CAT2004 Test Pattern

No. of Sections : 3
Total No. of Questions : 123
Section-wise time limit: No
Level of Negative marking: Not specified on test booklet

CAT2004 Analysis

What a shocker it was! The IIMs truly lived up to their reputation of giving surprises in CAT papers. A lot of students were shaken up when they saw that each section had two sub-sections. They were in for more of such treatment when they realised that there were some questions with one mark each and some questions with two marks each.

While CAT has never before given different marks to different questions, this year's pattern of giving some questions separately with two marks each should have worked in your favour because the test-setters themselves were identifying difficult questions for you. (Of course, there were a few half-mark questions too in the verbal/RC questions) Do not worry that you will lose more marks if you leave out the two-mark questions - you have to score as many marks as possible in the time available. Your best bet in such a scenario is that you focus mainly on the one-mark questions. And, most of the two-mark questions were, in fact, difficult. A lot of them were difficult not only because of their higher conceptual difficulty level but also because of the time that they take to be solved. But, you should have certainly gone through the two-mark questions to see if you could have cracked a couple of them without spending more-than proportionate time on such questions.

However, since it is relative performance that matters to students, the absolute score does not matter at the end of the day. If you have kept your cool, you would have done the easy questions - even if they were few in number in the entire paper.

What about negative marking? As usual, the paper does not specify the level of negative marking. Earlier, the negative marking was one-third for every wrong answer. A logical assumption for this year's negative marking can be that it will be one-third for the one-mark questions and two-third for the two-mark questions. But, one will know more about this only when the IIMs send the scorecards.

While analysing the difficulty level of the paper, we at T.I.M.E. have not lost sight of the fundamental issue that a lot of students find some questions easier outside the exam hall but would not have answered those questoins during the test.

Given below are the estimated cut-offs for the CAT2004 paper.

When judging the suitability of a candidate, the IIMs consider academic performance and work experience in addition to CAT performance. However, considering only CAT performance, the following are the scores required to get IIM calls.

Total score required for one IIM Call: 53-54 marks
Total score required for 3-4 IIM calls: 56-57 marks
Total score required for all 6 calls: 60 marks

Please note that all students who get the above scores may not get calls because the IIMs are expected to consider different parameters like weightages for work-experience, academics as well as for various sections in the paper.

The other institutes taking CAT will very obviously have lower cut-offs.

Now that CAT is over, make sure that your focus is on your preparation for XAT and other management exams that you are writing as well as on your preparation for Group Discussions and Interviews.

Wish you all the best from the entire T.I.M.E. team.