Common Admission Test, also known as CAT exam, is a computer-based entrance test for management programs conduct in India annually. Based on the results of the CAT, students get an opportunity to complete their Business Administration programs from top management colleges in India.
A student preparing for CAT should have basic knowledge about the exam along with details that might come in handy during their prep. Only with thorough knowledge of the exam, students will be able to plan their schedule and put their best foot forward in the CAT Examination.
CAT Subjects Are Divided Into Three Larger Categories:
After this, the thing that crosses the minds of all the CAT aspirants is the pattern of the CAT exam. So according to the latest CAT exam pattern, there are 100 questions in total, out of which 75 questions have negative marking. Whereas 25 questions don’t have any negative marking. Out of the 100 questions, Verbal and Reading category comprises of 34 questions, Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning comprise of 32 questions and Quantitative category comprise of 34 questions.
The eligibility criteria for CAT exam is as follows:
- The student must hold a bachelor’s degree with at least 50% marks or CGPA equivalent to it (45% for SC, ST, and PWD).
- Students from the final year of the bachelor’s degree/qualification exam equal to it are also eligible to apply for the CAT exam. But the only mandatory condition here is that they have to present a certificate signed by the stated authorities of college institute which proves that the candidate appearing for CAT has finished all the prerequisites.
- A well-recognized university should grant the student the bachelors degree or an equivalent degree.
About the CAT:
CAT has undergone various major changes over the years. Till the year 2009 CAT exam was pen-paper based. The exam commission made the test computerized after 2009. In the year 2015, the exam changed to three sections from the earlier two sections i.e. Verbal and Reading Comprehension, and Quantitative Ability. Also, the IIMs introduced an on-screen calculator. The test duration was increased from 170-minutes to 180-minutes in the same year. Prior to the year, 2013 CAT exam had 60 questions in total (30 questions in each section).
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Around 2 lakh students appear for the CAT exam every year, though the number has always had variations since 2007. In the year 2017, approximately 231,000 students registered for the CAT Exam across India. An interesting fact is that most of the students appearing for CAT have an engineering background.
After knowing every other basic detail about the CAT, the last thing that remains is the passing percentage. Cut-off percentile for CAT depends on various factors such as difficulty level of the exam, total number of students appearing in the exam, total number of seats, sectional cut-off, overall cut-off and more. Around 10 IIMs have already released their cut-offs for CAT 2021. In general, the CAT cut-off for old IIMs as well as top IIMs goes over 99 percentile. The cut-off for new IIMs reach 90 percentile and above. Other than this, B-schools which belong to tier-II to tier-IV towns, have cut-offs in the 50 to 80 percentile range. An important note to keep in mind is that the CAT score is valid for one year only.
We wish a very good luck to all the CAT aspirants.
