Common Admission Test (CAT) is an all India Entrance test conducted by Indian Institutes of Management IIMs for admission to 2 years Post Graduate Management programs

CAT Exam Analysis

Marking scheme:

For each correct answer, +3 marks are awarded

Negative marking of -1 mark for incorrect answers in MCQ type questions is there.

Non MCQ questions do not carry negative marking.

Test pattern:

CAT 2015 consisted of three sections.

There were MCQ as well as non MCQ questions

Section MCQ TITA Total questions
Section I – Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC) 24 10 34
Section II – Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning
24 8 32
Section III – Quantitative Ability
20 14 34

Total 68 32 100

This year CAT introduced non MCQ type questions. In these questions, no options were given, instead answer was to be typed in.

The exact number of non MCQ questions and MCQ is available, answers of 32% questions had to be typed in.

Section 1: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC)

Division of questions in VARC section in slot 2 was same as that in slot 1.

Most students found this section to be least difficult of the three sections (VARC, DILR, QA) and could attempt a comfortable number of questions.

Total questions 34
Difficulty level Moderate
Good attempts 26-29

Reading Comprehension

There were 5 passages in Reading comprehension, out of which 4 were more easily do-able.

If you did it with more than 75% accuracy, that’s a good sign to start with! One passage though was a bit lengthy and chances are that you could not do it properly.

Three passages were long type, with around 450 words each.

There were 6 questions each after these paragraphs.

Two passages were shorter, with around 300 words each.

There were 3 questions each after these paragraphs.

Some questions were idea-based, some were inferential.

Overall RC was moderately difficult.

Verbal Ability

Verbal Ability mostly comprised of summary type questions, para jumble and odd sentence out type questions.

Type of qs Number of qs Description

Odd sentence out 3 A paragraph with 5 simple
short sentences was given. Candidate had to find the odd sentence in this paragraph. If you could identify mandatory pair, these questions could have been done correctly.
Summary type questions 3 Though it was a TITA
question, but one had to only type in the correct option number. The questions were such that a short paragraph was followed by four options.
Para jumble 4 Jumbled paragraphs were
expected in CAT. In this, 5 sentences were given to be placed in correct order. Being non MCQ types, without negative marking, it would have been wise to attempt all.

Section 2: Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning
(DILR)

Total questions 32
Difficulty level Moderate to Tough
Good attempts 15-17

Difficulty level of DILR in the first slot was tough, as was said by many students.

Though several test takers of slot 2 said that DILR was tough even in slot 2, but for them, QA seemed elngthy also.

Perhaps slot 2 DILR was slightly easier than that of slot 1, but overall, it was tougher than expected.

Type of qs Number of qs Description

Data Interpretation 4 Line chart question on
names of people – Easy / Moderate
4 Table on Cartridges – Moderate / Tough
4 Table on Assets – Tough
4 Table on Drugs – Tough
Logical Reasoning 4 LR question on exam scores – Easy
4 LR question on teams – Easy / Moderate
4 LR question on Auction – Tough
4 Scheduling question – Tough

Section 3: Quantitative Ability

Total questions 34

Difficulty level Moderate to Tough

Good attempts 24-26

QA questions become easier when there are options before the student.

The lack of options in non MCQ questions might have raised the difficulty level.

The main point of concern however for most students was that they found the section lengthy.

Type of qs Number of qs Description
Quantitative Ability 1 Trigonometry
3 Number System
3 Modern mathematics
7 Geometry and mensuration
10 Arithmetic
10 Algebra