MBA ENTRANCE EXAMS

CAT : THE CHANGING TREND

CAT IS OFTEN CALLED AN EXAM OF SURPRISES CAT is often called an exam of surprises. - How many questions will there be? Type of questions? How many sections? Would there be any sectional timings and so on..... And add to that the fierce competition where students from premier institutes like IITs and others compete. So it is not mere competition. It is a war .... a war where only the fittest would survive. In such a situation you can never be sure of your efforts. The first step to prepare yourself for the changing pattern of the CAT is to carefully study the changing pattern of CAT over a period of time. Given below is trend analysis of previous years CAT papers which will help you in preparing for any surprise. CAT : THE CHANGING TREND (10 year analysis of CAT) CAT -1996 CAT -1997 CAT -1998 CAT -1999 CAT -2000 CAT -2001 CAT -2002 CAT -2003 CAT-2004 CAT-2005 : The paper had 2 sections with 1 hour fixed for each section (First Section EU 50 Qs & RC 50 Qs & Second Section QA 50 Qs & DI 25 Qs to be done in that order) : The paper had 2 sections with 1 hour fixed for each section (First Section EU 50 Qs & RC 50 Qs & Second Section QA 50 Qs & DI 25 Qs to be done in that order) : The paper had 4 sections with no sectional timimg (EU 50, RC 50, QA 50 and DI 35 questions) : The paper had 3 sections with no sectional timimg (EU + RC 55 Qs; QA 55 Qs; DI + EU 55 questions) : The paper had 3 sections with no sectional timimg (EU + RC 55 Qs; QA 55 Qs; DI + EU 55 questions : The paper had 3 sections with no sectional timimg (EU + RC 50 Qs; QA 50 Qs; DI + EU 50 questions) : The paper had 3 sections with no sectional timimg (EU + RC 50 Qs; QA 50 Qs; DI + EU 50 questions) : The paper had 3 sections with no sectional timimg (EU + RC 50 Qs; QA 50 Qs; DI + EU 50 questions) : The paper had 3 sections with no sectional timimg (EU + RC 50 Qs; QA 35 Qs; DI + LR 38 questions) : The paper had 3 sections consisting of 90 questions.

ANALYSIS-CAT-2005
CAT 2005 retained its flavour of unpredictability and uncertainty .CAT 2005 had 3 sections namely Quantitative Techniques Verbal Ability Reasoning/DI/DS Each section had 30 Questions, 20 questions carrying 2 marks each and 10 questions carrying 1 mark each. The cumulative marks were 150 (60*2=120 and 30*1=30).The section wise break up of questions is as follows : Section Section 1 Section 2 Section 3 SubSection Name sections Part A Part B Part A Part B Part A Part B Verbal Ability (English Usage + R. C.) English Usage + R. C. + Critical Reasoning Data Interpretation Data Interpretation / Reasoning Quantitative Techniques No. of questions 10 20 10 20 10 20 Marks alloted per question 1 mark 2 marks 1 mark 2 marks 1 marks 2 marks Total marks 10 10 10 40 10 40

Total Number of Questions : 90; Total Time : 2 hours ; Maximum marks : 150;

CUT-OFFS :
Reasoning/DI/DS section was rated as TOUGH. The cutoffs for the section will range anywhere between 12-14. The Quantitative section was MODERATE. Cutoff of 16-18 marks for this section. The Verbal Ability section was again rated MODERATE by our experts and they predict a cutoff of 18-20 marks. Overall students rated CAT 2005 as tough.

To get a call from all IIMs one requires an aggregate score of at least 60-63 marks with proper sectional cut-offs.

ANALYSIS-CAT-2004
All the questions were divided into three sections as given below in the table. Subject No. of questions Difficulty Sec. A Sec. B Level (1 mark) (2 marks)

I. Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning II. Quantitative Ability TOTAL

SECTIONAL ANALYSIS

26 20 45 91

12 15 5 32

Tough Average Average + Balanced

III. R. C. & Verbal Skills

The Data Interprestation section was Tough and the cut-off for the section will range between 20-22 marks. The Quantitative Ability section was Average and the cut-off for the section will range between 22-24 marks. The Verbal Ability section consisted of 21 RC questions and 29 Verbal Ability questions. The section was Average+ and the cut-off for the section will range between 20-22 marks.

TO SUMMARIZE the paper was of average level of difficulty. What was important for selection was not the speed, not the strike rate (accuracy level) but the selection of questions. It was very important to identify easy and average questions and to attempt them in the first round.

ANALYSIS CAT-2003 (RE- TEST)

The CAT2003 re-test was a paper remarkably similar in difficulty level to the paper that was conducted November 2003. The sectional details are as under: in

Section I - RC & VA :The section was a trifle more time-consuming than usual though it was a little less tricky. A good strategy would have been to try and attempt all the 25 verbal questions and then do one or two RC passages. The summary questions were tricky and could have been dropped in favour of attempting an additional RC passage. Section II - Quant :The quant was difficult as always. The key to doing well in quant lay in the art of hunting down the relatively easy questions. The paper had about 7 to 9 questions that could genuinely be termed easy. There were another about 9 to 10 questions that can be termed moderately difficult. Of these, one should have been able to attempt about 14 to 15 questions, that would have been sufficient to get you past the cut-off. Even most of the-very-best of students would have attempted only around 25 questions. Section III - DI, DS & Reasoning :This section was distinctly tougher than usual. The DI questions were lengthier than usual, though the questions were not calculation-intensive. Of the 8 caselets (and 26 questions) in DI, it would have been possible to attempt about 17 to 20 questions from 6 or 7 caselets. There were 6 sets and 20 questions in the reasoning portion of this section. Two of these six sets were relatively easy and it should have been possible to crack them if one kept ones cool and spent enough time in carefully putting down the information given. Nevertheless, it would have been a good idea to have started with the DI and then gone on to reasoning if there was time to spare. The DS was probably not worth attempting. Students might also have been caught napping by the change in directions of the DS questions. TO SUMMARISE on a score of 55 + you can except an interview call

ANALYSIS CAT 2002

CAT - 2002 was lengthy and tricky. In fact, CAT 2002 paper probably had the toughest Verbal & RC section in the last ten years. Section I - DI/DS/Reasoning : This section was deceptive at first sight. All the sets appeared to be relatively simple. But, once you got down to answering the questions, you would realise that it was the same old story - either the data was not very easy to interpret or the calculations were fairly tough. There were seven sets of DI totalling 32 questions. The DS part of the section had eight questions. There were ten questions on Reasoning - four in one set on Direction Sense and six individual questions. The individual questions were far too lengthy. Section II - Quantitative Ability : Out of the 50 questions in this section, 47 were on Mathematics and 3 questions on Reasoning. Of the 47 questions on Mathematics, 22 were typical Numbers and Equations based questions. There were four questions from Permutations & Combinations, seven questions from Plane Geometry, two questions from Mensuration, two questions from Co-ordinate Geometry, three questions from Time & Distance and two questions from Time & Work. Section III - Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension :There were 25 questions each in Verbal and RC. The total length of the five RC passages put together was about 4500 words. The difference this year was that there were very few easy questions in the VA part of the section. Also, a number of questions had very close answer choices. A student who has attempted 80-90 questions in this paper has done an excellent job if he has a good strike rate of say, 75%. In order to get one or two calls, a net score of 50-52 would be sufficient.

ANALYSIS CAT 2001

The paper had a small surprise right at the beginning the number of questions were down to 150 (from 165 in each of the last two years). As usual, the instructions clearly specified that while dividing the total time of two hours, candidates had to ensure that they displayed their competence in all three sections of the paper. SECTION I : The section was a total turnaround from CAT2000 where Coordinate Geometry, Functions, Graphs had thrown students off-guard. This year the old favourites were back - Averages, Time & Work, Time & Distance, Progressions and Percentages were back in style. The all-important chapters of Numbers and Geometry / Mensuration continued to play a dominant role in CAT. So students need to understand carefully the long term trends of the paper and not go by just the most recent papers. SECTION II : This was the Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension section of the paper. It was RC in the true CAT tradition - passages that appeared long and difficult to understand, but questions that were direct and options that did not have ambiguity. This section also had 20 questions on Verbal Ability. There were five questions on Paragraph Forming, five on Fill-in-the-Blanks (two blanks) and ten questions based on Vocabulary/Usage of words. The level of vocab required was not very simple. SECTION III :This section consisted of 23 questions on Data Interpretation (across six sets), 7 questions on Data Sufficiency and 20 questions on Analytical Reasoning. TO SUMMARISE on a score of 62 + you can except an interview call

ANALYSIS CAT 2000

The paper had a total of 165 questions with three sections each having 55 questions. SECTION I - There were 15 questions in Verbal Ability and 40 questions in Reading Comprehension in this section. The Reading Comprehension part had 5 passages each with 8 questions. The passages were each about 1000-1300 words long with the total number of words in all the passages adding up to about 6000 words. SECTION II - Out of the 55 questions in this section, there were only 5 questions on Reasoning and the rest were based on Quant. There was a significant shift towards fundamental mathematics as seen by the absence of problems from chapters like Percentages, Ratio & Proportion, Simple Interest & Compound Interest and Time & Work. The emphasis was on Numbers, Functions and Basic Co-ordinate Geometry. SECTION III - This section had 30 questions on Data Interpretation (with six sets of questions three of them with Tables, two with Bar Graphs and one with Line Graph), 10 questions on Data Sufficiency, 5 questions on Analytical Reasoning and 10 questions on Critical Reasoning (Logical Reasoning). On the whole, it was a very difficult paper in terms of the complexity of the questions. This was further compounded by the fact that the questions in all the three sections were very lengthy and there were very few easy questions. Attempting more than 75 questions properly can be said to be pretty good for this paper. A student getting a net score of 55+ marks (counting 1/3 negative mark for every wrong answer) should be able to get an interview call from at least one IIM.

This analysis has been taken from Dishas CAT Topic-wise Solved Papers. For complete analysis and more interesting information buy your copy today.

YEAR-WISE ESSAY TOPICS

1999 Television really is, another eye so you can see anywhere, another part of your heart so you can feel and care about things you never felt and cared bout before, another ear to hear strange music.... The first and only international language. Ships are safer in the harbour. But they are not meant for the same. Economic Growth without distributive justice can only lead to violence Indian Economy in the Post WTO Era. To give real service, one needs to add something that cannot be bought or measured, like sincerity and integrity. Asked at the age of 83, as to which of his project would he choose as his master piece, Frank Lloyd wright, the architect answered, The next one More than one billion Indians: A gigantic problem or a sea of opportunities.A powerful business tycoon is in a better position to influence the destiny of a society or nation than any political leader or government official.

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

ADDITIONAL TOPICS FOR PRACTICE

1. 2. 3. Professional success is hard to achieve unless people give up essential aspects of a satisfying personal life. Public buildings reveal much about the attitudes and values of the society that builds them. Todays new schools, airports, and libraries, for example, reflect the attitudes and values of todays society. Organizations should attempt to remove the large number of positions and salary levels that categorize employees by skill and experience because a flat structure is more probable to foster a congenial working environment within the company Competition is invariably advantageous to a business because it compels changes to improve established methods Leisure time is becoming an increasingly rare commodity, largely because technology has failed to achieve its goal of improving our efficiency in our daily pursuits. The desire of corporations to maximize profits creates conflict with the general welfare of the nation at large. Seniority (years of service) should not be the basis of employee compensation. Employees should be promoted and given raises solely on the basis of their work performance and merit. That is a better way to encourage high productivity. The most effective strategy for a company to use in order to maintain and increase profits over the long term is to maintain high ethical standards. Following the September 11th attack, where the Al-Queda acquired bomb making and terrorist knowledge over the Internet, many lawmakers have proposed that an international body regulate the internet so that sites which provide information to terrorists could be eliminated. Regulators and policymakers should respond to potential environmental threats even before the information is fully known or concrete. There is only one definition of successto be able to spend your life in your own way. For hundreds of years, the monetary system of most countries has been based on the exchange of metal coins and printed pieces of paper. However, because of recent developments in technology, the international community should consider replacing the entire system of coins and paper with a system of electronic accounts of credits and debits. Some people believe that the best approach to effective time management is to make detailed daily and long-term plans and then to adhere to them. However, this highly structured approach to work is counterproductive. Time management needs to be flexible so that employees can respond to unexpected problems as they arise. Responsibility for preserving the natural environment ultimately belongs to each individual person, not to government. Nations should cooperate to develop regulations that limit childrens access to adult material on the Internet.

4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12.

13.

14. 15.