CAT Topper 2022: Renjith Thomas Joshua, a tutor based out of Thiruvananthapuram, has cracked CAT 2022 - result of which was released on Wednesday evening. This is the fourth time Joshua has secured a 100 percentile. He has been writing the paper for nearly 13 years, out of which he claims it has only been once that he scored less than 99.5 percentile. The first time he wrote the exam was in 2009, during his final year of graduation. After completing his graduation from the College of Engineering Trivandrum (CET) in telecommunications, he worked shortly after graduating with a company in Bengaluru as a business analyst but realised this is not where his heart lies. He decided on doing an MBA after gaining some work experience. After his short stint in Bengaluru, he went to teach at an IT finishing school in Trivandrum where he was handling aptitude sessions as a part-time job. At the same time, he was working with an MBA coaching institute as well. While he cleared CAT, he realised two things — one, he does not want to be an employee, and two, he likes mentoring students for the entrance exam. Renjith shared his marks from the years he secured a 100 percentile, when the exam used to be of 300 marks. In 2015, he scored 262 out of 300, in 2016 it was 236 and in 2017 he got 260. According to Renjith, in order to clear CAT one should have a strong base — basic class 10 mathematics and English. One needs to keep revising and understanding how that knowledge can be applied. Because even though the questions would be from class 10 maths and English, they will be more application based and how they solve a problem as the level of examination is much different. Secondly, practicing mocks and analysing their results are important. Mocks are important and analysing their result is equally important as it helps you identify the gaps and makes you aware of your strengths and weaknesses. “It is not important to attempt every question in order to get a good percentile, you need to understand which questions are easy for you and answer them within the given time frame,” said Joshua. Supporting his claim, Renjith gave us data for last year. CAT 2021 has a total score of 198 – 90 percentile was 60 marks, 95 percentile was 75 marks, 99 percentile was around 100 marks and the highest 100 percentile score was 181 marks and the lowest 100 percentile marks were nearly 151 or something. Last year 9 students scored 100 percentile, and the range was vast. “You don’t need to solve everything to get a good percentile, you need to crack at least half of the paper well. Figuring out which part to attempt is tougher than covering the syllabus itself,” he added. Renjith further said that there is a good chance that out of the 11 toppers, 3-4 could be tutors like him. Speaking of why tutors give the CAT exam, he said that they need to stay updated with the latest paper pattern, and the kind of questions that are being asked in order to teach students. While it does not impact the number of seats as tutors do not apply to IIMs, therefore, students do not lose out on any opportunity. But, they sometimes lose the opportunity to score 100 percentile as the conducting body can award only a limited number of 100 percentiles. Speaking of selection at IIMs, Renjith said that there are many factors that are taken into consideration except for percentile and scores. Institutes look for academic diversity as it would make the programme more valuable for people, but there is a problem as most candidates who top CAT are engineers. Therefore, the competition between engineering students is tough. He further said that female candidates get a few grace points for gender balance. Joshua runs an institute of his own in Thiruvananthapuram. After working with Byju’s and T.I.M.E, he realised that he doesn’t want to work as an employee. Joshua recalls when he first gave the CAT, he "joined engineering as a part of the rat race and as all of his peers were doing the same, but soon realised that he did not like telecommunications engineering instead was more interested in Computer Science." When asked if he wants to be an entrepreneur, he said he doesn’t have any plans for it as of now. Currently, Renjith owns his own institute where he runs two batches of 20 students each. At this institute, Joshua is the one-man army where he is the teacher, the manager, the administration. Sharing a word of advice for candidates appearing for CAT, he said anything can be achieved through practice, it’s not a game of chess but a puzzle of Sudoku at which you can get better with consistent practice.
