CAT Preparation

I would suggest you to prepare for MH-CET for JBIMS as the college have reservation for Maharashtra domicile students. The cutoff through CAT will be above 99 percentile.

I am doing the same, but I was told that interviewers often seek a solid reason for spending a year. If you want to prepare at home, enroll to some other certification course such as language course, etc. Just to justify the year's gap in your resume at the interviews.

Yes, you can take a gap of 1 year to prepare for CAT exam.

Start your own preparation and take coaching from institutes like TIMES, Career Launcher, IMS, etc. After that, start solving old papers within time frames. This will improve your performance in cracking the same. Check out the above institutes in Ahmedabad.

Below mentioned are some options, which you could explore:
1. Refer the curriculum and start studying accordingly for 1 to 2 hours on weekends.
2. Check the sample questions and work on them.
3. You can join a coaching institute.
4. Refer to the books available in the market to sharpen your skills.

TIME is well known along with IMS, Career Launcher, CPLC which are competitive and have good results with list of CAT toppers. You can choose any of above according to your convenience.

No, work experience is not compulsory. However, a couple of IIMs give extra points to students with work ex.
Regarding preparations, the earlier you start the better it is since there are a lot of things that come with practice. You should at least give 8-12 months for a proper preparation and join a test series for sure. TIME coaching has a good test series. It starts around 4-5 months before the CAT date.

You need to put some additional effort for VA section. For other sections i would suggest you to go through the basics in couple of months and start practicing questions. In case of VA, the basics of English, tenses, usage can be learnt from basic reading material provided by CAT prep books. After than i would suggest you to practice RC from readtheory.org where you can build you reading comprehension skills with time. After gaining a bare threshold, start giving mocks, analyze them and repeat till the D-Day.
All the best

Hi, Some of the good mobile apps for CAT preparation are: Alphanumeric app, Byju's app, Handa ka Funda, etc. These can helpful for preparation tips and guidance.

Hi,
You can get admission in University of Mysore, NIAEM - Hyderabad or IIM - Ahmedabad.
All the best.