by

How Many Questions Should I Attempt In CAT 2014?

This is possibly the most frequently asked question among CAT FAQs. Whether the year be 2005, 2009 or 2014 this question has always been THE ONE question to answer and perhaps rightly so.

The simplest answer to this question, as I have always told my students, is — as many as you can. It might seem deceptively simple and quick-witted but at the core of it, is that not the task? But since test-takers are at different abilities you might ask – what is a good “as many as I can” that will fetch me a 99 percentile on CAT 2014?

What 99 percentile meant on the past CATs

CAT 2013 (the toughest of the computer-based CATs so far) — answering approximately 16 questions correctly in each section resulted in a test-taker getting a 99.89

CAT 2011 & 2012 — according to fellow professionals in the field, correctly answering around 17-18 questions in QA-DI and around 21-22 in VA-LR, a total of 40 questions correct usually garners a 3-digit percentile.

Based on my own experiences with the CAT and those of others we can safely say that on average attempting 55-60 percent of the questions correctly, or a net score that is 55-60 percent of the total score will get you a percentile in excess of 99. This is something that even our students taking the SimCAT will attest.

The above 99 percent category is like a 100 metres dash at the Olympics, there will be a Bolt who is way ahead of even his fellow 100 percentilers but barely few questions will separate the rest. So we can say that a 60-65  percent net score will ensure a percentile higher than 99.5.

What it might mean on CAT 2014

So on CAT 2014 what will be the magic number? A net score of 55-60 percent will ensure a 99 plus percentile. Let us see how this is possible.

If we look at the SimCATs which are on average tougher than the CAT, answering 33-36 questions correctly out of 60 will always guarantee you a 99 plus. Since the CAT will be slightly easier than this, the number can be revised upward to 38-40. On CAT 2014 you will have 30 minutes more and also possibly more questions per set. So this means that on average you will be able to attempt 10 questions more. So this again brings the total number of correct questions to the 55-60 range.

There is no magic number 

Ask yourself this simple question, what happens if CAT 2014 is easier than the previous CATs —can you attempt 55 questions correctly, submit the test and leave? What happens if its tougher than what we have seen in the last 5 years — will you be able to answer 55 questions correctly in 170 minutes? In both cases, the answer is no.

Last year a student of ours who was re-taking the CAT finished the QA-DI section only to find that he could attempt fewer questions that he did in CAT 2012. He concluded that he had performed poorly and with that mindset managed to under perform in the VA-LR section.

When the results came out he found that he had scored only slightly lower than the did in the previous year —the high 98s as opposed to the early 99s — and felt that he could have gotten a much better percentile than he got in 2012, if only he had kept his head together (he is currently in a premier b-school, so all’s well that ends well).

This is a very important thing to remember. Unless you are like a colleague of mine who always has time to give a good shot at all 60 questions, there is no precise number of attempts. There will always be a give and take of 5-7 questions here and there depending on the degree of difficulty of the paper. So you cannot go in with a fixed number.

How many questions should I attempt in CAT 2014?

As many as you can. But this is not as simple as it seems as there are two things that can prevent you from achieving this —

  • poor time-management and
  • poor question selection, which becomes even more important in CAT 2014 with 40 more questions and only 30 more minutes.

The posts that follow will cover these topics so that you are able to do the best you can on CAT 2014, till then stay focussed and keep prepping.

All the Best,

T

 

by

Data Interpretation – 5

Hi folks,

Here’s the second DI set from Sim 1. For those who find “tournaments” questions awkward, this might be of help.

In the next couple of  weeks, I’ll do another set from CAT 2006 (based on Grouping and Conditionality) and then post an analysis of the sets from SimCAT 5.

regards
J

 

by

Data Interpretation – 3

Hi folks,

As promised, another post of DI. This one is a set from the first SimCAT of the 2014 season. I have tried to make the video slightly shorter this time as the earlier videos were rather long and might not be that user-friendly to view on a dicey net connection….

regards

J

 

 

The CAT 2014 Pattern – From Competence To Strategy
by

The CAT 2014 Pattern – From Competence To Strategy

There have been only three instances in its long history that the CAT has not changed at all – 2010, 2012 and 2013. Given such a statistic, we should have seen something like this coming, especially when it also involved a change in vendor from Prometric to TCS.

But the last two CATs had perhaps lulled us into believing that the IIMs had finally hit upon what exactly they wanted to test of prospective managers, only for us to wake up to the news that what is required of a prospective manager in India in 2014 is not the same as what was required in the two preceding years.

Be that as it may, for those who are preparing and aspiring to ace CAT 2014, this is what the changes mean.

Average Time To Solve Has Not Come Down!

On the face of it this seems to be the most obvious case, average time per question has come down from 140 seconds per question to 102 seconds. But those who have been taking the test for a while know that nothing is farther from the truth since there is more to it than numbers!

Average time comes down only if you are expected to solve all questions within the stipulated time! On CAT 2013, a student with around 16-17 attempts got a 99.89 percentile.

The only outcome of this is that since the overall time has increased we will see an increase in the number of questions that test-takers are able to attempt.

More Questions Per Section – Wider Range of Concepts will be Tested, More Question Per Set, New Question Types Likely

With more questions in each section, there will be wider range of concepts that will get tested since from each topic, say Geometry for instance, more questions can be asked. So test-takers who were planning to ignore their least favorite areas might not be able to do so.

In all probability, we can expect a return to 5 or more questions per set on RC, DI and LR sets.

Also, we can expect newer question types in Verbal Ability and may be more variety in Quantitative with more Data Sufficiency questions.

Fewer Test-Taking Slots – Test Might Get Tougher

One big change is that the administrators have to set fewer questions this time around — 400 — compared to the previous computer-based CATs. This will definitely mean that quality of questions will go up. We already saw that CAT 2013 was the toughest of the computer-based CATs, with the test-creators having to set fewer questions, CAT 2014 might get tougher.

No Sectional Time Limit, Who Benefits — The Quant or The Verbal Specialist?

Being a specialist in a section does not mean that you consider it to be the lesser of the two evils, it means that on any given Sunday irrespective of the level of the paper you will be above 97 percentile in that section.

Even if that is the case there is a small catch – you still have to clear the sectional cut-offs!

The guys who are great at Math will solve as many Quant questions as possible and allocate very little time to Verbal, the guys who are good at Verbal will finish it very fast and allocate time to Math where they need more time.

Does it really benefit one over the other, not really! So who will really benefit – the strategist.

From Being A Test Of Competence To Being A Test Of Strategy

With sectional time limit, macro-level time management was taken out of the test-taker’s hands. Within a span of 70 minutes in each section, you had to choose and leave the right questions. In that sense it was largely a test of competence.

But with no sectional time limits it will become a test of strategy. You have to allocate time in such a way that they maximize your overall score and clear sectional cut-offs (which vary from college to college).

  • So do you allocate more time to your strong areas or to your weak areas?
  • How do you know that you have done enough to clear the cut-off in your weak area?
  • What is a good number of attempts overall?

These are all questions that test-takers need to confront and there are strategies that will provide a strong base to clear both sectional and overall cut-offs but that will have to be a separate post, once we also take a look at the new testing interface that will be unveiled soon.

On the whole though, the new changes make it look like a throwback to the CATs of the past, only with the addition of a mouse. May be that is why they say that, the more things change, the more they remain the same!

by

Data Interpretation – 1

Dear Readers,

A lot of people have been asking me to do DI, but I have been putting it off as it is very difficult to explain DI on a static page. So starting this week, I am going to try something new; PPT-based video explanations. I’m starting off with a set from CAT 2006, and will  move on to some more sets from other older (paper-based) CATs and from the SimCATs. The idea is to demonstrate how to approach a DI set in the wild, so to speak.

(Note: Please watch it in at least 480p resolution!)

Since making these videos is a pretty time-consuming process, I will temporarily have to switch to one post in a week. If I can get more efficient at this video-making, then I’ll go back to two posts, and will also try to do some maths questions in a similar format!

Do let me know what you think in the comments…

regards

J