Education Junction : MBA, Engineering, Entrance Exams, Top Colleges, Institutes in India

2007 CAT results are finally out and now students are curious, and uncertain too, about the calls they can expect from institutes. Well click on the link below for all your solutions.

http://forum.imsindia.com/viewtopic.php?t=11261

This thread will answer all queries pertaining to:

1) Score that you have got and the options that will be open to you based on this score
2) Further steps that you have to take in order to achieve your goals
3) GD/PI Prep & Achievers' Workshop
4) For the students who have not got a call or scored well, other options that they need to evaluate
5) Details pertaining to other colleges

Expected Calls from Different Institutes based on scores / percentiles of CAT 2007

As the instructions for CAT2007 were being announced over the PA system, many a student would have been contemplating as to what the monster called CAT could throw at them, this year, in terms of the surprise element. The surprise, on the face of it, seemed to turn out to be a damp squib, as the paper was “on the lines” of CAT2006 – with no deviation in the number of questions, the marking scheme or the pattern. However, the adage - “do not judge a book by its cover” rang true and loud. The paper was full of surprises on the inside and left many a student stumped and dazed!!

However the students of T.I.M.E. would have faced this paper in a much more composed manner when compared to the unfortunate many who missed out on the steep learning curve of the AIMCATs!! This is because the students had, by virtue of having taken the AIMCAT’s and analyzed each one extensively, already become quite familiar with many possible patterns of papers that were very closely similar and in fact even exactly identical as the CAT2007 paper.
A careful analysis of the paper reveals that the Verbal Ability section, though shorn of the vile ‘FIJs’ continued to don an “infer-me-if-you-can” look – one that it had adopted in CAT2006. The QA section came back with all guns blazing and would have taken many hostages and thereby regained its aura of toughness. The Logic and Data Interpretation section did a complete volte face and went right back to the ‘calculation intensive days of yore. Though this section was the easiest of the three in this paper, students, unfortunately, could not exploit it to the fullest, considering the time consuming nature of the calculations that were required. Another, last but not the least of the observations was the fact that questions on Data Sufficiency made a come back, after a hiatus of a full two years, that too in a very big way. In fact, both QA and L&DI sections saw DS questions appearing in a generous measure, albeit with a different set of DS directions. These DS questions, further, turned out to be a definite life saver in each of the two sections.

Let us now take a closer look at each of the three sections in the paper:

Quantitative Aptitude

If one had started to think that the Quant section of the CAT had, in any respect, lost it’s “sting” or that it no longer struck terror in the hearts of the test taker’s, then one was in for a rude shock in this year’s QA section. The section was not only the most difficult in the paper; it was also, undoubtedly, the most difficult QA section to appear in the last several years. A cursory look at the questions in this section itself was sufficient to make an average CAT aspirant’s heart sink. The questions, were very evidently “tough” and finding a “familiar” question seemed to almost impossible. The emphasis was clearly on a thorough understanding of and proficiency in the concepts of QA and also on very high presence of mind – to glean the basic issue out of a seemingly complicated question in a very short time.

However, the section was not without its usual share of easy/doable questions – the adage that ‘no matter how difficult a section, there will always be a few easy questions in it’ seemed to hold true even in this case. There were about seven or eight elementary questions, some evidently easy and some others, disguised to seem ‘not so easy’. Identifying and correctly solving even five to six of these questions would have been sufficient to scrape through the paper – needless to say that another couple of questions in addition to these seven or eight would put one in a very high percentile range.

Some of the questions in this section that one should have identified and attempted were: the question on average of even and odd integers, the one on average age of a family, all the four questions on Data Sufficiency, the one on n teams of k players each, the prices of two varieties of tea, the two intersecting circles, and even the question on the maximum value attained by a quadratic function. Some of the other questions that seemed difficult, but could possibly have been ‘cracked’ within a reasonable amount of time (under the exam pressure) were the kind which involved numerical substitution. Some such questions were the set on ‘friends’ and enemies’ of members in a set and the set of questions on a and b, defined as recursive functions of p and q.

On the whole, a student with an average ability in QA could have managed just about 14+ marks in this section and any score from 19 to 30 can be considered to be good. Any score from 31 to 50 would be very good, and 50+, excellent.

The cutoff for this section is expected to be in the range of 19-21 marks.

Logic and Data Interpretation

The L & DI section of CAT2007 was a distinct departure from the trend of reasoning based DI sets, observed over the past few years. The questions in this section were, contrary to most expectations, not very reasoning intensive. Almost all the sets involved considerable calculations. Also, there would have been a certain sense of discomfort felt by most students due to one or two sets which seemed to call for one’s judgment to be exercised in understanding and manipulating the data given. The one major relief in this paper was that in most of the sets, the data did not take much effort to understand but the calculation intensive nature of the sets sort of made up for this concession.

The set on the ‘Actual costs incurred by a company’ was tricky and would have required quite a bit of effort to solve. Students would have been wondering as to where the catch was when they saw the set on ‘Students in a school’ – but one has to believe that CAT is not all about the difficult questions, there always are sitters in every CAT and this was no exception. The set on “Cost of major surgeries” was very easy and students should have been able to solve at least two of the four questions. The set on “Low Cost Airline” had a lot of guile and deception and, if one was not careful, could have resulted in quite a few errors. The set on the “Health drink company” involved very tedious calculations and at the end of it all, one could have still picked up the wrong answer, if the question was not understood properly. Over the years, Data Sufficiency had always provided succor to the students and it was no different this time, with three of them being absolute sitters.

On the whole, a student with an average ability in DI could have managed a score of about 22+ marks in this section and any score from 30 to 44 can be considered to be good. A score in the range of 45 to 60 would be very good, and 60+, excellent.

The cutoff for this section is expected to be in the range of 30-32 marks.

Verbal Ability

After the nightmare of CAT2006, students this year were seen praying fervently for a deliverance from this monster. Their prayers were definitely answered in that the FIJ questions were nowhere to be seen, but alas this joy was short-lived. The laconic monster of 2006 was replaced by the very verbose and very ‘abstract’ devil called “Reading Comprehension”. If there is any word to describe the RC passages in this section, it would be ‘excruciating’. The passages were very painful to read and almost impossible to comprehend; added to this were five very close choices which would have forced many students to give up the ghost!!
All those who had counted on the Verbal area to salvage this section would have been thoroughly mauled (for the sheer lack of a more sinister word). The grammar questions would have stumped even the best experts of grammar and the Paragraph completion questions were tricky in the choices. The saving grace were the Para Jumble questions and the questions on ‘words/phrases’.

The four RC passages on “Paradigms in Scientific Traditions”, “Expressions of Experience”, “Ethnology” and “Sociology” were straight from hell(!) with most of them being so dense as to give serious competition to the densest element on this planet!! The students would have found that reading the philosophical treatises of Plato or the Psycho Analysis of Freud to be child’s play compared to what was on offer today! None of the four passages can be classified as ‘easy’ or ‘doable’. The very fact that the experts have had to slog it out for many hours to generate the key to these passages would attest to the difficulty level, and hence low cutoff, of this section and surely, it was by no means ‘easy’ as some would have it. All said and done, attempting around six to seven questions in two out of the four passages, with a strike rate of about 60%, would be quite an achievement – translating into a score of around 10 to 12 marks.

On the whole, a student with an average ability in VA could have managed a score of about 10+ marks in this section and any score from 18 to 30 can be considered to be good. A score in the range of 31 to 40 would be very good, and 40+, excellent.

The cutoff for this section is expected to be in the range of 18-20 marks.

The overall cutoff for at least one IIM call would be around 88-90 marks.

Source & Courtesy : time4Edudcation

Here are the answers of CAT 2007 provided by IMS.

The explanatory answers are based on the question and option order in Set 333. Please refer to the table for tracking the questions in other sets. Click here

Problem Solving - Section I : Click here

Data Interpretation - Section II : Click here

Verbal Ability - Section III : Click here

Here are the expected cutoffs for CAT 2007 for admission to IIM's.

Cut-Offs as per IMS (revised)

Quant : 25 – 28
DI : 38 – 41
Verbal : 20 – 23

Overall : (1-2 IIM Calls : 100+), (3–4 IIM Calls : 110+), (5–6 IIM Calls : 120+)

Cut-Offs as per T.I.M.E.

QA : 19 - 21
L&DI : 30 - 32
VA/Rc : 18 - 20

Overall : 88 - 90 Marks (97.5 Percentile) for atleast one IIM Call

Cut-Offs as per Career Launcher

QA : 26 - 28
LRDI : 34 - 36
EU : 26 - 28

Overall : 102 - 107

Over the years, CAT has kept on bringing new surprises for test takers. We have witnessed several changes in the CAT pattern since its inception.

The greatest example is the sudden change that was brought in the tradition of giving equal number of questions in each section in CAT 2004 together with the change in the internal weightage of the questions.

This was highly surprising for the test takers who had become accustomed to attempting the CAT with questions carrying equal weightage. They never practised on a new CAT pattern until the C-Day in 2004.

Hence it becomes very important to have an overview of the last CATs before sitting for CAT 2007.

The examination experts at TCY have summarised the last 7 CATs in order to study trend. The summary will help us
evaluate our preparation vis- -vis the different types of CAT that happened in the past.

The Following table sums up the "Surprise" factor that has always made CAT a bit difficult to handle, even though the questions in it may not be that difficult.

An overview of the decreasing number of questions in a CAT on one side and increasing time per question on the other since 2000 shows that the trend is for good. The trend can be extrapolated further to predict that CAT 2007 may be a relief for the test takers as regards the total time they will get to solve a question.

However, the attached table also shows that beyond CAT 2003 all the questions do not carry the same weightage. There had been an introduction and subsequent internal changes in the weightage of the questions in CAT 2004, 2005 and 2006.

This makes it important for the test taker to practise choosing the right questions to attempt in the round one and two of his attempt.

The changing levels of difficulty

Looking at the difficulty level column in table prepared by TCY experts, one finds that CAT 2000 was the most difficult of the lot. Hence analyses of the previous CAT patterns as regards the difficulty level of the sections (and for that matter, the complete test) can be done in a scale of 10 by taking CAT 2000 as the most difficult (Scoring 9). Let's just have a brief review of the same.

Hence the bar graph above shows that barring CAT 2000 and 2004 all the CATs stand at 7 on the scale of 10. It is highly recommended to that CAT aspirants that they must have a look over the two most difficult CATs in order to counter the effects of a difficult CAT pattern.

To sum up it is seen that over the period of time, overall CAT difficulty level in terms of the questions have remained more or less same but it is the Surprise factor which is making students nervous and thus adding to the difficulty level of CAT. Therefore, a review of all the previous CAT (especially CAT 2000 and 2004) is vital to give a finishing touch
to your preparation.

Munish Kumar is an examination expert with Top Careers & You. He can be contacted at tcychd@tcyonline.com.

To gain more from the recommendations of TCY experts on changing patterns of CAT, visit ww.tcyonline.com and attend a Web-Seminar in a virtual classroom atmosphere.

CAT exams are conducted for admission to the six IIM's i.e IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow, IIM Kozhikode, IIM Indore. However, there are also other Management Institutes that accepts your CAT score. Given below is the list of Institutes (in alphabetic order) that accepts CAT scores. (This list is particularly for CAT 2007)

• Academy of Management Studies Bhubaneshwar
• ACCMAN Institute of Management Greater Noida
• Alliance Business Academy Bangalore
• Amrita School of Business Coimbatore
• Apeejay School of Management New Delhi
• Aravali Institute of Management Jodhpur
• Army Institute of Management and Technology Greater Noida
• Army Institute of Management Kolkata
• Asia Pacific Institute of Management New Delhi
• Asian School of Business Management Bhubaneshwar
• Atal Bihari Vajpayee Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management, Gwalior
• Bangalore Management Academy Bangalore
• Bharathidasan Institute of Management Bangalore
• Birla Institute of Management Technology Greater Noida
• Centre for Management Training and Research Kharar Punjab
• College of Agri-Business Management Pantnagar
• Department of Business Administration, University of Lucknow Lucknow
• Department of Business Management, University of Calcutta Kolkata
• Department of Business Management,Punjab Agricultural University Ludhiana
• Department of Commerce,University of Calcutta Kolkata
• Department of Management Studies, Indian School of Mines Dhanbad
• Department of Management, Kurukshetra University Kurukshetra
• Eastern Institute for Integrated Learning in Management Kolkata
• Eastern Institute of Management Kolkata
• EMPI Business School New Delhi
• EMPI Institute of Advertising, Communication and Management New Delhi
• Faculty of Management Studies, Banaras Hindu University Varanasi
• Fore School of Management New Delhi
• Fortune Institute of International Business New Delhi
• Gitam Institute of Foreign Trade Visakhapatnam
• Globsyn Business School Kolkata
• Graduate School of Business and Administration Greater Noida
• Heritage Institute of Technology Kolkata
• IILM Institute for Higher Education, Gurgaon
• Indian Business Academy Bangalore
• Indian Institute of e-Business Management Pune
• Indian Institute of Forest Management Bhopal
• Indian Institute of Management Training Pune
• Indian Institute of Social Welfare & Business Management Kolkata
• Indian Institute of Tourism & Travel Management Gwalior
• Institute for Financial Management & Research Chennai
• Institute for Integrated Learning in Management Greater Noida
• Institute of AgriBusiness Management Rajasthan Agricultural University Bikaner
• Institute of Business Management and Research Bangalore
• Institute of Engineering and Management Kolkata
• Institute of Finance and International Management Bangalore
• Institute of Management Development and Research Pune
• Institute of Management Education Ghaziabad
• Institute of Management Studies Dehradun
• Institute of Management Studies Ghaziabad
• Institute of Management Studies Ghaziabad
• Institute of Management Technology Ghaziabad
• Institute of Management Technology Nagpur
• Institute of Marketing and Management New Delhi
• Institute of Petroleum Management Gandhinagar
• Institute of Productivity and Management Meerut
• Institute of Public Enterprise Hyderabad
• Integrated Academy of Management and Technology Ghaziabad
• International Institute for Special Education Lucknow
• International Management Institute New Delhi
• International School of Management Excellence Bangalore
• Invertis Institute of Management Studies Bareilly
• Ishan Institute of Management and Technology, Greater Noida
• ITM Business School Navi Mumbai
• Jagan Institute of Management Studies New Dehi
• Jaganath International Management, New Delhi
• Jaipuria Institute of Management, Jaipur
• Jaipuria Institute of Management, Lucknow
• Jaipuria Institute of Management, Noida
• JIS College of Engineering, Kalyani
• JK Institute of Management New Delhi
• K J Somaiya Institute of Management Studies & Research Mumbai
• Kirloskar Institute of Advanced Management Studies Harihar
• Kohinoor Business School Pune
• Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management and Technology Bareilly
• Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management New Delhi
• Management Development Institute Gurgaon
• Motilal Nehru Institute of Technology Allahabad
• Mudra Institute of Communication Ahmedabad Ahmedabad
• Narula Institute of Technology,Kolkata
• National Institute of Bank Management Pune
• National Institute of Technology Tiruchirapalli
• National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, Haryana
• National Insurance Academy Pune
• National Power Training Institute MBA (Power Management) Faridabad
• New Delhi Institute of Management New Delhi
• NIILM Centre for Management Studies New Delhi
• Nirma Institute of Management Ahmedabad
• Pailan College of Management and Technology Kolkata
• Pearl School of Business Gurgaon
• PES Institute of Technology Bangalore
• Prince L N Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research Mumbai
• Rakshpal Bahadur Management Institute Bareilly
• School of Management Sciences Varanasi
• School of Management Studies, University of Hyderabad , Hyderabad
• School of Management, Pondicherry University, Pondicherry
• SDM Institute for Management Development Mysore
• Shri Ramswaroop Memorial College of Engineering and Management Lucknow
• Sri Sringeri Sharada Institute of Management New Delhi
• SRM University Kancheepuram
• SSN School of Management & Computer Applications Chennai
• Suryadatta Group of Institutes, Pune
• T A Pai Management Institute Manipal
• University Business School Chandigarh
• Vaikunth Mehta National Institute of Co-operative Management Pune
• Vellore Institute of Technology Vellore

Examination Date
November 18, 2007 (Sunday).

Examination Timings
10 A.M. to 1 P.M.

Test Centers (Cities where CAT will be Conducted)
Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Gurgaon, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore,Jaipur, Jamshedpur, Kolkata, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Noida, Patna, Pune and Varanasi.