CAT Exam At A Glance

Common Admission Test (CAT) is one of the most sought out MBA Exam. The exam is conducted by the IIMs to select students for their MBA exams. Every year, lakhs of students appear for the exam and try their best to get into any of the prestigious Indian Institute of Management (IIM). The exam is conducted by any one of the IIMs every year according to the policy of rotation. The exam first took place in 1950s. Last year, CAT 2015 was conducted by IIM Ahmedabad and this year it is expected that the exam will be conducted by IIM Bangalore, though the official notification is not out yet. Earlier the CAT score was only accepted by the IIMs but later in 2011, it was decided that the IITs and the IISc will also be accepting the score as a pre requisite for the admission process.

CAT exam is a computer based test. It tests a candidates knowledge of Quantitative Aptitude, Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation, and Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension. Before 2009, CAT was a paper based test. CAT 2015 was conducted in collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). It was a 180 minute test consisting of 100 questions.

Since last two years, the question paper has gone through tremendous changes with respect to the exam pattern. It is expected that the pattern will undergo a change once again this year. As per the marking scheme, every correct answer carries 4 mark each and there is a negative marking of 1 marks for every incorrect answer. There was no negative marking for incorrect subjective type questions. Also, no marks was deducted for unattempted questions.

The results are out in the month of January usually. Candidates are provided with an overall score and percentiles, and three different sectional percentiles. A high score in one section does not guarantee a high score in the overall result or in any other section.

Every year, a large number of students appear for the CAT exam. In 2008, the number of applicants was the highest with about 290,000 applicants. Lat year, the total number of candidates were 218,664. Out of these only 276,000 candidates appeared in 2008, while only 179,601 appeared last year.