Earn Your Stripes: The IIMwalaBanda Badge System

CAT prep is a marathon dressed up as a sprint. You put in months of work — mock after mock, topic after topic — and most of the proof of that work lives in a spreadsheet only you look at. I wanted something that actually felt like progress along the way, not just a percentile you check once every few weeks. So we built badges. Fifteen of them, across three categories, each one marking a real milestone in your prep — not participation trophies, but genuine markers of where you stand and how far you've come. Here's exactly what each one means, and how to earn it.

🏆 Percentile Achievers

These are the big ones — badges tied directly to your overall mock percentile. Every serious CAT aspirant is chasing a number; these badges just make sure you notice when you cross it.

🍺 Club 99 IIM Hunter — The one who touched 99+ percentile overall.

The rarest badge on the board. If you've hit 99+ on a mock, you're operating at a level where the top IIMs are genuinely in play. Wear this one loud.

🎁 Club 97 High Flyer — The one who touched 97+ percentile overall.

This is A-list new-IIM and top-tier non-IIM territory. Getting here means your fundamentals are no longer the problem — it's about polish and consistency now.

⚡ Club 95 Elite — The one who touched 95+ percentile overall.

The number most serious aspirants are chasing as their "I'm competitive" threshold. Crossing 95 tells you your prep strategy is working — the job now is repeating it.

👑 Club 90 performer — The one which touched 90+ percentile overall.

90 is where CAT prep stops being theoretical. You're solving under real pressure and getting real results. A genuinely strong milestone.

⭐ Club 85 Contender — The one who has achieved 85+ percentile overall.

The gap between "preparing" and "contending" starts to close here. If you've just crossed 85, you're ahead of the vast majority of test-takers.

🤘 Club 80 Achiever — The one who has touched 80+ percentile overall.

Everyone remembers their first 80. It's the badge that tells you the plan is working — the foundation is solid, and now it's about building on it.

🎯 Mock Masters

Percentile isn't the only thing that matters — reps matter just as much, maybe more. These badges track pure volume, because the students who eventually crack CAT are almost always the ones who simply took more mocks, seriously, than everyone else.

🔤 Mock Debut — The one who gave his first mock.

Every CAT story starts here. The first mock is rarely your best one, and that's fine — it's the one that turns "I'm preparing for CAT" into "I'm actually doing it."

🎀 Mock Contender — The one who has given 5+ mocks.

Five mocks in, patterns start to show up — which sections you rush, which questions you second-guess. This is when self-awareness starts to build.

😼 Mock Warrior — The one who has given 10+ mocks.

Double digits. By now, mock-taking itself isn't the hard part anymore — sustaining focus and stamina for 2+ hours becomes the real skill you're building.

🎩 Mock Veteran — The one who has given 20+ mocks.

Twenty mocks is a serious commitment. At this stage, you're not just practicing questions — you're practicing exam-day temperament.

💀 Mock Legend — The one who has completed 30 mocks.

The full battle-tested badge. Thirty mocks means you've seen nearly every trap CAT can throw at you at least once. Legend status, earned the hard way.

🧠 Section Specialists

CAT rewards well-roundedness, but real strength usually starts with one section clicking first. These badges celebrate that — the moment a specific skill goes from "okay" to "strength."

💎 Logic Master — The one who touched 90 percentile in logical reasoning.

LR is where raw problem-solving speed shows up. Hitting 90 here means your brain is pattern-matching faster than most of the room.

🔍 Data Detective — The one who touched 90 percentile in the data interpretation section.

DI rewards people who can read a mess of numbers and find the signal fast. This badge means you've built exactly that instinct.

🎯 Quant Wizard — The one who touched 90 percentile in quantitative aptitude section.

QA is the section where fundamentals compound the most. A 90-percentile QA score is usually the clearest sign your basics are genuinely locked in.

⭐ Verbal Master — The one who has achieved 90 percentile in the verbal section.

Verbal is famously the section people either love or fear. This badge means you've made peace with it — and then some.

## Why this matters

None of these badges change your actual CAT score. What they do is give you something a raw percentile number can't: a visible trail of the work you've already put in, on the days when it's hard to see the progress yourself.

Start with Mock Debut. Everything else follows from there.