Number of Questions	90 (25Q in QA and L&DI each and 40Q in Verbal)
Sections	3
Marking Scheme	4
Negative Marking	1
Number of Choices	5
Duration	150Min

True to its reputation, the CAT continued to deviate from the precedents that it had set for itself in the previous years. This time the surprise was in the ‘differential’ number of questions in the sections and a higher ‘weightage’ for the Verbal section. It would have taken students a little bit of time to figure out the ‘right’ time allocation strategy and the approach for such a paper. The Quant was of a higher level of difficulty than last year. The Logic & DI section proved to be rather deceptive but, thankfully, the Verbal section was far less ‘ambiguous’ than last year. Let us now look at each of the three sections in greater detail.

Quantitative

The QA section was by far the most difficult section of CAT-2008 and also the toughest over the past several CATs. The emphasis clearly seemed to be on very thorough concepts and exceptional ability in applying them. For a normal student most questions would have seemed out of the world, without any clue as to how to proceed and further beyond just a cursory reading of the question. Some such ‘exotic’ questions were: the one on the terms in a ‘trinomial expansion’ (actually based on concepts of P&C); the set on the number of ways in a grid of routes; the one on seed(n); number of obtuse angled triangles; sum of series of a surd; last two digits of a power of seven; the roots of a third order equation and the set on solving for the coefficients/roots of a quadratic expression. Some of the simpler questions in the paper that should have been attempted were the ones on erasing the integers written on a blackboard; the DS questions based on the all too familiar concepts of knock-out tournaments (accompanied by a rather elaborate explanation); the shop selling rice; the sum of consecutive integers raised to 1st, 2nd and 3rd powers (based on a purely trial & error approach); the P&C question on the integers formed using 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 (a real trap for the less careful students); a square ABCD with given midpoints of its sides; the number of common terms in two A.P’s and finally, the easiest of the lot, the one on two identical intersecting circles. The set of questions on five horses finishing a race was not easy at all and should probably have appeared in the DI section instead! All in all, this was a section that was quite a tough nut to crack for most students.

The cut-off is expected to be around 19-21 (Estimated mark for 85 percentile).

Logic & Data Interpretation

Can there be an end to the ‘bag of tricks’ that CAT throws at students year after year in this very ‘tough’ section? The IIMs have responded in their own inimitable style and the answer is a resounding ‘NO!’. The Logic & Data Interpretation this year can be classified as a ‘Difficult’ section. The key difference was the return of logic puzzles and the focus on calculation intensive DI sets. Easy sets were at a premium and most students were forced into unfamiliar territory in their pursuit of a respectable score. Barring the set on the ‘arrangement of houses’, which was quite do-able, all the other sets were tricky and would have forced students into making a mistake or two. The set on ‘Stage wins in Sports event’ was of a moderate difficulty level and those persevering in it could have easily cracked all the four questions in it. The set on ‘Employees transfers’ was calculation intensive and students with strong computational skills would have found it easy. The paper had its own fair share of ‘monsters’ in the form of the set on ‘Share prices’ (which would have been difficult even for a seasoned stock market veteran!), the set on ‘Cut-offs of different colleges’ and the one on ‘Telecom operators’ revenue’, where the data was difficult to read and the wording complex. All in all, this was a more difficult section compared to last year’s and the cut-off is bound to see a considerable fall over last year.

The cut-off is expected to be around 27-29 (Estimated mark for 85 percentile).

Verbal

With ambiguity ruling the roost for the last two years, students would have been wondering as to what CAT-08 would dish out in this very critical section. All apprehensions would have been removed as the student started answering questions and found that the answers were quite ‘derivable’ and that the ambiguity wasn’t to be seen. However, this sense of relief would have quickly vanished as the paper demanded a high degree of proficiency in Vocabulary - so much so that students with an excellent reading habit too would have found the going tough. The questions on ‘word usage’ were tricky and most students would have been stuck with two equally possible choices and would not have been able to proceed further without resorting to ‘intelligent guessing’. Though the ‘fill in the blanks’ questions were a stringent test of one’s ‘word-list’, they could have been done using the cues given in the sentences. The grammar questions proved to be a very tough nut to crack with an unusual twist wherein students were expected to watch out for even spelling errors - in addition to the labyrinthine rules of grammar!! The Qs on the most ‘appropriate’ word were by far the easiest ones in this section and would have afforded ample scoring opportunities for all. The RC passages were almost of the same length as last year but the passages were much more readable and the questions, for the most part, were devoid of the wicked ambiguity seen last year. The passages on the ‘Maya collapse’ and the ‘Children-Ice cream’ story were easy and should have been attempted. All in all the attempts are expected to be on the higher side and consequently the cut-offs would also go up.

The cut-off is expected to be around 33-35 (Estimated mark for 85 percentile).

The overall cut-off is expected to be around 106-110 (Estimated mark for 97.5 percentile).