Over two lakh candidates have appeared for IIM MBA entrance examination test on Sunday which was conducted across 140 cities. This year examination was held under the guidance of IIM-Lucknow. A whopping 2,31,067 candidates have registered for one of India’s biggest entrance examination for MBA admission. CAT 2017 test was held in two sessions of 180 minutes each with three sections. Section – I had verbal ability and reading comprehension; section – II had data interpretation and logical reasoning and section – III dealt with quantitative ability.
CAT 2017 Paper Analysis
Pattern of CAT 2017 was very similar to of CAT 2016. Overall, the level of difficulty was moderate with Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning relatively tougher than previous years. For example, the number of questions across sections remained the same as that of last year. Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension section had 34 questions. The Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation section had 32 questions. The Quantitative Ability had 34 questions. As per experts and some of the student who shared their views on social media, the overall paper was moderate like last year.
Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension section had 24 questions in RCs and 10 in Verbal. RCs were easy to read both in terms of language and the ‘subject’ area. There were three passages with 6 Qs each and two, with 3 Qs each. The relative ease of reading the passages was compensated by the increased level of difficulty in the ‘choices’.
A relatively high proportion of questions from this area were inference-based, requiring good critical reasoning skills. The options in most questions were close and would have required involved reading and sometimes, multiple reading of the relevant portions of the passage. This would have taken up time and would have left test-takers with niggling doubts in their minds as to whether they had marked the ‘right’ option, said TIME coaching institute,
The 10 questions on verbal ability were of moderate level of difficulty, overall. However, with seven of these ten being non-MCQ type questions, the effective level of difficulty would appear to be higher by a notch or two. The cut-off in this section is expected to be slightly lower than that in CAT 2016.
With respect to the previous year exam, this section was more difficult. Several familiar models of questions in LR and DI were conspicuous by their absence and every set had ‘unfamiliar’ written all over it. In fact, the entire section can be termed to have DI based reasoning sets and quant-based reasoning sets, making it almost impossible to identify and classify the sets in DI and LR separately.
While the data in some of the sets looked innocuous to begin with, enticing many an aspirant to attempt them, they would have soon realised that there was much more to the sets than what initially appeared, leading to a feeling that one was trapped in quicksand. Other sets were outright intimidating even at the first glance, given the volume of data and text given in them. The cut-off in this section are expected to be slightly lower than that in CAT 2016.
Quantitative ability section was the easiest of the three sections. The relative absence of ‘difficult’ and ‘Very Difficult’ questions and the corresponding increase in the number of questions on basic arithmetic concepts would have enabled a higher level of attempts in this section. Those students who have not spent too much time on one question and have maximised the number of attempts may score high in this section. The cut-off in this section is expected to be higher than that in CAT 2016.
Earlier talking to reporters, Prof Neeraj Dwivedi of IIM, Lucknow, the convener of the examination, had said that some questions in each section may not be of multiple choice type and candidates would have to type direct answers online.
To make computation easy, IIM-L has allowed the use of the basic onscreen calculator. Candidates were allocated 60 minutes for answering questions in each section and they were not allowed to switch from one section to another while answering questions in a section. Interestingly, this year the number of women candidates registered for CAT 2017 have increased by 1.16% over last year’s figure. Against total applicants of 231,067, this year 78,009 women candidates had applied for CAT. Last year 76,000 women had appeared in the exam. The number of male candidates this year is 153,027.
Not only the women candidates, this year the number of transgender candidates have also increased to 31 from 22 last year. The number of physically challenged applicants was 910 against last year’s 921. However, the overall application for the Common Admission Test (CAT) declined a bit this year. It had shot up to a seven-year high in 2016, with 232,434 candidates applying for the entrance test but in 2017, it remain at 2,31,067.
CAT 2017 Result
According to IIM-Lucknow, CAT 2017 result will be tentatively announced in the second week of January 2018. As per IIM admission procedure, each IIM will send interview letters to the shortlisted candidates directly. The criteria for shortlisting vary among IIMs. Candidates will have to visit the admission hotlinks of the respective websites of IIMs for further information.
CAT scores is a gateway to admission into MBA. Its score are accepted by the 20 IIMs and more than 100 business schools across the country. Around 4000 seats are offered through IIMs.
