Hi guys and welcome back to the channel, or I would say welcome to the channel. If you are a CAT 2024 aspirant and are looking to make a fresh start, perhaps you might have seen this channel for the first time. Let me introduce myself. My name is Shweta Arora. I completed my MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. I scored 99.09 percentile in CAT 2017. I started this YouTube channel in 2020 with the hope of sharing my journey with MBA aspirants. It's been three years since I've been creating content related to MBA. I've gained some insights from talking to aspirants over the last 3 years, which I would like to share with you. The journey of the CAT exam is roughly one year long. Some people prepare in less time while others take more. On average, one year is sufficient for preparation. Within this video, I will divide that one year into 5 stages to explain to you. So that you have an overarching view, an eagle's view, to understand how that one year will unfold. In the coming days, there will be several videos on this channel related to the CAT exam and MBA. Stay tuned! We are like a community. I hope that in this journey, you give me the opportunity to walk alongside you. Let us start with stage 1, which is called basics. Stage 1 extends until the month of January. If you are watching this video in December, whatever time is left, you have two tasks to do. Firstly, let's call the first one an overview, and the second one preparation. Within the overview, you need to do four things: Understanding the syllabus of the CAT exam. Understanding the pattern of the CAT exam. Knowing which colleges accept the CAT exam. And finally, how was the difficulty level of the CAT exam in CAT 2023. You can easily find all these things on the internet. For CAT 2023, I had created a syllabus PDF which I will link in the description. You can directly check it out. Besides all these things, what else does the CAT exam involve? For that, I will soon create a dedicated video on this channel; so, stay tuned for that. The second part of the stage is called Preparation. It doesn't mean that you have to start studying immediately. Preparation means that those who studied last year or in previous years, you need to read about their journeys. You can easily find these on YouTube. Quora is a website where this information is available. After reading their journeys, what do we need to do? First thing is to search for their study materials, meaning which question banks they used, which books or coaching materials they referred to. Second, where did they clarify their concepts? Were there any YouTube channels they followed or particular teachers they attended coaching with? And finally, how did they take mock tests? This combination of these three things is what we call preparation material. Stage One, which is by the end of December, your objective should be to have a proper understanding of your study material, concepts, and mocks - to know which material you will use. After this, our stage 2 will begin. It starts from January and runs until March. When January starts, the first question that will come to your mind is whether I should take coaching or not. If I should, then which one should I take? Firstly, I have already created a video in which over a thousand students from last year have given reviews about coaching institutes. What you need to do is thoroughly check that PDF. In that same video, I have also explained how you decide whether you need coaching or not. If you decide to take coaching, then before you select your Coaching Institute, one thing to keep in mind is that you must definitely attend their demo classes. So that you'll know whether you're making the right choice or not. For example, for this video, I have partnered with StudyBuzz coaching institute. I will share complete details with you about their demo class so that you can decide whether you want to take their coaching or not. StudyBuzz is launching its next CAT 2024 batch on the 15th of December. Classes will be held three days a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. These will be live classes, conducted online, and will take place between 9:00 and 11:00 at night. Within this batch, you will have access to all the study material on their portal. They will also deliver 11 booklets to your home. On their portal, you'll also have access to mocks for all MBA exams. The price for this course for entire year will be 27,500. They are offering the first two classes as a demo, absolutely free for everyone to attend. You should attend these demo classes to decide how you feel about their teaching style. I'll add the links to these two classes in the description and pinned comment. You can click on those Zoom links to directly attend those classes. They launch new batches every 15th of the month. I'll add their number in the description so that you can call and attend demos for the next batch. When you start your preparation in January, you should be aware of three things: which study material, which concept clarity videos, and finally, which mocks you'll be using. If you have joined coaching, these three things will be provided by your coaching institute, and until March, you'll follow their pattern. As they conduct classes, you'll align your studies accordingly. If you are self-preparing, you'll need a daily routine to manage your time effectively. Again, I will create a proper routine on this channel for you to follow. However, as a reference, if you need concept videos, I've created an Excel sheet where all the concept videos are available. You can start studying from here. During stage 2, you'll watch concept videos and keep trying simple, easy-level questions. By the end of stage 2, which concludes in March, where will you reach? You'll start realizing which of the three sections, verbal, DILR, or quant, makes you feel the most uncomfortable. The objective by the end of stage 2 is to find out how comfortable you are with different sections. After that comes stage 3, runs from April to July. Its name is syllabus completion. This is a very important stage, but often aspirants either miss this stage or overestimate their ability. This stage never seems to end for them. Let me give you some context on this. When you join a coaching institute, their batch generally runs until October, and the syllabus tends to finish by September or October. But if you move along with their flow and complete your syllabus that late, by the time you start giving mocks, you'll start feeling demotivated. You'll feel like November has already arrived. You don't have enough time left to improve your scores. Because by March, you'll be comfortable with your coaching or self-preparation. You will have an idea about which section is weak for you. You will also realize that for DILR and verbal, there's no such thing as completing the syllabus; it's all about practice. But completing the syllabus in quant is important. So what will you do? If you're self-preparing, you'll set your deadline to complete your syllabus by the end of July. But if you're taking coaching, you'll do as much as they guide you. Besides that, you'll create your own preparation plan through which you'll pick easy chapters that your coaching institute will cover at the end. You'll start doing them on your own. By the end of July, in the third stage, you should reach a point where if you're shown any question, you know which chapter it belongs to. That is, your objective is to achieve familiarity. Stage 4 is the stage of mocks. This stage runs from August to September. From August until your exam in November, you should ideally take a total of 30 to 50 mocks. Now, the majority of these 30 to 50 mocks should be covered in August and September. There are two major reasons for taking mock exams. The first reason is to understand the exam pattern. What we initially did once, we will now understand by repeatedly taking mocks. The second thing is to get accustomed to sitting for two hours, for which taking mocks is necessary. Within this stage, there are two major tasks. The first is what I've explained to you, which is attempting mock tests. The second task is to practice questions of a higher level of difficulty. You remember, right? You were covering only easy levels until Stage 3. You were only completing the syllabus. Within this stage, you'll further develop them and strengthen them by practicing Level 2 questions, meaning moderate-level questions. In this stage, there's another significant aspect, which is demotivation. Because when you start taking mocks for first time, you'll feel a lot of fear throughout your preparation. You might think, 'My marks aren't improving; I don't know if I'll crack this exam or not,' because you'll be in August and September already. You need to remember that this isn't the stage where your marks will improve. It is the stage where you'll strengthen your familiarity, meaning when you pick up questions from mocks, you should know which chapter and which topic they belong to. The final stage is our 5th stage, which runs from October to November. Its name is the strategy stage. In this stage, because you would have already taken many mocks, your final task will be solely and only to give mocks and strengthen your weaker concepts. Weaker concepts exist in two ways. Firstly, which sections are weaker for you? Among all three sections, which one is the weakest? Then, further within that, you identify chapters. For example, if your quant is weak, is it the number system or geometry within it that's weak? Then you pick geometry if that's the weakest and work on it. So, the pattern remains the same for every mock. You attempt it, you analyze it, then you work on it. Then you attempt the next mock, analyze it, and work on it. So, this entire process continues throughout these two months. I hope that this overall view helps you kickstart your preparation journey. Now, imagine if you know where you need to reach, only then will you confidently board that train. Otherwise, you'll keep thinking whether this train will even reach there or not. This is why I explained the entire journey, the entire route to you so that you have an idea of what lies ahead. I truly hope that this video helps you. Thank you so much for watching, guys. See you next time!
