The prestigious management entrance exam, Common Admission Test (CAT), will take place in November and the registrations are going to end in the third week of September. Most of the aspirants agree with us that passing with flying colours in CAT will not be a cakewalk because the admission is to the premier institutes in the country. In this scenario, one should not lose marks for silly reasons.
Preparing for CAT without considering the previous years' exam analysis is not encouraged because every single mark counts in this computer-based test. Here is the best explanation for why MBA aspirants should consider taking a CAT exam analysis which will help them stand out in the competition.
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Why CAT Exam Analysis Is Important For Your Preparation
Be it any examination, decoding the previous years' question paper will help the aspirants to understand many things and prepare accordingly. Though the exam is conducted annually, there will be changes in the pattern and difficulty level of the papers.
Here are the four main things you will learn through the CAT exam analysis.
1. To Get Familiar With The Pattern
The exam pattern is very important for any competitive exam. The CAT exam pattern is different from other management entrance exams. Going through the previous years' question papers of CAT will give you an idea regarding the preparation strategy.
2. To Know The Tricks
Most of the times, there will be no repetition of questions in the CAT examination. However, with CAT exam analysis, one can find tricks to solve the questions in lesser time.
3. To Assess The Difficulty Level
It is always advised that aspirants get familiar with the difficulty level of questions before kick-starting the preparation. With the CAT exam analysis, one will get an idea regarding this issue because the previous years' question papers are the only authentic available source.
4. To Know Which Topics Have Weightage
The syllabus for any competitive examination will be as vast as the sea and there is no exception for CAT. With the CAT exam analysis, aspirants will know about the topics which have highest weightage.
CAT Exam Analysis
Aspirants should be familiar with the CAT exam pattern that consists of Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC), Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DI&LR) and Quantitative Ability (QA). The CAT 2017 exam was conducted on November 26, 2017. Here is the exam analysis.
Sections | No Of Questions | No Of MCQs | No Of Non-MCQs | Difficulty Level | Good Attempt |
VARC | 34 | 24 | 10 | Moderate | 26 - 27 |
DI & LR | 32 | 24 | 8 | Very Difficult | 12 - 14 |
QA | 32 | 19 | 15 | Moderate | 25 - 26 |
Total | 100 | 67 | 33 | Difficult | 63 - 65 |
Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC)
- 24 questions on Reading Comprehension
- 10 questions in Verbal Ability
Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DI&LR)
- 16 questions on Data Interpretation
- 16 questions on Logical Reasoning
Quantitative Ability (QA)
- 10 questions on arithmetic
- 3 questions on geometry
- Rest on miscellaneous topics
The above table is prepared based on the CAT 2017 slot 1 exam paper. Aspirants can download the CAT question papers here.