Lacking motivation? CAT 2025 is ticking and there’s no time wasting. We, at iQuanta, are always a step ahead to help and push you towards the rewarding end. Therefore, we bring something to the table again. Another CAT Topper’s story. In this article, you will be reading the conversation between two CAT 99+ percentilers. Abhishek Leela Pandey, who is a CAT 99.93%iler himself, talking with Souhardya Das, a CAT 2024 topper with 99.86%iler. The CAT topper’s journey is the same like any other but his emotional preparation is what you need to know as a CAT aspirant yourself! Have a look
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Abhishek: Let’s start with your introduction, your CAT percentile and academic background everything, let’s start it!
Souhardya: “I am Souhardya. I’m from West Bengal and I graduated with a Bachelor of Electronics and Telecommunication from Jadavpur University. I scored 99.86 percentile in 2024 and this is my second attempt. Previously, I had scored 96.08 percentile.”
Abhishek: Okay, so getting 96 is a decent score, I would say, and after that it requires a lot of courage to actually re-prepare. And, all this can be done by people who are courageous and at the same time ambitious. So, what exactly happened in this one year? Your study schedule? Your preparation? What did it look like actually?
Souhardya: “I would like to point out my emotional preparation for that, because as you said, it was a decent score, and I actually had a few offers from some Baby IIMs. But I decided that I want, right now also, only seats in IIM ABC. Like, it might seem a bit exclusive or optimistic, but I still want that for me. I do not want to settle for anything less, so I reminded myself every day about that only, that this is what I want – Maybe, if I’m lucky, this year, maybe, a year later, but I will get this for myself. So that part of me helped me a lot throughout the journey. And maybe this emotional journey, you know, freed me and maybe emancipated me to create a proper strategy so that I can, you know, get a good score that I’m happy with.”
Abhishek: I’m impressed with the choice of words that you are using -’emancipation’, feels kind of spiritual journey….
Souhardya: “And so, I would like to add that, yeah, I think the whole CAT exam and its preparation, wherever it leads you, changes you as a person. I do think that. Like, at the end of the day, if you boil it down, it’s just maths, a few logical reasoning questions, draw tables, do graphs, and read papers. But I do think that, at the end of the day, it changes you as a person. Like, right from the start, when I decided that I need to give another attempt or that I need to get into these colleges specifically, from that day, I decided to change myself. I told myself I will never settle for anything less. So I think, apart from that, I don’t know what will happen, obviously, no one knows, nothing is a guarantee! I want to emphasize that nothing is a guarantee. But I do want to say that the changes I went through as a person throughout the last year were immensely life-changing. Even now, even though I haven’t joined any college or given a single interview, the way I’m approaching a challenge or a problem is very different from how I did it in the previous year. And I think the whole preparation has helped me through that.”
Abhishek: Great! You also use the term that ‘if I’ll be lucky enough’, now, there’s something what I get from this people who feel they are lucky enough to get something they are very humble people like there was a dialogue in Chak De India it said so something like that, ‘sirf acche khiladiyon ki kismat acche hote he’; but it’s great that you have this humility intact. What about your next stage of preparation for the personal interview? Are you working on that?
Souhardya: “So for the personal interview, I took the iQuanta GDPI course. And another thing I would like to say is that in these last two or three months, I lived my life in a particular way. Coming to this GDPI thing, to be very frank, I don’t have those extracurriculars; I haven’t really delved into that. And yeah, rethinking my life, I might change a few things if I could, but right now I cannot. So I think one should take control of what we do have in our control, and not dwell too much on ‘Oh no, I could have done this better,’ or ‘I shouldn’t have done engineering at all,’ or ‘I could have done BSc Mathematics or something.’ So yeah, that’s my motto right now.”
Abhishek: Anything you want to tell the future aspirants?
Souhardya: Yeah, I would like to say that whatever happens, we should never give up, because this is not the end, this is never the end. You can always give it another try. You can, even if you like, I’m just taking one example, I was weak in LR. So, like, there were sets and there were days when I solved one set for one and a half days. And when I cracked it, the joy that I got was something else.
Abhishek: One and a half days?
Souhardya: “Yeah, one and a half days! It, like, made me understand the concept, and then, after that, I could understand the concept very easily. So I would like to, and obviously, the choice of questions too. If the question was easy, if it does not challenge your intellect, then one cannot, you know, go into that journey, I think. So I took iQuanta’s mock series. iQuanta mock helped me with that immensely. Like, I cannot emphasize enough how important the level of questions and your dedication is, because one would have just directly gone to the solution. But I think it is important to give yourself that one and a half days.”
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Abhishek: Right! How much time did you spend analyzing a mock?
Souhardya: “Actually, I analyzed a mock for like 3 to 4 hours, like, what could have been done better, what could have not been done better, if the answer was correct, if my approach was correct. But after that, I would again do the same thing, sit with the question and not stop until I solved it. I know it might take a lot of time, and because of that, maybe I couldn’t score that many marks. I think, in total, I got 20 marks or something like that. But I would analyze them top to bottom, I did that. Like, even the questions I didn’t solve, I sat for one and a half days, one day, and then I solved them.
And another thing is, I was a bit skeptical about VARC. So in VARC, whenever I couldn’t understand something, I went to the video solutions and understood what the passage was trying to convey. Because it happens, you know, bias analysis. Like, see, I am passionate about cooking, so if something cooking-related came up, I used to think with my bias. Or I’m an engineering candidate, so if something related to science or engineering came up, I used to apply my own concepts. But by the end of my CAT journey, I started approaching the passages from a third-person perspective.
Abhishek: Yes, that is very important. Like, people come from different backgrounds. Like, I love mathematics and philosophy a lot, and when something like that comes up, I get very excited, “Oh wow, this is what I want to do!” But at the same time, if something else comes up, for example, a business news article, that’s not really my area of interest. But CAT is not asking for any kind of GK that you need to have. It’s just something written, and your entire universe becomes that passage itself.
Souhardya: “Exactly! That is something which I actually understood quite early. Like I said, you know, CAT changes a person. As you mentioned, maybe maths and philosophy are your strong points, okay, but whenever you see a passage that dives into something else, for example, cooking or dance, it might not be your forte. But you still need to build that confidence that by reading it, within the stipulated time, you can answer the questions.
And another thing I would like to add is that you become more self-aware. For example, if five sets are there, after many mocks and a lot of self-preparation and introspection, you begin to understand, “This I can do, this I cannot do.” I think that’s also a great skill that CAT preparation helps you develop.”
Abhishek: That’s great, really! Nice interviewing you, and uh, this is really new, you know! A lot of spiritual things that you talked about, and I think people would like it a lot. That’s really, like I fashionably say, CAT is a test of life.
Souhardya: “Yes, it actually is.”
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Key Highlights:
- Emotional Preparation: Rejected Baby IIMs to aim only for IIM ABC. Daily self-reminders kept him focused.
- Spiritual Journey: Called CAT prep life-changing, helped him grow mentally, emotionally, and strategically.
- Mock Strategy: Spent 3 – 4 hours analyzing mocks; took 1.5 days to solve tough LR sets. Focused on deep learning over quick fixes.
- VARC Approach: Watched video solutions, overcame personal biases, and adopted a third-person reading mindset.
- Self-Awareness: Developed the skill to identify which questions to attempt, critical for CAT success.
The CAT Topper’s Final Message to CAT Aspirants
Don’t give up. CAT preparation isn’t just preparation, it makes you self-aware! A great skill you need to succeed in CAT!
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