Life after CAT - I (No use crying over spilt milk)

Well I must admit that the coaching institutes were pretty quick with their predictions. Even as we were in the train, some guys got a message from CL about what could be expected cut-offs. After listening to these I had not even an iota of hope left.

But still went through the routine of checking the keys. There was not much left to feel happy or disappointed about. I thought I had done decently well in Quants. I realised that I had attempted too few in DI. As for Verbal well you really cant say anything after looking at the answer keys for Verbal. Even the coaching institutes have had a history of declaring wrong keys for Verbal so whom could you trust?

Anyways I gave the remainder of my semester exams in the best possible frame of mind as I could muster. After the semester exams I went back home for the holidays. Told my family that I had messed up my CAT and not to expect anything. But then Dad being Dad was like its Ok, there is still XAT and FMS to look forward to, isnt it?

After about 15 days at home, it was back to hostel for me. This was around 10th December. I had XAT on 6th January and FMS on 13. Meanwhile my family was planning a trip to Andamans without me so as not to disturb me in my preparation for XAT and FMS (argh!!!).

Little did they knew that I had lost all steam by then and I would have been better off with them in the Andamans rather than in the hostel.

Here is some gyaan for all you guys planning to write these exams next year, CAT is not the end of the road of preparation, you gotta be ready to slog till the second week of January.

But I kept attending all the MOCKS that the TIME people were conducting. The XAT pattern calls for a radical change in strategy when compared with CAT. The XAT pattern is a bit to my liking with 120 mins to do 130 questions. But my biggest concern going into XAT was clearing the Quant cutoff. XAT is known for a very tough Quant section. And on top of that the Quant cutoff is the highest of all the three sections. Therefore it is considered favorable for engineers :P.

All these things were weighing on my mind as I went to write my XAT.