CAT 2019 Topper Interview: How Rishi Mittal scored 100 percentile

Rishi Mittal, is one of the top 10 CAT 2019 toppers who made it to the 100 percentilers club. Read the interview below to know his success mantra.

Rishi Mittal

CAT 2019 Overall Percentage: 100

VARC percentile: 98.76

DILR percentile: 100

QA percentile: 99.99

CAT 2019 score was declared on January 4, 2020, and 10 students scored 100 percentile. Among these 10, Rishi Mittal, a Civil Engineer made it to the 100 percentilers club. Rishi hails from Mumbai and is studying at NIT Surat. He said that appearing for CAT was one of his dreams and scoring 100 percentile was “just delightful”. Shiksha got to talking with Rishi to know the secret of his success in CAT 2019. Know what he has to say about CAT 2019 score, his preparation strategy and more in the article below.

Q. Congratulations, Rishi! Are you satisfied with your score? How much score were you expecting?

A. After the official CAT response sheet came out, I knew I was scoring about 240 and my final scaled score was 241.45. But after I came out of the exam and before anything was declared, I was pretty scared if I’ll be crossing 200 or 220, but this was a pleasant surprise.

Q. Was this your first CAT attempt?

A. Yes, this was my first attempt.

Q. When did you start your preparations for CAT? What was your overall preparation strategy?

A. I started my preparations in July 2018, which is when I started my third year of engineering. I joined IMS classes for CAT and the online study group iQuanta. I gathered the study material from TIME, IMS and iQuanta. Then for 5 to 6 months I was referring to these study materials and understood concepts and went through what all needed to be done and how should I go about my CAT preparations. In March, I started attempting mocks and analyzing them. Even in mocks, I was consistently getting a decent rank, usually, I was in the top 10 all over India. Apart from that my strategy was that I initially tried to recognise my strengths and weaknesses so that I knew that I need to work on my weak areas. Quant and DILR were my strengths and the verbal section was the weak part. So once I knew that I started working on my English to get a decent score and in the Quant and DILR sections I was doing fairly well.

Around May or June of 2019, I stopped studying the study material, I was only solving CAT mock tests and analyzing my performance. So six months I devoted to only mock tests and no new study material at all.

Q. Please share your section-wise strategy. How did you go about each section?

A. VARC: Initially when I started my preparations, I was inconsistent scoring 62 out of 102 or even 18. Later my seniors [and] my mentors at the classes told me that I need to work on RC separately and for each type of question I prepared a strategy on how to approach this section. So the major change that helped me in my strategy was discussing the paper with a friend as far as VARC is concerned because it is a very subjective section. So, if you are consulting a friend who is also preparing for CAT, you can have a lengthy discussion on why the answer is right or why is it wrong. After this, I started scoring decently in mocks. So mainly knowing why the answer is correct and why it is not is important and just practicing by yourself and solving mocks, I don’t think works out. Apart from this, people have the notion that if you read a lot, you can score well in VARC. I think even a non-reader can score in this section, I haven’t ever read a single novel.

DILR: DILR is more about the experience. The more time you give to this section, the more it will help you as simple as that. For DILR, I have solved the TIME and IMS study material. Also, I have attempted various mocks for various classes like TIME, IMS, Career Launcher and iQuanta. So the more mocks you give the more sets you solve, it’ll get easier for you to crack DILR because during CAT we have 8 sections that we are supposed to solve. So because of my experience and the practice that I have done for the DILR section I completed all the 8 sets with time in hand. So only practice will help when it comes to the DILR section.

Quant: Quant has been my personal strength, and I’ll like to take a little credit for [the fact] that I have a knack for Quant, but that does not mean I did not practice. I practiced a lot for this section as well. Similar to DILR, Quant is also experience-based. The more you solve [question] the more you learn about new concepts from online forums where people post their doubts and people are there who help you with different strategies and concepts and I received a lot of help from that when it comes to the Quant section. And definitely practicing Mental Maths, was pretty helpful. So, Quant is all about practice, the more number of mocks that you attempt and the more [sample papers] that you solve will help you. People think that there are a lot of shortcuts and tricks or you can remember the basics and then you can solve the Quant section but I am a person who cannot remember a single formula. But in CAT I was able to score 93 marks in Quant out of 102 so I feel with the right conceptual clarity and practice, Quant is a really easy section to clear.

Also Read: 

• CAT preparation plan for VARC
• CAT preparation plan for DILR
• CAT preparation plan for QA

Q. Which books did you refer to for CAT preparation?

A. Apart from TIME, iQuanta and IMS study material I did not refer to any other book. People refer to different publications (no offense) but I did not refer to any external help books. I was pretty content with the study material that IMS classes provided.

Also Read: Best books to study for CAT

Q. Did you join any coaching institute? How did it help?

A. I was enrolled with IMS which was my primary study help and I took up the TIME test series and used their study material for my preparations. I was also a part of the online study group, iQuanta. The study material was good enough, and I think a good study material is the secret of a 100 percentiler, but clarity and experience of the questions is also important.

Q. How many mock tests did you attempt?

A. I appeared for around 40-45 mock tests. 50 is the golden number but I could not touch it because I guess I was a little lazy at times. 

Q. Did you make any exam day strategies for CAT?

A. Yes, I was actually really scared. I was nervous as I had my college exams during the preparation phase too. So I was under a lot of pressure as a month before the CAT exam I had made a plan of how to go on my preparations but I wasn’t able to follow it at all. So the exam day strategy was just to have a nice breakfast and my parents were really supportive on my exam day and kept on telling me to be calm. Their words of wisdom were of huge help. So my strategy, in all, was to be calm and give my best and save myself from doing silly mistakes. My thought was only that whatever I do, I have to do it well. Apart from that, one hour before the exam and after the reporting is what makes all the difference. It is really important to be calm in that one hour and meditating for a couple of minutes on the exam morning really helped me.

Also Read: CAT exam day strategy

Q. Any tips for future CAT aspirants?

A. I don’t have any fancy tips, but all I would say is that while preparing for CAT be honest to yourself and prioritize CAT results over everything.

Q. Which IIMs/institutes are you targeting?

A. Like any other aspirant, I am targeting the top IIMs like IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, etc.

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