Let’s paint the picture: You’ve just joined a CAT prep Telegram group, and everybody is super excited about the prep strategies. It’s buzzing 24/7 as everybody is posting their personal bits of advice. Someone’s posted a 99.8th percentile strategy. Another guy says mocks are useless. A third post is about skipping arithmetic entirely. And before you know it, your mind is totally confused about how to prepare. 

I joined one of those groups, too, thinking it would give me an edge. What I didn’t expect was the noise. Endless screenshots of daily “strategy updates,” people arguing about whether X or Y topic is “even worth doing”, etc.

I didn’t realise I was slowly outsourcing my judgment.

Everyone’s CAT Journey is Like a Fingerprint

Here’s the first truth nobody says loudly enough: What works for someone else may not (and probably won’t) work for you.

Take the guy who claimed, “I didn’t touch geometry and still got 98 in QA.” Impressive? Maybe. Smart advice? Not for someone like me, who consistently struggled with arithmetic and needed geometry to pull my score up.

I followed him anyway. Dropped geometry. I regretted it during the actual CAT when two doable geometry questions stared me in the face, and I stared right back, blankly.

Telegram groups can feel like guidance. Sometimes, though, they’re just peer pressure dressed as productivity. You need to filter out the noise to understand what matters the most for you.

Mock Scores are Not Report Cards

Another common trap in these groups? The obsession with mock scores.

Every day, someone posts:

“Guys, I scored 91 in Mock CAT. Is this good enough for IIM A?”

And you, sitting there with a 65, suddenly feel like you’re failing. You’re not.

Here’s what they won’t post:

• How many mocks have they already taken?
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• Whether they guessed eight questions and got lucky.
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• How many months have they been preparing?
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I once spent two days obsessing over someone’s mock percentile, completely ignoring the fact that I had improved my score by 20 marks in 10 days. But I couldn’t see that win. I was too busy comparing.

Advice Without Context is a Weapon

The problem with Telegram advice isn’t that it’s wrong; it’s that it’s incomplete.

“Don’t do daily reading; it doesn’t help.”

“Take a mock every day.”

“VARC is pure luck.”

These aren’t strategies. They’re opinions wrapped in false certainty.

I remember someone advising against note-making for QA, saying it was a “waste of time.” But I relied on those very notes to revise formulas quickly before every mock. That “waste of time” helped me solve four extra questions in CAT QA.

What worked for me would have failed him, and vice versa. 

Use Telegram, Don’t Let It Use You

Am I saying to ditch the Telegram group completely? Not necessarily. There’s value there, too, doubt solving, question banks, and moral support.

Start your prep with your plan. Use your mock analysis. Build your list of weaknesses. And when you do take advice, ask:

• Does this fit my prep stage?
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• Is this solving a problem I’m facing?
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• Am I using this to learn or to avoid doing the hard work?
• 
  

In the CAT journey, your greatest asset is self-awareness. While Telegram groups offer tips, motivation, and even a sense of community, they may also derail you by offering misleading advice. Choose your Telegram groups wisely, like the one by Anasthasis Academy that greatly helped me with my CAT prep. They have both a free and a paid group.

So, make your pick and get going.