Changing Pattern of CAT

The much anticipated D-Day is round the corner. The Common Admission Test (CAT) is one of the toughest management entrance examinations in the world but at the same time, it opens a world of wonderful opportunities for the successful candidates. The difficulty level of this exam can be gauged from the fact that only one percent of total appearing candidates manage to get through the prestigious IIMs. CAT is very unpredictable by nature. The reason behind that unpredictability can be credited to the fact that, students need to prepare themselves for encounter surprise situations and changeable business environment.

Students should be prepared to face unpredictability element in form of number of questions, scoring pattern, sections, negative marking, test duration of the test and questions pattern. CAT question paper has kept on changing with changing times. If we go back to 90s, we will see that, exam paper was quite long with 4 sections and almost 180 questions in it. The four sections were, Quantitative Ability, Reading Comprehension, Verbal Ability, and Data Interpretation. In subsequent years, the sections were reduced to three and number of questions 165.

By the year 2004, the number of questions was reduced even further to 123, 90 in 2005 and 75 in 2006. By changing number of questions, students were made to prepare thoroughly. This also implied that, now onwards, no questions were easy and students couldn’t afford to ignore any particular section. This change also made sure that, candidates would be preparing hard and attempt each question seriously. The implication of such a reduction was that students could no longer afford to leave any area out of their preparation nor could one find 'easy' questions to answer by searching through the paper. A paper with a lower number of questions obviously reduces choice that students have and would play into the hands of those who prepare really well and have left no stone unturned in their quest for excellence.