Information about CAT is very important for students who are aiming to appear for the Common Admission Test. When students get to know about CAT, they will understand that there are details that hold a lot of relevance before students can actually start with the preparation of the exam. The CAT exam is conducted by the Indian Institutes of Management once every year to give admission to MBA aspirants in various programmes that are offered by IIMs and other business schools. One of the highly anticipated and well-known exams is the CAT exam. Students are always looking out to search more about CAT so that they are able to appear in the exam. In this article, we will understand all the important and relevant details regarding the exam.
What is the CAT Exam?
There are many entrance exams out there that give students the admission into colleges and universities that students are aspiring for. These days, for almost every degree that the students want to pursue, they will find that entrance exams are required. The CAT exam is one such entrance exam that is curated for MBA aspirants. The exam has various sections that test the knowledge of students in various aspects. With the help of this, the students will be able to show their knowledge, and the scores of the CAT exam will decide which colleges and institutions the students can aim for. In order to reach good institutions, students should focus on the CAT exam details.
Marking Scheme of the CAT Exam
While the students gather all the details about CAT they will realise that the marking scheme becomes an essential factor that will also tell them details of how they want to approach the questions in the exam. Now when students look at the marking scheme of CAT, they will realise that every correct answer in the exam is awarded 3 marks. When students talk about the negative marking, they will see that only for the MCQ type questions there is a negative marking of 1 mark, and there is no negative marking for the type-in-the-answer-type questions.
This will give the students the idea that they can easily solve all the types in the answer-type questions even if they do not know the correct answer because there is no fear of negative marking. This is how the marking scheme becomes important.
Sections of the CAT Exam
Each section of the CAT exam will tell details about the CAT exam to the students. There are a total of 3 sections in the CAT exam, which are namely Verbal Ability and Reading comprehension, Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning and Quantitative Aptitude. Each of these sections separately works on different skills of the students. The VARC section focuses on the language aspect of the students, and it has 24 questions. The DILR section focuses on logical reasoning and interpretation skills of the students and has 22 questions, and the QA section focuses on mathematical questions and has 22 questions.
About CAT Time Duration
As discussed above, there are different numbers of questions in the CAT exam, and hence the total number of questions from all the sections is 68. The total time duration of the CAT exam is 120 minutes. This time duration is bifurcated between the three sections equally. Students will find that there is a sectional time limit of 40 minutes in which students have to solve all the questions of each section.
If students fail to complete all the questions of a particular section and the time limit is over, the next section will automatically appear, as it is a computer-based test. Students do not have the option to go back and make any changes once the time duration of 40 minutes is over. Therefore, working on time management also becomes a very essential factor for the students while they are aiming to prepare for the CAT exam.
About CAT Question Typology
In the CAT exam, students will find that the questions are mainly put up in two ways. The majority of the exam will have multiple-choice questions, which means that for every question, students will be provided options that they have to choose from. A few questions in every section will be of the ‘type in the answer’ type, which means that there wouldn’t be any options given for those questions, and the students have to type in the answer that they feel is the correct option.
Conclusion
Preparing for the CAT exam involves students’ attention and focus on all the aspects that were discussed in the article. Students will find that as much as they know about CAT, it will only help them to have more awareness and knowledge towards their preparation for the exam. How students prepare will eventually result in how they will be able to perform in the exam. In order for students to have a good result, they should realise that a few months of dedicated preparation holds a lot of value. Students shouldn’t take this lightly and make sure that their dreams hold importance for them and the work that they put in to make their dreams come true is valuable.
Frequently Asked Questions
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How many questions come in the CAT exam?
The overall number of questions that the students will find in the CAT exam is 68. These questions are unevenly spread over 3 sections. The first section, which is VARC, will have 24 questions. The next section, which is DILR, will have 22 questions, and the last section, which is QA will have 22 questions. This is how section-wise questions are going to appear in the CAT exam.
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How are questions presented in the CAT exam?
Students will find that in the CAT exam, the questions are asked in two forms. The first type of questions will be the multiple-choice questions, which have options provided in the exam. Students have to choose the correct option according to them. The next question type would be the type-in-the-answer type questions wherein the questions would be presented and the students have to type the correct answer according to them.
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How many months of preparation are sufficient for the CAT exam?
This is something that depends upon individual to individual, but an overall preparation of six to seven months for the CAT exam is considered good enough. In this time, students will be able to cover most of the syllabus and also practise the various questions. Students should try to give importance to their needs and requirements and work accordingly.
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