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CAT 2015, conducted today in 2 slots - as a one day afair after 6 years – went off smoothly, with no major issues being reported from students across cities. The IIMs and TCS can be applauded for the professional and well managed test. That we have come a long way from the long-drawn-out 40 slot-25 day window is heartening.

While the way in which the document checking and admission of students into the test center varied slightly from center to center, the process was overall a lot quicker and hassle free compared to last year.

As disclosed by the IIMs, the CAT paper comprised three sections – Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC), Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DILR) and Quantitative Ability (QA), with 34, 32 and 34 questions respectively. Each section had a sectional time limit of 60 minutes.

The surprise this year was the 'high' number of Non Multiple Choice Questions (Non MCQs) across the three sections. It has been seen that as much as one-third of the questions were non MCQs (33 Qs out of 100 Qs) which would contribute to increasing the 'difficulty level' of the paper and would have put the brakes on all those who take chances and mark answers based on random guesses.

In terms of the test interface, there was a slight departure from what was shown in the sample test. Within the VARC section, VA and RC questions were grouped separately and were given under two separate tabs. Similarly in the DILR section, the DI and LR questions appeared under two separate tabs. This would have helped students easily access the type of questions they would like to answer.

One could also look at their performance in their previous sections at any time during the test by clicking on the respective tab for that section. The number of questions attempted, left out and marked for review were displayed. Further ,towards the end of the test, a similar snapshot was provided for all the 3 sections.

Difficulty Analysis

The difficulty of the paper, across sections was largely similar in both the slots. Across both the slots, it was observed that the QA section was relatively much easier compared to the other two, followed by VARC.

With 24 RC questions and only 10 VA questions, the VARC section was moderate to difficult. All the 10 questions on VA were non MCQs, and this moved the difficulty level of the section up by a significant level.

The RC passages were between 350-550 words long and were not too heavy to read. However, with 5 passages (3 passages with 6 questions each and 2 passages with 3 questions each), students would have found it tough to attempt all of them.

DILR was the section that troubled many this time with an unexpectedly high level of difficulty across multiple sets. This was true of both the slots.

However, students should not worry if their attempts in the DILR section were low. This is for two reasons – as the section is difficult overall, number of attempts would drop for all the test takers. Secondly, with CAT anouncing that scores will be normalised across sections, the impact of this section on the overall score is expected to be moderated.

In DILR, students would have started attempting the sets but would have exited quickly from most sets leaving them incomplete. It did not matter whether students started with the DI or LR subsections as they would have got stuck either ways given the kind of sets they faced. However, attempting the DI questions first would have given students a marginal respite because the calculator was available.

It can be said that in DILR, even if students correctly solved all the questions in just 2 sets, with minimal errors in any other questions that they may have attempted in the section, the section cutoff (85 percentile) could be cleared.

Another significant observation on the DILR section is that while separate tabs were provided for the DI and LR areas, there was no clear cut segregation. There were both reasoning based DI sets in the DI area and quant based LR sets in the LR area.

The third section, QA, was moderate in difficulty. However, since it was the 3^rd section, fatigue factor or loss of concentration could have affected the performance of some students. The morale would also have been lower due to the tough 2nd section that the students were coming from. The presence of 15 non MCQs contributed to the increased difficulty level of this section which otherwise had many direct questions, albeit tricky ones.

Total number of non-MCQs
Section I: VARC (10 non-MCQs - all in the VA segment)
Section II: DILR (8 non-MCQs - 1 set of 4 non-MCQs in each of DI and LR)
Section III: QA (15 non-MCQs)

The table below gives possible scores for different sections across two slots for the percentiles mentioned.

Please refer to the individual slot analysis for detailed area wise analysis.

Many students who took the test said that the diligent focus that T.I.M.E. gives to building basics has helped them a lot, particularly in the QA section. The exposure to tough DILR section in the AIMCATs has helped them overcome the fear factor and attempt to their maximum potential. That the last three AIMCATs had 6 question RCs and two of which had exactly 24 RC questions in 5 sets, has also helped them align their test taking strategy better, they said.

Students were also particularly in praise of the kind of help provided by T.I.M.E. through the AIMCATs, the concept videos and the special workshop sessions conducted. The videos in particular were of major help in cementing the conceptual understanding an helped boost their QA attempts, they said.

For those of you looking at this analysis to get some idea about CAT 2016, please be advised that CAT is known to surprise us every year. Whether the current pattern will be retained for CAT 2016 is a question that as of now nobody (except may be only the CAT/TCS authorities) has an answer for. Therefore, the prudent approach to take for CAT 2016 would be to keep your scope of preparation wide enough to include all possible variations in content/difficulty level/pattern etc.

With the CAT over, the focus now shifts to SNAP and XAT. We advise the students to put the CAT exam behind them and prepare for the upcoming exams and the subsequent GWPIs in all seriousness. A very large component in the 2nd phase depends on the kind of prep one puts in these 2-3 months.

Do check out the "Call Predictor" to get an estimate of how many IIM calls you could land, based on the number of your attempted questions and expected accuracy.

In the light of the IIMs explicitly disallowing the sharing of any exam-related information, no student / coaching institute / online portal can share questions or other information about the exam with anybody. No such information can also be posted on any forum on the internet. So, T.I.M.E. has put a policy in place where

1. No T.I.M.E. person will share information about the test
2. T.I.M.E. will not encourage/ask students to disclose details about the content of the test that they took
3. T.I.M.E. will not allow anybody to post such information on its website www.time4education.com