CAT tips from Toppers: The CAT or Common Admission Test is one of the most reputed exams in India. Due to its ever-changing character, it is one of the highly sought-after management admission tests that confuse candidates even as they are preparing for it.
The majority of CAT preparation is dependent on personal strategy. Each student has a unique set of abilities and skills. Some pupils pick things up quickly, while others need more time to understand concepts or memorise formulas.
Top scorers in the CAT over the previous five years have studied independently with some support from mentors and lots of practice exams. The CAT exam is all about honing analytical acumen and utilising it efficiently without wasting any time.
Read the article to know “How Toppers Prepare for CAT Exam”. You can follow these tips to get a good CAT score in the upcoming exam.
How Toppers Study to Achieve both Overall and Sectional CAT Scores?
Even if you are a really intelligent or brilliant candidate, worry will still consume you up until the CAT exam date because you have no idea what kinds of questions will be asked or if the exam format will change.
Nothing prevented these top students from realising their dreams, despite their volunteer work in several college societies or their professional jobs. The top scorers’ section-by-section scores are listed in the table below, allowing you to estimate your own required score to achieve the desired CAT percentile.
List of CAT Toppers 2021 and Percentiles
Note the table below to get a list of CAT 2021 Toppers along with their percentiles.
Name of CAT 2021 toppers |
Percentile |
Maruti Konduri |
100 percentile |
Parth Chowdhary |
99.99 percentile |
Palli Dolananda Saivardhan |
99.94 percentile |
Devansh Tyagi |
99.82 percentile |
Satya Sripada |
99.51 percentile |
Prakhar Sinha |
99.91 percentile |
Manavdeep Singh |
99.77 percentile |
Tushar Saneja |
99.73 percentile |
List of CAT Toppers 2020 and Percentiles
Note the table below to get a list of CAT 2020 Toppers along with their percentiles.
Name of the CAT 2020 Toppers |
Percentile Scored |
Vishesh Garg |
99.99 |
Ashish Sen |
99.99 |
Shivam Chandak |
99.98 |
Aditya Devalla |
99.97 |
Abhilasha Balakrishnan |
99.86 |
Adit Sanjanawala |
99.85 |
Ravi Pranshu |
99.78 |
Shivam Kumar |
99.95 |
Tips From Toppers to Prepare for CAT
The candidates must prepare a daily schedule for CAT sections to get a good rank in the exam. Chapter-wise preparation is all you need to clear CAT cut off. Additionally, time management is also important to solve exam papers on time. Do not forget to learn shortcut methods and important formulas to solve CAT QA questions.
Rishi Agrawal, who scored 99.99 percentile in CAT 2019, says that the candidates should start preparing for QA as per their strengths, For VARC, daily habits of reading newspapers are the key. Read those topics in which you have most of the knowledge and interest.
Solve CAT mock tests and CAT question papers on a regular basis, to track your position in the exam preparation.
How to Deal with Your Weak Areas?
The hardest part of CAT preparation is tackling one’s weak areas. However, very few high performers are willing to reveal how they overcame their flaws and inadequacies.
Ankit Desai feels that the first step towards success is overcoming the fear of failure, which is why he achieved a score of 99.1 percentile. He shares “I was aware of my shortcomings in VARC. I, therefore, made an effort to comprehend the questions I could successfully answer in the section during the first few CAT practice examinations. The analysis of the mocks can help in this situation. I began a daily practice of more RCs and more para jumbles as I realised that I wasn’t comfortable with inference-based questions and these types of problems. In order to improve my reading speed, I also started reading one or two articles every day for a month.”
Time Management on the Exam Date by Toppers
It is difficult to complete all the questions within the allotted time because there is no way to carry over any unused time from one section to the next. Each sectional time restriction is 40 minutes. Toppers found this to be a challenge, but they overcame it by demonstrating their managerial abilities by strategizing how to approach questions from each part.
Lakshay Kumar, a top scorer, explains, “I made sure that I completed the Reading Comprehension segment in the first 40 minutes (skipping any difficult questions), and I then allotted 20 minutes for the Verbal Ability section”.
CAT 2022 topper, Risshi Agarwal says “I tried to figure out a range of DILR problems for DILR. Since I messed up the LR portion the last time, it was where I put most of my attention. I didn’t spend any extra effort on Quantitative Aptitude because I felt very good in this area”.
The candidates must answer the questions confidently. Go through all the instructions mentioned in the CAT admit card, as the authority mentions all the exam day-related details on it.