Shubhreet Oberoi, Abhishek Shanker & Radhika Bhalla
20 November 2005
Toughest test to date, fewer Qs but premium on accuracy
It's set The CAT among the pigeons. For the 155,ooo IIM and B-school aspirants, this year's was the toughest shot at cracking the CAT. At the Common Admission Test for the prestigious and blue-chip IIMs, accuracy, not speed, will stand out to be the clincher this year. And for those CATting -- a term used in ungrad circles to describe what preparing for this Test is all about -- one of 1,300 seats at the six IIMs could be yours for asking. Provided, of course, you also make it through the next two rounds --group discussion and interview --next February and March.
For the few lucky among the also-rans, the choice could be any of the 75 other management schools that also look at your CAR scores before taking the final call. Sunday, there were fewer questions to answer -- barely 90 in two hours against 125 last year. The maximum score, though, remained unchanged at 150.
So what was it like at the end of the test? ET reporters who wrote the CAT in various centres in India bring you a field report and how trends have changed over the years. We also bring you a sense of what the cut-off -- the bare minimum score to make it for next two rounds -- is likely to be for different sections of CAT.
First, the general perception: It matters little whether you study for three years or three months. What matters is your ability to comprehend quickly, the rigour with which you attempt questions and of course, the magical four-letter word -- LUCK.
Gautam Puri, managing director of delhi-based coaching school Career Launcher, told ET: "The question paper was definitely one of the toughest in recent times. I feel it is moving towards a G-MAT-like format where you have to answer some 75 odd questions in 120 minutes."
Over the past five years, the number of questions has consistently declined -- from 180 to 90 this year. That aspirants had fewer than 100 questions to answer --first time in CAT's history -- was part of this year's surprise package. This is also the first year that CAT has specified the quantum of negative marks at 0.33% or one third of the total weightage of questions. IIM-Ahmedabad director Prof Bakul Dholakia said the test was successfully conducted amidst tight security (nobody has really forgotten how the CAT test paper was leaked one year) in over 160 venues spread over 24 cities.
"About 155,000 students are expected to have taken CAT this year, which is an increase of about 12-13% over last year's 137,000." Prof Dholakia added that the results would be out in six weeks and interviews in IIM-Ahmedabad would be held from mid-February till March.
Of the three sections -- quantitative aptitude (quant, for most), data interpretation (DI), if you ask any CATter) and English, DI gave most aspirants the heebie jeebies. Besides fewer choices," the question paper was tough and required calculation, especially for the DI section. Also, very few direct questions were asked in the verbal ability test," said Ashish pandit who took the CAT in Ahmedabad. Listen to Sandeep Manudhane of Indore-based PT Education: "Since the questions were fewer, the focus this time was on accuracy, not speed."
So what's news on the expected cut-offs? While IMS expects the cut-offs to be between 9-10 for DI, 13-25 for Quantitative Aptitude and 17-19 for English, Career Launcher pegs them slightly higher, between 10-11 for DI, 14-15 for QA and 20-21 for English.
Scores in the DI test are expected to be the lowest. Pandit and others will have to score a minimum of 50 to make it to the next round, as opposed to 55 last year. Many candidates are counting on the QA test to hit the cut-off mark. As expected, the QA test had a mix of easy and tough choices. Added Ritesh Hemrajini of yet another Delhi-based coaching school IMS: "There really seems to be a trend out here. CAT is increasingly becoming an aptitude test wherein no amount of preparation can guarantee success. The pattern is changing every year, making it difficult for students who go in with a closed mind and a pre-determined strategy to tackle the paper."
The CAT core group which had introduced a differential marking system last year continued with the practice this year as well, streamlining scores to one and two marks only. Last year, apart from one to two marks scores, there were 10 questions in the verbal ability test with a score of 0.5 mark each. "The DI section was very tough and required a lot of calculation," said Aruna Rao an aspirant from Chennai.
Aruna and several others like her attempted questions carrying scores of barely 50-65 marks. " An attempt of 60 marks with good accuracy should be enough for an IIm call," said Puri of career Launcher. The three CAT sections this were divided into two sub-sections each comprising 10 one-mark questions and 20 two-mark questions. "There were at least eight easy two-mark questions in QA section," said Vipu Vaid, an aspirant from Kolkata who attempted questions totaling 90 marks. Replying to a query on making CAT online (like GMAT), Prof Dholakia said nothing concrete had emerged so far, but it was being worked on.
20 November 2005
Toughest test to date, fewer Qs but premium on accuracy
It's set The CAT among the pigeons. For the 155,ooo IIM and B-school aspirants, this year's was the toughest shot at cracking the CAT. At the Common Admission Test for the prestigious and blue-chip IIMs, accuracy, not speed, will stand out to be the clincher this year. And for those CATting -- a term used in ungrad circles to describe what preparing for this Test is all about -- one of 1,300 seats at the six IIMs could be yours for asking. Provided, of course, you also make it through the next two rounds --group discussion and interview --next February and March.
For the few lucky among the also-rans, the choice could be any of the 75 other management schools that also look at your CAR scores before taking the final call. Sunday, there were fewer questions to answer -- barely 90 in two hours against 125 last year. The maximum score, though, remained unchanged at 150.
So what was it like at the end of the test? ET reporters who wrote the CAT in various centres in India bring you a field report and how trends have changed over the years. We also bring you a sense of what the cut-off -- the bare minimum score to make it for next two rounds -- is likely to be for different sections of CAT.
First, the general perception: It matters little whether you study for three years or three months. What matters is your ability to comprehend quickly, the rigour with which you attempt questions and of course, the magical four-letter word -- LUCK.
Gautam Puri, managing director of delhi-based coaching school Career Launcher, told ET: "The question paper was definitely one of the toughest in recent times. I feel it is moving towards a G-MAT-like format where you have to answer some 75 odd questions in 120 minutes."
Over the past five years, the number of questions has consistently declined -- from 180 to 90 this year. That aspirants had fewer than 100 questions to answer --first time in CAT's history -- was part of this year's surprise package. This is also the first year that CAT has specified the quantum of negative marks at 0.33% or one third of the total weightage of questions. IIM-Ahmedabad director Prof Bakul Dholakia said the test was successfully conducted amidst tight security (nobody has really forgotten how the CAT test paper was leaked one year) in over 160 venues spread over 24 cities.
"About 155,000 students are expected to have taken CAT this year, which is an increase of about 12-13% over last year's 137,000." Prof Dholakia added that the results would be out in six weeks and interviews in IIM-Ahmedabad would be held from mid-February till March.
Of the three sections -- quantitative aptitude (quant, for most), data interpretation (DI), if you ask any CATter) and English, DI gave most aspirants the heebie jeebies. Besides fewer choices," the question paper was tough and required calculation, especially for the DI section. Also, very few direct questions were asked in the verbal ability test," said Ashish pandit who took the CAT in Ahmedabad. Listen to Sandeep Manudhane of Indore-based PT Education: "Since the questions were fewer, the focus this time was on accuracy, not speed."
So what's news on the expected cut-offs? While IMS expects the cut-offs to be between 9-10 for DI, 13-25 for Quantitative Aptitude and 17-19 for English, Career Launcher pegs them slightly higher, between 10-11 for DI, 14-15 for QA and 20-21 for English.
Scores in the DI test are expected to be the lowest. Pandit and others will have to score a minimum of 50 to make it to the next round, as opposed to 55 last year. Many candidates are counting on the QA test to hit the cut-off mark. As expected, the QA test had a mix of easy and tough choices. Added Ritesh Hemrajini of yet another Delhi-based coaching school IMS: "There really seems to be a trend out here. CAT is increasingly becoming an aptitude test wherein no amount of preparation can guarantee success. The pattern is changing every year, making it difficult for students who go in with a closed mind and a pre-determined strategy to tackle the paper."
The CAT core group which had introduced a differential marking system last year continued with the practice this year as well, streamlining scores to one and two marks only. Last year, apart from one to two marks scores, there were 10 questions in the verbal ability test with a score of 0.5 mark each. "The DI section was very tough and required a lot of calculation," said Aruna Rao an aspirant from Chennai.
Aruna and several others like her attempted questions carrying scores of barely 50-65 marks. " An attempt of 60 marks with good accuracy should be enough for an IIm call," said Puri of career Launcher. The three CAT sections this were divided into two sub-sections each comprising 10 one-mark questions and 20 two-mark questions. "There were at least eight easy two-mark questions in QA section," said Vipu Vaid, an aspirant from Kolkata who attempted questions totaling 90 marks. Replying to a query on making CAT online (like GMAT), Prof Dholakia said nothing concrete had emerged so far, but it was being worked on.
No comments:
Post a Comment