After giving CAT this year and not achinving the desired result, got(93% ile) I asked few questions to myself as to why was I not successfull, and came up with few answers which might be helpful for others.
The first thig which one looks for if they are giving CAT for the first time is which coaching institute to join.
Usually people join one among the big ones like TIME, IMS or CL depending on
1) Which is nearest to their place
2) What their friends are joining or maybe girlfriends:)
3) How many students have successfull cracked CAT from that coaching.
It was the same for me, I joined TIME Hyderabad(Mehdipatnam) for their full time coarse, they should me some great stats as to almost 52% students from IIMs are TIME students, I was happy with my choice and the basic material till the AimCats started(Mock CATs). Irealised I was no where near to the standard which is required to answer these questions.
I realised the material which is given by TIME is not suficent as I was able to solve the questions in the material comfertably. There is a huge gap between type of questions in the material and the one’s asked in AIMCATs and CAT for that matter.
The faculty is not very good, they are just average(for Mehdipatnam) and the solution or approach to solve the question which is given by them is very traditional one which might not come handy if you are aiming for some high%tiles.
What to do:-
1) What you can do as an aspirant is get to know few students who are studying in these clases before joining one.
2) There is huge difference for the same coaching institute from city to city and sometimes place to place.
3) If you don’t know anyone then go around some forum(Cat4mba, totalgadha, pagalguy, solidgyan etc) for CAT and you always ask people there about the coaching institute.
4) Join atleast 2 test series and analyze the test after giving them, which will let you know more about strength weakness and stratagy.
5) For solving quant which is usually the nemesis for most of the people writing CAT, try soom books like QA by Nisit k. sinha or QA by Arun Sharma. Both these books are great.
I think all these will help in makin a more informed choice before joining any coaching than just joining for the sake of it.