Common
Admission Test (CAT) the largest MBA entrance exam gives surprises and twists
every year even if there is no change in the exam pattern. CAT exam analysis
reveals the fact that more and more candidates are taking CAT every year and
the number of test takers has increased during the past 5 years substantially.
CAT 2016 again proved this fact. Out of 2.32 lakh total registered candidates,
1.95 lakh test takers appeared in CAT 2016 exam on December 4, 2016.
2.31 lakhs candidates have registered for CAT 2017 and it is
expected that around 2 lakh candidates would appear in CAT 2017 exam on
November 26, 2017. Immediately after CAT Session-1 and CAT session-2 are over,
MBAUniverse.com will publish detailed CAT 2017 exam analysis.
The CAT 2017 exam analysis will be slot-wise, will be thorough
on CAT sectional and overall analysis and would predict the expected cut offs
for top IIMs – slot-wise, section wise and overall to help the IIM aspirants to
know all about their chances to get into their dream B-schools.
CAT 2016 exam was held on December 4, 2016 in slot-1 and slot-2
in morning and afternoon sessions with a test duration of 3 hours each. Both
the sessions of Slot-1 and Slot-2 in CAT 2016 exam were over on the same day.
Thousands of the students who interacted with us after coming
out of the testing hall in the morning slot-1 session and afternoon slot-2
session shared that the CAT 2016 test paper was moderate except that the Verbal
Ability and few questions in Quant were found to be of a little more difficulty
level.
Most of them agreed that Data Interpretation & Logical
Reasoning was not as tough either in slot-1 and slot-2 as was in CAT last year
but was more lengthy and despite knowing how to solve, the time did not permit
to solve all of them.
CAT 2016 in slot-1 as well as in slot-2 was pretty much on the
lines of last year CAT exam and was
divided in 3 sections with 100 questions. Number of Non-MCQs in CAT 2016 was
reduced to 25% from 28% last year which was a setback for many test takers
since non-MCQs do not carry any negative marking.
Students reported that there was a difference in the marking
pattern as already announced by IIM Bangalore and was present in the
instruction part of the actual exam. Earlier it was informed that the CAT 2016
exam would carry maximum 300 marks whereas the actual exam displayed 100
maximum marks.
With QA becoming slightly tougher in the earlier and placing
more questions on Arithmetic, the section chose to reduce the number of
Non-MCQs from 10 to 7. The section also saw the reduction in weightage for
higher maths.
Online calculator remained a bit of help for non engineers and
might improve the academic diversity in IIM class rooms in 2017.
Reducing the number of slots from 4 to 2 and the days from 2 to
1, has made CAT 2016 less biased. CAT 2016 could be a precursor to making CAT
2017 a single slot paper on a single day. That way, the entire issue of
normalization between sets can be done away with and every student is tested on
the same questions.
The score normalization should not be an issue in CAT 2016 as
the normalization is clearly defined by the IIMs and therefore there is no
scope for ambiguity, and heartburn, unlike in the past CAT exams
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