CAT 2014 Analysis & Cutoff

CAT is the most well-renowned entrance exam for over 150 B-schools across India, including the 19 IIMs. The online exam is conducted by the IIMs every year in the month of November and the GDPI round takes place from Jan to April. The academic sessions begin in the months of July-Aug.

CAT focuses on general aptitude (English, Math, Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning). The special feature about CAT is renowned institutes that one can gain admission to by cracking this exam. One can get admission into the IIMs only by cracking the CAT exam.

Pattern

There were surprises in the structure of CAT last year with a fixed number of questions in LR (16) and DI (16) across each slot. Also the pattern was fixed w.r.t the question numbers of LR (35-50) and DI (85-100). The QADI section had 34 QA questions along with 16 DI questions in 4 sets of 4 questions each. In the VALR section, Verbal Logic and Usage contributed to 18 questions while LR and RC contributed to 16 questions each (4 sets of 4 questions each). While the QA and VA questions continued to be very easy, LR and DI were difficult and many students would have had a tough time trying to solve these sets. Verbal Logic and RC proved to be life savers in the second section.

Section	No. of Questions	Optimal Time in minutes	Difficulty Level	GoodAttempts
Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation	50	80	Easy	35+
Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning	50	90	Easy-Moderate	35+
Total	100	170	Easy	70+

 

Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation

In the morning slot of CAT 2014 exam, there were 34 questions of QA and 16 questions of DI in the slot. The difficulty level was low and the questions were designed to test the grasp of fundamentals. There were questions from regular topics like Number System, Algebra, Geometry, Modern Math and Geometry. There was one question from trigonometry as well. Questions in Data Interpretation area were not very difficult either and did not involve convoluted calculations. All the questions in DI came in sets of 4. There was an LR based DI as well. There were no DS questions.

 

With a very easy QA good students could have attempted about 28-30 questions in QA and 2 sets of DI for a total of 35+ attempts. However in an easy paper it is accuracy that is the differentiator and anyone with poor accuracy will lose out.

 

Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning

The questions in this section were of low difficulty level. The trick here was to aim for high accuracy by correctly identifying the questions that one was confident of solving correctly. RC's were manageable, not being inordinately lengthy or abstract. At most only one of the four given passages was tough. There was a balanced mix of questions from various areas of Verbal Ability. All the questions in LR came in sets of 4. 2 sets were doable while it was best to leave the rest alone

Surprises:There were not many questions of vocabulary or fill in the blanks. With a difficult LR and easy RC many students ended up attempting three RC passages and only two LR sets. An attempt of 35+ would be considered good in this section.

Area	Topic	No. of Questions	Description
Reading Comprehension (16 Questions)	Reading Comprehension	16	4 passages of about 550 words and 4 questions each. All the passages were easy to read and comprehend and the difficulty level of the questions varied from easy to moderate. Only one question in one of the passages was a further application question that could have troubled the students.
English Usage (18 Questions)	Sentence Correction	3	Spot the correct sentence, out of five sentences/parts of a sentence. Easy to moderate but the options gave away the answer.
	Para-jumble	4	5 Sentence type. Very easy. One could have solved at least 2 of these by only spotting the first sentence of the sequence and using the options. The language too was not difficult. Except for one questions, sentences were moderate in length.
	Summary	3	Small paragraph of about 200 words followed by four options. Elimination of options made the task easy.
	Critical Reasoning	4	Small passage of about 200-250 words, followed by an inference question - time consuming but easy
	Grammar	3	Simple words, use of phrasal verbs
	Para-jumble (Odd sentence out)	4	Very easy sentences to read, the theme was not difficult either, short sentences. Correct answer was easy to spot owing to very obvious pointers - use of pronouns, change in context etc.
Logical Reasoning (16 Questions)	Maxima Minima concept	4	2 LR sets were not very time consuming and doable. 1 set was difficult and time-consuming but doable. The last set was very difficult and left best alone. Students were tested on the concept of maxima minima.
	Arrangement	4
	Circular arrangement	4
	Set theory based	4