FMS Delhi CAT topper Somesh, success mantra for CAT 2017 “Give equal importance to all 3 sections”

FMS Delhi student of MBA 2017-19 batch Somesh Lohani, an inspiration for CAT 2017 aspirants, scored 99.99 percentile in CAT 2016.  With barely a month left for CAT 2017 D-day, Somesh Lohani advises the CAT 2017 aspirants to give equal weightage to all the 3 sections in CAT, improve their reading speed, overcome the weakness and study smartly instead of frequently switching over the study material.

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Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) of Delhi University is the dream B-school for CAT toppers who prefer the campus to IIMs and other top B-schools due to the various USPs of this highly ranked B-school which has a legacy of more than 60 years. FMS Delhi is the highest RoI B-school with very low fee structure and high placements. No surprise why Somesh Lohani preferred FMS Delhi to IIMs and other top B-schools.

Somesh Lohani, one of the CAT toppers in 2016 scored 99.99 percentile in CAT, 98.53 percentile in XAT 2017 and 99.03 percentile in IIFT 2016. Somesh preferred to join FMS Delhi. He feels good on joining FMS Delhi instead of other top B-schools as he finds that FMS Delhi is one of the top B-schools in India.

Somesh comes from a modest family of Lucknow. Apart from his parents, he has an elder brother and a twin in his family. Somesh scored 93.7% marks  in class 10; 94% marks in class 12 and 75.17% in B.Tech. Somesh did his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from College of Technology, Pantnagar. 

Apart from devoting time to study, Somesh has great interest in Playing cricket and football, Online gaming.

For the benefit of CAT 2017 aspirants, MBAUniverse.com has brought a round of CAT toppers’ success stories alongwith their success mantra that led them to crack CAT with high percentile. In the series we present the success story and CAT 2017 preparation tips shared by Somesh Lohani, student of MBA 2017-19 batch at FMS Delhi and a CAT topper.

MBAUniverse.com:What was your preparation strategy for CAT 2016?
Somesh (CAT topper): I started my preparation around January, nearly 11 months before the D-day. Initially I focused on my basic concepts and tried to solve as many questions as possible from a diverse set of books and online material.

Once I was comfortable with the basics, I started giving mock exams and sectional tests provided by TIME. These tests helped me gauge my level of preparation and I started focusing more on my weaknesses. I made sure to cover all the topics at least two months before the exam and saved the last two months just for mocks and revision.

Throughout my preparation, I made sure to give equal importance to all the three sections without being dependent on a particular section.

MBAUniverse.com: How did you prepare for each section in CAT exam – VARC, DILR & QA? What study materials and books did you use?
Somesh (CAT topper): For verbal, first of all I started with Arun sharma verbal guide which was really helpful in understanding the basic concepts especially the Reading comprehension section. It is also important to gain a strong vocabulary to help ace the Verbal section. To that end, I started with “Word Power Made Easy” and also covered other vocab books like “Barron’s 1100 words”. Also one needs to have a decent reading speed which can only be achieved through reading as much as possible. Some prefer reading novels, biographies, I preferred reading past year CAT RC’s and solving a lot of mocks helped as well. 

For DILR, the most important thing to do is to purchase a decent test series and give as many mocks and sectional tests as possible. Also while practising questions, it is important to solve them with a time constraint as this section requires a good level of speed.

For quant, first thing to do is clearing your basics. There are multiple books available in the market such as by Arun Sharma, Nishit Sinha, etc. Also videos on youtube such as Dinesh Miglani collection on youtube are really helpful and will help in clearing the basics concepts. Once I had my basic concepts cleared, it was all about solving as many questions as possible from different books, online materials and mock tests.

MBAUniverse.com: Was there any particular CAT exam section that you were weak at? How did you overcome this challenge?Somesh (CAT topper): I felt I was weak in the verbal section which was evident from my low scores in the section during the first few mocks that I took. Upon analysing the mocks, I realized that my reading speed was really slow due to which I was not able to cover all the questions. What I found useful in improving my reading speed was to read a lot of diverse content like philosophy, fiction, sci-fi, etc. Apart from the reading speed, I realized the need to have a strong vocabulary for which I read books like ‘Word Power Made Easy’ and ‘Barron’s 1100 words’ which really helped improve my vocabulary. 

MBAUniverse.com: How can candidates use Mock tests better in CAT 2017 exam? What is your advice?
Somesh (CAT topper): Mocks are an important part of preparation and the candidates should not undermine their importance. Firstly, the candidates should be well prepare before giving the exam and should not take it casually. Post giving the mock, candidates should analyse the mock carefully, focusing more on what they did wrong and they could have done to achieve a better score. Also, as CAT takes place in morning and evening slots, candidates should give their mocks in these time period, preferably in the centres allotted by coaching institutes to be comfortable with the D-day chills.

MBAUniverse.com: Did you go to offline coaching centre? What role does a coaching centre play?
Somesh (CAT topper): I had joined the TIME weekend coaching program wherein we had our classes during the weekends in our college itself. For someone giving CAT for the first time, joining a coaching institute would be helpful in my opinion. It can help them understand the basic concepts and also clarify their doubts directly with the teachers. Also the content provided by the coaching centres is designed after a lot of research and as such is really helpful in preparing for CAT as well as the interviews that take place post exam.

MBAUniverse.com: Other than CAT, which exam did you appear?
Somesh (CAT topper):  Other than CAT, I appeared for IIFT and XAT exams

MBAUniverse.com:  Which institutes did you apply for admission?  
Somesh (CAT topper): I had applied for all the IIMs, IIFT, FMS, XLRI and MDI. 

MBAUniverse.com:  Please share your strategy for the CAT Day. What was your last-minute preparation? How did you plan your CAT test taking?
Somesh (CAT topper): I stopped giving mock exams a week before the D-day and all I did was review all the mocks that I had given until then. It is very important to be relaxed during the exam and take it as another mock otherwise a lot of pressure builds and it becomes difficult to concentrate on the exam. A day before CAT, I revised all the formulas and took a good 8 hour sleep, that’s all.

For the test, I had a strategy of my own for different sections. For verbal, I distributed 60 mins into two parts: 40 mins for RCs and 20 for the verbal part. For DILR and Quant, I went through the entire section at the start to find all the ‘sitters’ i.e. easy level questions that do not take much time and on solving them began solving from the start. Here I made sure not to spend too much time on any question and leave the difficult questions for the end.

MBAUniverse.com: Please share your GD/WAT topics & PI questions at different institutes and the ones who offered you admission?
Somesh (CAT topper): FMS Extempore: Are scores a good measure of intelligence?

MDI GD: Privatization of government owned companies

MBAUniverse.com:  Which B-school you decided upon and why? 
Somesh (CAT topper):  I had shortlists from IIM Indore, MDI, FMS and a few new IIMs. I decided to join FMS as it is undoubtedly one of the top 5 B-schools of our country and when I visited the campus for my interview round, I was really moved by the humility of the staff – both teaching as well as non-teaching present in the campus and how they went out of their way to help students which I found missing in all other institutes where I went for my interview.

MBAUniverse.com:  Any message you would like to share with the candidates preparing for CAT 2017.
Somesh (CAT topper): To all the candidates preparing for CAT 2017, I would like to highlight the importance of smart study. Instead of jumping from one book to other and solving mocks aimlessly, first try to find out your strong and weak areas and then prepare a strategy for every section and on the D-day be calm and crack the CAT.

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