Gurgaon: With the onset MBA exam season, aspirants are wired in and preparing to give their best shot to management entrance exams that facilitate admissions to the top B-schools in the country. Exams like CAT, XAT, SNAP, NMAT and CMAT act like a ticket to study at the most eminent institutions, including the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), XLRI, Symbiosis & Narsee Monjee.
CollegeSearch recently interviewed last year’s toppers of the most sought after exams – CAT, SNAP and XAT. The experiences, tips and strategies shared by the toppers are a great source to form an intact preparation plan that can promise great results.
Darshit Jasani cleared CAT 2015 with flying colours. He scored 99.04 percentile in the prestigious exam and shared the preparation strategy that led him towards the milestone. Jasani started preparing 1.5 years before the exam by joining coaching classes which helped him maintain regularity. He said that there’s no shortcut to ace the exam – hard work with a systematic approach is indispensable.
Jasani also talked about specifics to do well in each of the three sections. For Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VRC) candidates need to develop an extensive reading habit. Reading novels, editorials in newspapers, using flashcards and solving exercises in study materials is recommended to score good in this section. For the other two sections – DILR and QA, practice is the key to succeed. Relying too much on tricks and shortcuts that coaching institutes teach can cause confusion while attempting problems.
Aditi Ramachandra scored 99.5% in SNAP 2015 and came out as of one the exam toppers. When interviewed by the CollegeSearch team, Aditi attributed her success to hard work and a calm mind. She said that she did not prepare separately for SNAP, and her CAT preparation sufficed. For working on time management, Aditi relied on mock tests. She added that VaRC can be the easiest and most scoring out of all the sections. Candidates should be proficient in Number system and the pace of solving questions in LR can govern the overall score.
CollegeSearch also connected with one of the XAT toppers – Maulik Gandhi. Maulik scored 99.74 percentile in XAT 2014 and also appeared for the other MBA exams. He said that preparing for CAT is sufficient to do well in XAT as it does not require a separate strategy. Candidates must not ignore previous year question papers and maintain a balance in scoring between the sections.
These interviews were hosted by CollegeSearch, the country’s largest education platform used by over 5 million students and 6000 colleges. Over the past year 450,000 applications were processed via CollegeSearch and the company’s clients include 150 colleges and universities across 16 states across India.
