A guy called Aspirant

6th July 6, 2011 Long long ago, there used to be a guy called Aspirant. He came from a modest middle class family in the suburbs of India. India is a country known for its great intellectual capital and tough competitive exams. Aspirant, like his other friends was a bright student who did his graduation from a fairly decent engineering college. He worked for some time and realized that in-order to rise up the corporate ladder fast, you need to be an MBA. So, whats the deal in it? One fine morning when the sun was bright in the month of April, and the news papers were full of Ads by the institutes who train for MBA entrance exams, He submitted resignation to his cute looking HR. He called his old friends and showed them the 7 figure salary to convince them to enroll for a course in one of the Institutes for which the Ad said 3000 IIM calls a year . That sounds great. IIMs by the way are Top notch BSchools in India, where if you manage to get in, your life is like set. Thats what people believe. But I dont. Let me edit my self , IIMs are definitely a place were if you reach and also if you have the right attitude, then your life is for sure set. One more thing If you have the right attitude then your life is definitely set irrespective of the fact that you study from IIMs. What a confusion right?. Well no need to get confused. Mr. Aspirant with one of his friend from his home town, and 2 others from his engineering days, finally come to a small place called Patel Nagar , in Delhi and get enrolled to a institute called Future Launcher in short called (FL). Study begins, new packets of study materials with slippery shining pages that smelled so new and fresh. Classes begin, teachers start the first day with boost of motivation and a SWOT analysis of several BSchools, that can make or beak your life. Aspirant, was a little emotional guy he used to get motivated and de-motivated at the speed of light. So with great motivation and energy all these four friends started making strategy for overpowering the demons of Quant, DI & Verbal. In few weeks time, came the time of the first practice test, they call it FOCK-1, Fock -1, gave Aspirant the shock of his life, A bright student , who almost cleared IIT JEE , ended up getting some 78 percentile. Disgusted from his poor performance, He made a perfect plan this time to secure not less than 99.999 Percentile. Oh sorry , forgot to mention here some thing, Mr Aspirant is also a charming guy and there was a girl in his batch, kind of cute, and he happen to get an introduction to her of course because of his studious elegance. Both of them came little closer, and you know who is to blame? Yes, its the Number system the deadly chapter in quant that comprises of almost 35 % of problems that appear in CAT. The girl had no idea as

to what was going on in the quant class. Aspirant came for her rescue, and salvaged her from drowning in the ocean of quant. Slowly slowly as the time passed, every one realized that its already September and there percentiles are hovering around early eighties. What to do now? Every one decided to be serious except for Aspirant and his by now the girl friend. Other three friends were serious and they performed consistently. Aspirant lately realized that its really late and in the month of October, if you start afresh at this time, the whole world has reasons to believe that you are heading to get slaughtered in the exam known as CAT. The D-day came; you are smart enough to understand what would have happened. Aspirant was left with no choice because of his miserable performance. His other friends managed to get into descent B-Schools. If you have a feeling by now that its a cooked up love story, then you are absolutely right. Its indeed cooked up, but unfortunately research says that of all the Aspirants who appear for CAT, only 10 percent are serious and rest all have at least one love story to share. Well, I dont mean the top 10 percent dont have a love story, they also may have, depends how smart they are. Dont loose focus and set your Priorities right, is what not only me, but all your well wishers would suggest you. Falling in love is not a crime, but a love that makes you weak enough before you go to the battle field would serve no purpose than to offer you a defeat. Its a matter of few months, just say six months starting May till October, where most of the students spend in preparation. Ideally 2 months before CAT, thats the day you have scheduled your test you should be done with your syllabus. I would say , by Aug end , you should be through with your course material. September you should devote in revision. And October if you have scheduled your test in November , shall be kept only for practice tests, speed building and strategic planning for that 2Hr 15 minutes , and how you can fine tune depending upon your competencies in each section. Make your self absolutely invincible in at least one section, and be good in other two. But the question is how? If you can afford to improve your reading speed, by practicing, reading news papers and editorials, it would be of great help. For word power, try to read tough literature and comprehend it. For quant more number of problems, is the key. For DI, you need to improve your reasoning by solving puzzles and Sudoku and long DI sets. There is plethora of Gyan on the web on how to prepare for CAT. Whatever institute you have enrolled to, they are all good and great. But the problem is that their greatness is not going to help you much. Its your greatness, your attitude, your intellect and most

importantly the killer instinct in you thats going to make you through. Never ever have the feeling that just enrolling in an expensive program, can be of immense help. So the flow chart goes like this Plan > Organize > execute > Monitor . As the famous saying goes Those who fail to plan actually plan to fail .Organize yourself to gain resources in terms of time and study material. Dont get bogged down by loads of books and keep getting frustrated. Pick one reasonable study material, stick to it , solve all the problems and revise it. Execute the plan, because if you dont execute, the plan and the time spent in making the plan is not even worth the paper on which it is written. Monitor your performance consistently by means of Practice tests ( FOCK tests ). Before it gets tremendously boring, I would not like to stretch any more. I would leave you with a thought of you, walking through the gates of IIMs , wearing the T-shirts embossed with the logos of IIMs and living in the same campus and same dorms where once upon, the great people who make whos who of the Industry spent their most wonderful time. And then with another thought of you graduating with a degree from IIMs , with the best dream jobs and dream companies knocking at your door. Would you not like to give few months to this most wonderful experience? If you have not thought yet. Its time you THINK and most importantly its time you prove your MIGHT. My most famous line in hindi stuffed with urdu

"Khudi ko kar buland itna, ke har takdeer se pehlay Khuda bande se khud puche, bata teri raza kiya hai. "
Mohammad Iqbal.

Good Luck

All the characters of the above story are although fictional, but their coincidence with a real case is highly warranted.