CAT isn’t just a three-hour exam.
It’s a long conversation you’ve been having with yourself for months.

On exam day, I walked in carrying mock scores, percentile calculators, expectations, and that quiet hope that today things will finally click. Some things did. Some didn’t. And that’s probably the most honest summary.

Here’s how it went, numbers first because CAT trains us to look there before anywhere else:

• Overall Score: 53

• VARC: 30

• DILR: 13

• QA: 10

• Expected Percentile: ~85.5 to 92.7

Decent on paper. Confusing in the heart.

VARC felt like familiar territory reading, eliminating, trusting instinct. DILR was a reminder that one bad set can quietly eat your confidence. QA… well, it stayed true to its reputation: humbling, unpredictable, unforgiving if rhythm breaks.

Walking out of the centre, I didn’t feel elated.
I didn’t feel crushed either.

I felt still.

Because CAT has this strange way of teaching you something uncomfortable:
effort doesn’t always convert linearly into outcomes.
 preparation reduces risk, not uncertainty.
and sometimes, “good enough” feels harder to accept than “very bad”.

This attempt taught me more about decision-making under pressure than any mock ever did. When to leave a question. When not to panic. When to stop chasing lost time.

Now comes the quieter phase analysis, calls, forms, and waiting. 

For those who’ve been here before:

• How did you interpret a score that sat in this “middle zone”?

• What helped you decide whether to push forward or pivot?

• Anything you wish you had done differently after CAT?