down. Its advantage is that when you finish your preparation, it'll become easy for you to recall all these concepts. These are the 5 tasks to be done in the warmup stage and the next agenda is to allocate time to each one of them. But before moving to that, let me give a shoutout to today's sponsor which is Studybuzz. They're offering a useful resource to all of you at no cost at all. When we start our CAT prep journey, we have many questions regarding our profile, which all MBA colleges are there which all exams are there and many others shared here. So, on 24th December, Studybuzz is organizing an event called Kickstart 23 from 8-12pm and in these 4 hours, they will host multiple sessions e.g. they'll bring their ex-toppers, they'll invite their faculty to talk about these questions and you may ask any doubts that you may have during the sessions. The major agenda of this event is to cater to all your questions so that you can address them before starting your prep. Hence, I believe this will be of great value. Registering for this event is absolutely free of cost. You'll find a link in the pinned comment and description. After filling it up, they'll share the link to the Zoom invite. If you're watching this after 24th Dec, even then you can check out the link in comment & description you'll get to know how to access the recording of this event. For any other updates, you can directly subscribe to their channel because they share regular updates about the exam. Now, in one day, those 5 tasks that we discussed, how much time should we devote to them and how to allocate them during the day. Your day will start with reading. After waking up and before you go to college/job, you'll read for 30 minutes. Here I'll recommend 4 sources to you you can start with any of these 4 you can even try different sources to see which one is working for you. The first is Live Mint. The second is The Hindu. The third is The Indian Express And finally, Finshots. You don't have to use any of these in physical mode. Many of them are newspapers, You don't have to read a physical newspaper, you have to do online reading and the reason is, you'll be taking the final exam in desktop mode. So, you have to scroll in case of a desktop. To practice that, you should read in the same format. So, go for online reading of any of these or all of them. After that, attend college, go to your job or if you have a gap year, you must still be doing something during that time, you need to develop your mental math and experiment with puzzles. Both these tasks need to be done by taking out time from your main commitment i.e. job or college. For example, the time spent during lunch break or while traveling during that time, watch a video on mental math and note 1-2 tricks. Similarly, while traveling, you can use two such websites to develop mental math and solve puzzles. The first one is Math Trainer, This helps perform calculations to build speed. The second one is Sudoku you can solve such Soduko online It's an excellent exercise, I solved many of these during college that really helps with DILR section also. So take these two activities up in your spare time. After coming from your college, work on your profile and after the job, whatever time it is - 7/8/9 pm take some rest and before your dinner I'd recommend you to study for 1-2 hours. I'm saying before your dinner but you may not have as much time, you can take it up as per your schedule, but for college students I'd strongly suggest that they should study before dinner because I always felt that when I studied after dinner, I procrastinated more. So, before dinner, take out 1-2 hours. In CAT, there are 3 sections. Out of these 3, whichever is your weakest section, you'll take it up every single day. So, out of 2 sections a day, one will be your weakest and the second one will change alternately. For example, my weakest section was QA So, I studied QA daily but coupled it with DILR on day 1, VARC on day 2, DILR on day 3 - so alternately. So, in the warmup stage, you only need to take up 2 sections a day, and whichever is your weakest is to be taken up daily. How many questions to solve in each section? My recommendation here will be in VARC, solve 2-3 Reading Comprehensions in DILR, solve 3-5 sets (set = 4/5 ques) in QA, 20-30 questions are more than sufficient. If you're taking coaching, your classes must be ongoing. So, move as per the classes and at their pace Even if you're self-preparing, move at your own pace There is no need for a hard and fast deadline right now Do as much as you can but make sure that whichever day you build your concepts, on that day, surely solve some questions that is if you're attending classes, you must be learning something if you don't solve, you won't extract anything out of it. Same way if you're self-preparing but after reading theory you didn't solve any questions, you'll need to revise it again next day hence there should be no day when you attended coaching or read theory but didn't solve any questions. After this, when you're solving the questions, instantly post that you need to take out your formula book - i.e. any notebook and note down any tricks, formulas, any new information that you think you'll need to revise later. From now till Feb, this is what your schedule should look like called the warmup schedule, herein you can take 1-2 mocks just for familiarity with the pattern, even if you don't it's no big deal just take one mock in the beginning of your prep to identify your weaker section, rest is fine. Till now, we discussed the first stage but the same way there are 2 other stages that are pretty important and if you know about them right now, you'll be in a better position. We'll discuss those 2 stages in Part 2 of this video which will be released on 20th December. So stay tuned and if you have any doubts regarding Stage I let me know in the comments, thanks for watching this, guys :D
