My take on CAT '09

Yes I know that it has been pretty late since I last posted on this blog, and that its just a few weeks away from the D-day (or the D-week or what-ever) but still I thought its never late for a good thing, so lets try to have a look at what can we expect from the online format of the CAT.

A few things which I want to clearly state before going into the main body of the post, all the things which I am going to write are just my views and predictions, and they may or may not be true, I am not going to write things like the number of questions one can expect in CAT but the type of questions which have more probability of appearing in CAT.

QA :

CBT or PBT (paper based test) , this section should be consisting of similar questions, testing the same set of skills and so it shall need similar approach as theconventional CAT exams (as if there is something like conventional CAT :O).

The point to emphasize here is, even though the total number of questions may decrease (most probably it will) and almost all the coaching institutes are emphasizing that one has to be good in all topics in order to do good in the exam, it isn’t so.

According to observation of previous year CATs one thing is for sure, 40 % marks in any section is sure to get you 98+ percentile, this effectively means you need to do 8 out of 20 (or so) questions right. So why do coaching institutes emphasize on studying all topics, because you never know questions from which section would be easier, the paper may have easier questions from the section you have left while difficult ones from your areas of comfort, now here is a trade-off : you either work on all the topics, so that you can do the sitters from all the areas well or you may decide to be so good in your favorite topics that you can solve the questions, come what may.


DI/LR:

DI is the one section which will probably get affected most.

Reasons:
i.) Fewer number of questions means either there will be fewer sets or fewer questions per set, while the former will make question selection tougher and more important, the later will make sets less worthy and hence you will need to do more sets in the same amount of time for having our desired percentile.
ii.) Aspirants used to fill the tables and other figures with data while attempting DI/LR questions, this facility won’t be available now + It isn’t easy to look at the screen each time you need a data.

No matter how hard this problem seems but it can be solved by one remedy “PRACITCE”.

VA/RC :

More probably then not this time CAT will be emphasizing less on RC questions then on other questions, questions on usage/jumbled up sentences/sentence correction are likely to form major section of the paper, short passages with lesser number of questions than usual may be a surprise package for many.

Suggestions to improve in this section: emphasize less on reading speed and more on comprehension/analysis of the read text, don’t depend too much on techniques like reading the question first and then trying to find out the key-word in the passage but try to actually understand the passage and then answer the questions, if possible work on vocabulary, it might be of help, get acquainted with grammar rules etc.

Some more points to note.

==> Data sufficiency questions may be back in fashion, both in QA and in DI.
==> Less emphasis on lengthy table based DIs, more on crisp logical reasoning questions and a few pie-chart or other figure based DIs, which have many small and related figures per set.
==> Analytical reasoning questions will be in something to look for.
==>Be comfortable and confident, why ??? let me take an example of QA.

There would be somewhere around 20 questions of QA that you will have to do in 45 minutes.
Now lets say you need 4 minutes to look at your watch, adjust the mouse, scratch your neck and other such inevitable things.
Now lets take the following assumptions.
i.) you read all the questions.
ii.) you solve 10 questions, out of which you solve 8 correctly rest 2 you either solve in-correctly or you leave them in-between coz they seem to be lengthy.
iii.) You have an average reading speed, and you take close to 80 seconds to read a question and realize whether you should try it.

Now usually there would be at-least 2-3 questions, which would be from the topics you dread, so these questions you will leave even without wasting reading them and wasting much time, lets say taking 30 minutes per question. So you would have seen 3 questions in 90seconds (Wow, that’s quick !!!) + you will take close to 560 seconds in reading the questions you won’t attempt.

So in total you have more than 30 minutes to attempt the10 questions, out of which 4-5 will be sitters which can be easily solved in about 90 seconds each. Attempting 4such questions would mean you have 24 minutes for rest 6 questions that means whopping 4 minutes per question, and these are the easier questions from the topics you are comfortable in.

Now doesn’t it seem obvious that more than 98 percent of people should get a sectional of 98 percentile plus in QA :P