Gearing up for CAT | 1

Gearing up for CAT

THE CAT EXAM: THE ENTRY POINT TO YOUR DREAM

B-SCHOOL
CAT is a management aptitude test conducted by the IIMs primarily to evaluate and shortlist candidates for its
flagship programme, the 2 year postgraduate programme (PGDM) popularly known as Master of Business
Administration (MBA). It is a computer-based test (CBT) set and conducted by one of the IIMs each year in
rotation. Over 2 lakh candidates take CAT each year with the number gradually increasing year after year.

CAT is your entry point into the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), which are considered India’s premier
national institutes providing quality education in management and research. Today, there are 20 IIMs as listed
below with their year of establishment:
1. IIM Ahmedabad 1961 (Gujarat)
2. IIM Calcutta 1961 (West Bengal)
3. IIM Bangalore 1973 (Karnataka)
4. IIM Lucknow 1984 (Uttar Pradesh)
5. IIM Indore 1996 (Madhya Pradesh)
6. IIM Kozhikode 1996 (Kerala)
7. IIM Shillong 2007 (Meghalaya)
8. IIM Raipur 2010 (Chhattisgarh)
9. IIM Ranchi 2010 (Jharkhand)
10. IIM Rohtak 2010 (Haryana)
11. IIM Kashipur 2011 (Uttarakhand)
12. IIM Tiruchirappalli 2011 (Tamil Nadu)
13. IIM Udaipur 2011 (Rajasthan)
14. IIM Amritsar 2015 (Punjab)
15. IIM Bodh Gaya 2015 (Bihar)
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16. IIM Nagpur 2015 (Maharashtra)

17. IIM Sambalpur 2015 (Odisha)
18. IIM Sirmaur 2015 (Himachal Pradesh)
19. IIM Visakhapatnam 2015 (Andhra Pradesh)
20. IIM Jammu 2016 (Jammu and Kashmir)

CAT is also your entry point to some 140 B-Schools or Management Institutes that accept the CAT scores as a
criterion for admission. Some of the top B-Schools that accept the CAT scores include:
1. Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Delhi University, Delhi
2. International Management Institute (IMI), Delhi
3. Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon
4. Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Ghaziabad
5. SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai
6. National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai
7. Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Schools/Departments of Management across India
8. MICA, Ahmedabad
9. Goa Institute of Management (GIM), Goa
10. TAPMI, Manipal

THE CAT EXAM STRUCTURE AND EXPERIENCE

CAT is a 180-minute computer-based test (CBT) with a sectional time limit of 60 minutes for each of the three
sections, which appeared in the following order:
1. Section I: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC)
2. Section II: Data interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DILR)
3. Section III: Quantitative Ability (QA)

MARKING SYSTEM FOLLOWED

1. Each question carries 3 marks for every right answer.
2. All questions that are not attempted get 0 marks.
3. There is Negative Marking of 1 mark for a wrong answer in the case of MCQ questions. But, there is
no Negative Marking for Non-MCQ/TITA questions.

HOW THE COMPUTER-BASED TEST (CBT) WORKS

1. The computer allotted to you at the test centre runs on a specialized software that permits only one
answer to be selected for the question using a mouse.
2. Your answers are updated and saved on a server periodically and also at the end of the test. The test
automatically stops at the end of 180 minutes. However, the section-wise time is of 60 minutes each
after which you are not able to go back to that section.
3. You cannot navigate through sections. The three sections will be administered in the order as given
above. You can only move to the next section after completing 60 minutes, which is the time allocated
to each section.
4. Each MCQ has four choices out of which only ONE is the correct answer. You have to choose the
correct answer by clicking on the radio button (O) placed before the choice. For Non-MCQ/TITA
questions, you have to use the on-screen keyboard and put the answers in the given space.
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5. No external/physical calculator is allowed, however a basic on-screen calculator in the system is

provided.
6. Charts, graph sheets, and mathematical tables are NOT allowed in the Examination Hall. You can use
the rough pad and pen provided to you for any rough work. You are required to write your name and
registration number at the designated place on the rough pad and submit it at the end of the
examination.
7. You are allowed to leave the test hall only after the completion of 180 minutes, in other words only
after finishing the test.

UNDERSTANDING THE SCORES

CAT is conducted in two sessions. Two different Test Forms were administered in two Test Sessions. In order to
ensure fairness and equity in comparison of performances of the candidates across different test sessions, the
scores of the candidates were subjected to a process of Normalization. The Normalization process adjusts for
location and scale differences of score distributions across different forms. After normalization across different
forms, the scores are further normalized across different sections. The scaled scores obtained by this process
are converted into percentiles for purposes of shortlisting.

For reporting purposes, Scaled Scores for each section (Section I: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension
(VARC), Section II: Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR), and Section III: Quantitative Ability (QA))
and Total along with the Percentiles were published. Here a CAT sample Score Card.

CAT 2017 SAMPLE SCORE CARD

VARC DILR QA TOTAL

Scaled Percentile Scaled Percentile Scaled Percentile Scaled Percentile

Score Score Score Score

66.30 96.40 38.03 97.27 76.86 99.31 181.19 99.37

CAT VARC SECTION ANALYSIS

CAT has 34 questions in the VARC section which are to be attempted within a sectional time limit of 60
minutes. This section is dominated by reading comprehension (RC)—24 questions/5 passages. Even the verbal
reasoning (VR)—10 questions comprising jumbled paragraphs (TITA), out-of-context sentences (TITA) and
paragraph summary (MCQ) essentially test candidates for their RC skills. So it is RC all the way.

The RC passages cover a wide range of topics and subject-matter, with no noticeable bias towards any
particular subject. Any candidate with eclectic reading habits would be comfortable with most of the passages.
Some RC questions have close options requiring re-reading of portions of the passages; and there are more
inference-based questions than direct ones—this requires careful reading of the passages and makes the RC
challenging.

An attempt of 19-20 questions in RC with 90% accuracy is necessary for a 99 percentile.

The 10 VR questions on jumbled paragraphs, out-of-context sentences and paragraph summary are of medium
to difficult level. The TITA questions on Jumbled Paragraphs and Out-of-Context Sentences do not have any
options, so you have to rely only on your RC skills (developed throughout the book) to establish the writers’
original flow of thought and sequence the sentences into coherent paragraphs and identify the out-of-context
sentences. Similarly, the MCQ questions on Paragraph Summary test your basic RC skill of ‘mental
summarizing’.
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An attempt of 7 questions in VR with 90% accuracy is necessary for a 99 percentile.

This makes 26 attempts with a score of 66 necessary for a 99 percentile.

The distribution of questions in the CAT VARC Section is summarized below:
1. Reading Comprehension: 24 questions (MCQ)
2. Paragraph Summary: 03 questions (MCQ)
3. Jumbled Paragraphs: 04 questions (TITA)
4. Out-of-Context Sentences: 03 questions (TITA)
Total 34 questions

This content is contributed by Captain AK Kalia with Amazon.in Team. He is author of the book “Verbal Ability
and Reading Comprehension for CAT” & “IIF Solved Papers 2007-2018” published by Wiley India.