CAT 2015: Expectation vs Reality!

CAT 2015 aimed at making the entrance exam fair for students from all streams. Descriptive section was introduced this year to help reduce guesswork for aspirants and to simulataneously exhibit their knowledge of methodology of solving a problem to get high scores. However, conducted in just two slots on a single day, this year’s Common Admission Test (CAT) for admission to the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) came with a few surprises for test-takers. Some of these included candidates not being allowed to view all questions at a time and not being able to switch between sections.

“There were no questions of vocabulary or grammar and odd sentence out had five options contrary to the previous years making them a little tricky. There would be no negative marking for non-MCQs. With an easy level of paper many students ended up attempting a lot of questions from RC passages and all questions from verbal logic. An attempt of 25-27 would be considered good in this section. About 17-18 correct answers will ensure a 95+ percentile,” says Gautam Puri, Vice Chairman, CL Educate.

The Data Interpretation Logical Reasoning section was difficult, say experts. “The section had four sets of DI and four sets of LR with eight questions of the non-MCQ form. The complexity of these sets meant that the students could attempt only around 2-3 complete sets, and could perhaps dabble with the other sets, managing to crack one odd question in them. There were one LR and one DI set which were considered straightforward. A good understanding of quantitative concepts would have come in handy in this section. Most students have reported a lower number of attempts in this section and the cut-offs would be well on the lower side,” says Swamy.

In data interpretation, three sets were easy and the one based on set theory was of moderate-difficulty level. “Most of the DI questions were lengthy. Logical reasoning questions were easy-moderate level of difficulty. There was no DS question. Two of the LR sets were doable while the other two was of moderate level. Everybody can do four sets in this section so to get an IIM call, one must have attempted at least five sets,” says Puri. Students, however, feel that this section required great logical and time management skills.

The quantitative section was not very difficult. “A few innocuous questions ended up being trickier on account of the way the questions were framed. Further, for many aspirants the section would have seemed to be more difficult on account of the fatigue factor of a lengthy exam. Many questions involved application of basic concepts and a well prepared student would have found quite a few to be outright easy. However, the number of attempts might not reflect this on account of the large number of non-MCQ questions which would have prevented students from going for half guesses,” he says.

Brief summary of the paper:

Note: An accuracy of 80% is being assumed for the above estimates.

Source: click4college