Common Admission Test (CAT)
Saturday, March 3, 2007
CAT is considered to be one of the toughest exam in India and the CAT score is also accepted by many other prestigious B- Schools for admission to their courses (S.P. Jain, MDI, etc)
CAT primarily tests you on English Usage, Reading Comprehension, Quantitative Aptitude & Data Interpretation & is an objective paper. However the format of the paper is not constant and one can be sure of surprises in CAT year after year. Number of questions ranges from 75 (in 2006) to 185 (in CAT 1995). Not only are the number of questions varying but also changes can be in the number of sections, presence or absence of time limits for each section, types of questions in a particular section, etc. CAT is held on 3rd Sunday of November.
A very important aspect of CAT is that a student has to clear a sectional cut-off in each section, in addition to an overall cut-off. Thus if a student is good in English and scores 50/50 in English but cannot clear the cut-off in the Math section, he would not be receiving an interview call letter. Thus time management among sections becomes very important, as the goal is not only to maximize score but also clear cut-offs in each section.
The cut-offs in each section vary from year to year depending on the difficulty level. The IIMs do not disclose the cut-offs and hence no one is absolutely sure of the cut-offs. However it has been observed that correctly answering 45% questions in each section has been good enough to clear the cut-offs.
Guessing wildly in CAT would work to your disadvantage as there is negative marking in CAT. CAT marks the beginning of B-School entrance tests. Then onwards, there is a test (sometimes two) almost every Sunday till February 1st Sunday. Preparing for CAT would also mean 90% preparation for other tests.