CAT 2006: Surprise!!! Surprise!!!

Yes, indeed this year’s CAT was a surprise to all of us. Never thought that question numbers would be reduced to only 75!! Everyone of us expected a big big paper – now only 75 questions with 150 minutes! My bet is that this year you need quite high marks to get into IIMs. Given the level of difficulty in quants and DI portions – people will score very well – 100 percent in both the sections is on platter! Average won’t be very high because of the shock factor! Hence cutoffs will be:

QA = 12-14 questions or 40+

VA= 10 questions or 40+

DI = 9 questions or 36+

If in total you can get 110+ your percentile will be around 99!

Main changes in CAT this year:

• Reduction of questions to 75 – all time low!
• 4 marks per question
• 5 options per question
• Negative marking = 1/4^th per wrong answer

VA section:

Surprise! Surprise here! If you had looked at the 1994 question set – the paper won’t be a surprise to you. Critical reasoning revisited! If you had planned to leave RC altogether, the paper must have been a rude shock to you – 60 marks on RC!

In overall, if you had answered 16 questions with cent percent accuracy – you had done a very good job!

QA Section:

One of the easiest QA section I had seen ever! Attempting 12-14 questions here is a must to have any realistic chance of cracking CAT! I know guys who cracked all 25 questions in this section!

DI/LR section:

The DI/LR section was with usual difficulty level and anyone attempting over 12 questions correctly here has positive chances!

This year your VA and DI/LR attempts will be a deciding factor, assuming that everyone will do well in QA! If you had cracked DI/LR and VA (answered nearly 60% with 90% accuracy) – be sure – you are getting calls from the IIMs!

You can get the answer keys here:

PT was the first to come up with the key at:

http://www.ptindia.com/cat/analysis.php

Time has their analysis up at:

http://www.time4education.com/CAT2006/Cat2006_Analysis.ASP

Career Forum has their and analysis at:

http://www.cflogic.com/

Next week I’ll start the GD-PI strategy module. Keep watching for it!

Boss@IIMA

Final Notes on CAT and some Quants shortcuts

Hi all,
The D-day is near. All of you must be either tensed or eagerly anticipating for the 19th November! I hope the readers of the blog do a great job there and crack the exam. I am right now in Genpact writing this blog. I came here for a project work!

Ok! Now back to business - this edition I bring in two things.... A final note on CAT and some quants shortcuts. The quants shortcuts document was prepared by a fellow student here, Ashutosh Kar and you won't find better than this one. Check it out!

Let me know if you have some questions - I'll be checking my mails on Thursday evening. Email websites are blocked here except for one terminal!

All the best to you and meet you all after 19th; I'll be bringing in CAT GD-PI stuff then!
Have a cracking exam.
Cheers!
Boss@IIMA

Penultimate interviews in the interview series

This is the penultimate post on interview series. Here I shall continue with the successful students in the CAT 2005. In the next interview I shall take up a few of the CAT 2004 and 2003 successful candidates, in case the question pattern is changed back to the old format. Keep watching!

http://catiimatales.googlepages.com/interview7
Here I covered mostly the 99+ percetile candidates. Check their proven strategies with an analysis of the same. Final summing up will be on Thursday night where I'll make a summary and depending upon strengths and weaknesses - a strategy chart will be derived.

Till then
Cheers!
Boss@IIMA