CAT does not seem to stop throwing surprises. The number of questions was 75 (consistent with last year) with an increased time limit of 2.5 hours. It would be wrong to say that the paper was “difficult”. Probably it was more “challenging”. If we map the last 5 years, we see a gradual shift in CAT towards a GMAT style where the “challenge” is in dissecting the questions rather than mugging up and answering at a break neck speed. This was further re-enforced with almost complete absence of less analytical sections like Geometry.
The good news for future preparation is that you will not need to spend endless nights and days mugging up tables and word lists and formulae. If your fundamentals are where they should be (in your head rather than in your books) then you just need to be agile and practice on the CAT format.
Back to CAT 2007: another new was the question weightage. Finally IIMs agree with our view of unnecessary differential weightage to question. This time all questions carried a weight of 4 and probably a negative of 1 (read -1). Our experts believe that the cut-off for the IIMs could be as follows:
Expected Cut-off for the IIMs
Total Score: 100-105
PS 25-27
LR/ DI 30-36
VA/ RC 24-28
Let us now get down to the CAT 2007 section wise analysis:
Section I: Problem Solving (PS)
25 questions in 50 minutes is not bad. However the stumping factor was the analytical style of the problems. They tended to be mini case studies. Arithmetic and Algebra skills were foremost: the fundamental pillars of Math. Geometry was missing while Modern Math (probability, permutations/ combinations etc were limited). Paper had smartly designed speed breakers, still the need was to focus on the overall section and pick up the easy ones and slowly tackle the non-easy ones. A good attempt was around 12-15 problems.
Section II: Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning
Data Sufficiency was clubbed back with DI… a move to 2005 CAT. Here again focus was more on analytical abilities to understand and disseminate the caselets. The intensity of the caselets was lesser.
The questions based on Data Sufficiency were easy as mere comprehension was sufficient to answer the question. These questions should have been given the first preference while attempting this section.
All the sets in Data Interpretation were simpler. ‘Health Drink Company’ and ‘Secondary School’ caselets were the easier of the lot.
Low-cost airlines caselet seemed easy but involved multiple routing and was a bit time consuming. All others could be clubbed as medium to difficult.
Another drastic change from last year. This time round the RCs were smaller and easier to read, except may be one. The VA/ VR shifted back to the old CAT style of jumbled paragraphs/ sentences and similar problems. The Critical Reasoning questions somehow were skipped, probably the experiment of 2006 did not work well. However this section kept with the overall philoshophy of analytical ability and basic concepts rather than speed. There were 13 VA problems and 12 RC problems.
Our judgement for CAT 2008!
Might be too early, we are probably staring at a test paper style where the paper could be linear in fashion and not allow skipping back to questions. It would keep building towards an analytical style of attempt rather than time challenged easy problems. May be in the next 2-3 years there could be a strong convergence towards GMAT.
