CAT 2014: First Day Analysis & Cut-Offs

The CAT exam began today all over the country and after five years of the 60 question format, this was the first time the IIMs had put out a two section, 100 question format.

While difficulty level is subjective, most students will find this paper much easier than any of the recent CAT exams.
Quant was Easy. Most students will find this one of the easiest Quant papers in the last 15 years.
DI was time consuming but definitely not difficult.
The only section that could be classified as difficult was the LR one which had 2 out of 4 sets which were difficult.
Expect cut-offs to be quite high, especially in Sec 1.

Outside of the difficulty level, there were no surprises as such but widely expected topics such as Data Sufficiency, Phrasal Verbs, Fill in the Blanks & FIJ were all missing. Please note that this is only sharing one of the first slot experience and is possibly not representative of students' within the in different slots. All students within the same slot got the same set of questions.

A detailed analysis of the exam is provided below followed by the experience a student will go through before & during the exam. To practice for other MBA exams, click here for XAT | NMAT | SNAP | CMAT | MHCET | CAT 

Expected Cut-Offs:- 

Cut-off Score	Percentile
215+	99.9
176+	99
139+	95
121+	90
96+	80

Note; These are estimates only and it is recommended that you do not use it as targets. 

Section 1 Analysis:  Out of 50 questions, there were 34 questions on Quantitative ability and 16 on DI. Very similar to what was anticipated and given on the mock test of the IIM CAT. There were several sitters in the paper especially in Arithmetic and Numbers. DI had four sets with one on Tournaments. A serious candidate who spends 90 minutes here could have attempted 35+. 

Section 2 Analysis:  Out of 50 questions, there were 16 questions on RC across four passages with the passages of 450-550 words. And there is no highlighting feature. It is mentioned in the beginning of the exam itself that you will have RCs in four question blocks. Two of the RCs had only three questions together and the final question of each passage was isolated somewhere else in the paper. So do check for this before you believe you have completed your RC passage. There were very few specific detail questions and while many of them required a good understanding of the passages, they were easily doable. Logical Reasoning  had 16 questions across four sets. Surprising aspects was the low weight for pure Verbal ability topics such as Grammar, Fill in the Blanks and Vocab. CR had GMAT style questions on inferences and few on essence of short passages. There were 8 Parajumble questions with half of them being on sentence exclusion. 

How to Improve Mock Test Scores?

 

The answer is simple but rarely followed - Analysis. Remember, it is what you do between mock tests that will define your improvement.

Yet, what most of students do is take a mock test, view score & percentile, and move onto the next.  All this approach helps in, if at all anything, is to help you get used to the time & pressure. 

 

A few students asked us how to analyze, and here's how you can do so. While it may take you 3 minutes to read through this, it may save you several hours while analyzing.

Once you complete a mock test, click on the  button next to the corresponding mock test

1) View the questions you got Wrong: These are questions on which you spent a lot of time, yet got it wrong. Find where your concept or approach went wrong. Click on "Review Wrong" and this takes you through solutions of only the wrong attempts. You will not be shown any of the other questions (Correct or Un-attempted ones).

2) Attempt the Un-attempted ones: You can take an un-timed test of only the Un-attempted questions in the mock test. Click on "Review Unattempted" and this allows you to attempt all the ones left unanswered. Again, you will not be shown the other questions (Wrong and Correct ones) and can focus only on the un-attempted ones.

3) Review the Correct Attempts: Without spending too much time, quickly review the ones you got correct as well and check if there were better solutions or approaches to the one you adopted.

4) Take tests on your Weak Areas: Oliveboard's Adaptive Engine figures the top three areas that you need to work on the most based on your performance data and gives you lessons (to brush up concepts) and tests on those topics. After each mock test, find new lessons + tests on your weak areas by visiting the "Improve" section.

For analyzing your your exam taking strategies, click on  button next to the corresponding Mock Test.

5) Analyze Graphs: These are detailed reports on your time spent & accuracy section-wise, along with benchmarking reports on your score and percentile. Use these to better improve your time management and question selection within sections.

There maybe more than one can do and analyze it in different ways that suits one's preparation. But whatever logical option you choose as an analysis method, do not forget to spend time on analysis before your next mock test. Click here to login and start analyzing. 

How to Begin Preparation for CAT 2014?

It’s that time of the year when most students are either beginning or stepping up their preparations for CAT. While students attending coaching institutes might already be underway, a large majority of the candidates who rely on self-study begin the process 4-5 months prior. Which is around this time.
For a person beginning their preparation or someone still early into the preparation cycle currently, proper planning and execution will help in making most of the time available. Use this five step process to make your CAT prep more efficient.