Published On : Fri, Aug 31st, 2012

CAT(Common entrance test)

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Many articles have been written on CAT on a regular basis. Still, there are many students who still ask some basic questions about the exam every year. There has always been a demand with respect to this particular entrance exam.To address their concerns this articles is written to eradiate any question or concerns related to CAT.

What is CAT?

CAT is simply the Common Admission Test for all the postgraduate management courses offered by all the 13 IIMs as well as several other prestigious management institutes across India that accept CAT scores. From this year, IITs have also discontinued their Joint Management Entrance Test (JMET) and will accept CAT scores as MBA entrance criteria instead. Some of the non-IIM and non-IIT institutions that accept CAT scores to screen candidates for admission to their MBA or postgraduate management programmes are given below as to help the students make the right choice:

  • National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli
  • National Institute of Technology, Calicut
  • National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal
  • University of Hyderabad, School of Management Studies
  • Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore
  • Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), University of Delhi
  • Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi
  • Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology
  • Department of Management Studies, School of Management, Pondicherry University

The CAT exam is usually conducted somewhere between October to December every year. Since 2009, CAT is being conducted online over a window of about 15 to 25 days. CAT 2011 was conducted from 22 October to 18 November.

The recent news surrounding CAT indicates that CAT 2012 may be conducted all the year round and may also go global by conducting the exam on some offshore sites, starting probably with the Middle East and Sri Lanka. This will be a major breakthrough in terms of education.

How to crack CAT?

One of the most popular myths about CAT is that it takes a genius or a bookworm to crack CAT. The truth is that the students who crack CAT are not necessarily brilliant. They are not even very hard-working. The key to crack CAT is Consistency. If you are an average student but are consistent in your CAT preparation, you will probably crack it easily.

There are only two sections in CAT that you have to prepare for:

  • Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation
  • Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning

Each section has 30 questions and a student gets 70 minutes to solve these 30 questions. There is a 15-minute tutorial at the beginning of the test too that students should go through very carefully.

There will be an on-screen countdown timer in each section. Within the assigned time limit, students can review and edit answers but once the time ends for the first section, they will automatically be presented with the second section and will no longer be able to go back to the first section. This makes the test a bit difficult as you will have to be sure about your selection as there won