During your prep, you seek CAT advice. And you get advice. And when you see very diverse advice coming from different people, you are lost.
This is not a new story.
But with social media and now even Gen AI giving advice, there is just too much of it. Too easily accessible. Everybody has something to say. Everybody sounds confident. And you are sitting there, trying to figure out what to do with all of it.
My objective here is not to tell you whose advice is best or which advice is right. Damn it. I am giving you advice here. Oh, the irony! An expert, telling you to watch out for experts. Take that as you will.
Table of Contents
What Kind of Advice are you Seeking?
You seek advice that can range from minimal impact to significant impact.
“How do I create a study plan?”
Minimal impact.
If something does not work, you tweak it.
“Should I join this B-school?”
Significant impact.
That decision stays with you.
So instead of dealing with all kinds of advice, let me address this from the context of advice that can have a significant impact. On prep, on careers, on how you think.
I wrote recently about the problem with the 80% accuracy advice. About how it can change the way you look at the test itself. You may disagree with what I said. Fine. But that itself should tell you something. This kind of advice is not harmless. It shapes how you think.
What is Needed for Advice to Work?
For advice to work, a few things need to fall in place.
1. First, you should ask the right question.
Sometimes you just state the symptom. “My score is not improving.” Nobody can advise you based solely on that. Why is it not improving? Reading issue? Selection issue? Panic? Analysis? Practice quality? If the question is vague, the answer will be vague.
2. Second, the person giving advice should have your interest in mind.
Not just their benefit. Not just their sales. Your interest.
3. Third, the person giving advice should have enough information about you.
Without context, even good advice becomes noise.
4. Fourth, the person should have reasonable expertise in that area.
The advice makes sense only if the advisor has some sense.
With that, let me give you the BAD ADVISER list. And yes, I am aware of where I am standing as I write this.
The Assumers
This is the largest category. Me included.
These are not bad people. This is not malice. This is math.
Everyone likes to seek advice from someone reputable. And that expert may not have the time to sit with each one and give a personalised reply. So, this happens. The expert has seen thousands of students over the years. They start seeing patterns. General trends. And from those trends, they build recommendations. Those recommendations work for most people. They will not work for all.
Question: “Sir, my scores are not improving.”
Advice: “Analyse your mocks really well.”
Wait. Did you find out why the student has a problem?
Question: “Sir, is NMIMS a good school?”
Advice: “Oh yes!”
Wait again. Good for whom? Based on what priorities?
Question: “When should I start CAT prep?”
Advice: “Right Now!”
Wait again. What if they are in their first year of graduation?
This is most of the advice out there.
Sometimes it is situational. Live sessions, quick replies. No time to probe. So the answer is general. It may work. It may not.
At the same time, you cannot be an expert if your answer to everything is: “I need to talk to you before I can answer.” Career over. So, you end up giving advice.
So yes. Welcome to the world of The Assumers. Large population. Good intentions. Incomplete pictures.
Suggested Readings –
| The 80% Accuracy Myth In CAT VARC | Why VARC Shortcuts Attract The Weak |
| VARC 1000 Mentor Journey | From 70 To 95%ile In CAT VARC |
The Horribles
These are not just bad advisers. These are bad people. I am not sorry to be this harsh!
First things first. Everyone has a motive. I run a course on VARC called VARC1000. You ask me what the best course is for VARC, and almost certainly I will say VARC1000. Come on. What else would you expect? I mean, what do you expect if you ask the CEO of Pepsi, “How is Coke?”
That is not the problem.
I don’t become horrible when I push my course to you. I become horrible when I know the course will not help you. When the pedagogy and your learning needs are not aligned. And I still push it.
That is not biased. That is not enthusiasm. That is a con.
Well, some call it sales. But I am not selling a ceiling fan. We are talking about someone’s career here. Decisions that can shape someone’s life.
You watch a YouTube video recommending a B-school. What if it is sponsored and not disclosed? Still fine if it fits you. But what if the person knows it does not fit you, and still pushes it?
A CAT influencer who tells you that a particular coaching institute is a hidden gem. Does not tell you they are being paid to say that. Does not tell you they would never go there themselves.
That is the part that should make your blood boil. Not ignorance. Not an assumption. Not misplaced confidence.
They know. And they still do it.
The Horribles.
The Trespassers
Sometimes, you simply have no business giving that advice.
There is this idea of authority. Fine. But do you actually have authority in that area?
I am a verbal faculty. That gives me authority in VARC. Does that automatically mean I can advise you on time management for CAT prep? Or which B-school to pick? Or whether you should drop a year?
Maybe. Maybe not. I honestly do not know. But I have opinions. Obviously.
This is the trap. Authority has this bad habit of travelling where it has no business going. You are good at something, people listen to you, and slowly you start believing you have earned the right to speak on everything.
You have not.
A great QA teacher is not automatically a great career counsellor. A CAT topper is not automatically a great coach. A successful entrepreneur is not automatically a great life coach. But tell that to them.
Authority is not transferable by default. Being good in one area does not make you qualified in another.
A lot of people borrow authority from one room and walk into another as if they own that too. And the scary part is, people listen because they know the name. Because they have seen the results. Because the confidence is convincing.
It may not even be intentional. They probably mean well. They genuinely think they are helping.
But good intentions do not make you qualified.
They don’t.
Looking For CAT Mock Strategy? Read How to Approach CAT Mocks | How to Analyse CAT Mock Tests
The Reborns
You know this person.
They prepped hard. Really hard. Gave it everything. Went through the same confusion, the same self-doubt, the same chaos that you are going through right now.
And then CAT happened. And IIM happened.
And something shifted.
They were reborn.
Suddenly, they know exactly what worked. The chaos had a method. The struggle had a reason. And now they want to share it. Genuinely. From a real place. No malice. No agenda.
And honestly, there is a lot to learn from them. They have been through it recently. The anxiety, the pressure, the uncertainty. That experience is real, and it is valuable.
But here is where it gets tricky.
They assume what worked for them will work for you. They assume their situation is your situation. They assume they even know what actually worked.
“I took 70 mocks. I made it to IIM Ahmedabad. So you should take 70 mocks.”
Wait.
What if you had only taken 15? Would you not have done well in the CAT? Did just taking the mocks work? Or was it the quality of analysis? Or the way they handled pressure? Or just that they were always going to get there?
They do not know. They cannot know. But they will tell you anyway. Confidently. Because in their head, the result is proof enough.
So here is how to handle The Reborns. Listen to them. Genuinely. Their experience is recent, their struggle is real, and their intentions are good. But treat what they say as ideas, not instructions. As possibilities, not prescriptions.
Not gospel truth. Just a place to start thinking.
The Wounded
This is your Reddit and Telegram advice.
You are frustrated. The frustration is real. Completely valid.
And from that place, you advise your peer.
Twenty-year-olds advising other twenty-year-olds on things that may impact the next forty years.
The dangerous part is not that they are wrong. The dangerous part is that they sound right.
Frustration delivered with conviction sounds exactly like wisdom. They are not making things up. They lived it. The pain is real. And that realness gives them a credibility that is hard to question.
“This college is trash.” Maybe it was. For them. In their situation. With their expectations. But is it trash for you?
“Don’t bother with XYZ.” Why not? Because it did not work for them. But do you know why it did not work for them? Do you know if your situation is the same?
And the most dangerous one. They bond with you over shared pain. The late nights, the mocks that went badly, the rejections. That bond feels like trust. And trust feels like a reason to listen.
But shared pain is not the same as shared expertise.
Now, I am not saying they cannot give advice. Many times, they are more practical than older folks. Older folks like me, for instance.
But there is a difference between sharing experience and declaring conclusions.
Experience is fine. Authority is not automatic.
Don’t suddenly become an Andrew Tate of CAT prep.
The AI
Don’t get me started.
Use AI for prep, absolutely. Explanations, practice, structure.
But life advice?
It does not know you. It does not carry consequences. It gives you neat answers, not necessarily the right ones for you.
For those of you who watched Project Hail Mary, don’t assume the AI in front of you is your Rocky. Rocky earned that trust. Over time. Through shared struggle. Through consequences. The AI in front of you has none of that skin in the game.
It will give you a confident, well-structured, completely personalised-sounding answer in four seconds. And it will be wrong for you in ways that are very hard to detect. Because it sounds so right.
Use it. Don’t outsource judgement to it.
So What Then?
This sounds pessimistic.
Like everyone is flawed. Like, advice is unreliable.
That’s not the point.
Don’t stop taking advice. Just stop consuming it blindly.
Be sceptical. Not cynical. Not dismissive.
Just aware.
If you are an expert or have something to give to students:
Ask before you answer. Diagnose before you prescribe. Be honest about where your authority ends. Disclose your motives. And if you know something is not good for them, don’t sell it anyway.
Hopefully, I will remember this when I am the one giving advice.
If you are a student:
First, trust yourself.
Most of the noise out there exists because you go looking for answers before you have sat with the problem. Struggle with it first. Really struggle. You will be surprised how many answers you already have.
Advice works best when you bring a specific problem to it. Not a vague anxiety. Not a general fear. A real, specific, well-thought-through problem that you have already tried to solve.
That changes everything. Now you are not consuming advice blindly. Now you are testing it against something you already know.
Simply put, the person you should have trusted first was you.
