CAT Pattern Knowledge - Essential For MBA Admission In CAT Based Admissions

Introduction of CAT:
CAT is abbreviated name of ‘Common Admission Test’. CAT is conducted every year by Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) of India in a joint venture to short list the students for admission to their PGDM (Equivalent to MBA) programs. Normally more than 250,000 students have been appearing in the CAT each year for last 5 years and out of those some 2500 – 3000 can make their way to IIMs. These figures indicate how important it is to study proper get in last 1 percent amongst all MBA aspirants appearing in CAT. Because of popularity many other B-Schools (approx. 500 Business Schools) are also CAT as a criteria to short list the students for their MBA and PGDM programs.
It is very important to understand the test pattern, to work out the proper preparation, find out proper study material for such a Vital Examination. A good score can change your fortunes forever. CATs are similar to GRE, GMAT and many other examinations conducted in the various countries of the globe.
CAT - Test Pattern:
IIMs have been regularly altering test patterns of CAT, sometime these alterations are major sometimes they are minor. Earlier alterations were not disclosed prior to exams and they were coming as a surprise to many students, but recently, CAT authorities started informing about their change in the examination patterns.
CAT is conducted in online computer based options. To get familiar with examination pattern, 15 minutes tutorial and mock test is provided before the start of examination. All candidates are advised to get used to these pattern by following that tutorial. The total duration will be two hours and thirty five minutes including the tutorial. It is very essential to get familiarize with layout and navigation pattern of online test before you begin with actual test.
In the Examination room, each candidate will have a separate desk with a separate computer, some rough papers, etc. Rough papers are provided to make rough calculations of questions. Rough calculations cannot be done on any other paper than the provided set of papers. After test is over candidates are not allowed to take away their rough papers. No breaks are allowed for drinking water or urinal or anything.
Normally CAT exam papers comprise of two main sections. First section focuses on Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation where as second section focuses on Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning capacity of a candidate. One has to be careful not to jump to second section directly as they will not be able to switch back to first section. One has to finish first section completely before starting with second section of paper. In an all CAT paper has 60 questions, 30 in each section and time allotted for each section is 70 minutes. Remember one has to see through all 70 minutes of first section irrespective of time required to complete first section. Candidate gets 3 marks for each correct answer and minus 1 mark for each incorrect answer and 0 marks for unanswered questions. One should focus on maximizing the raw score which will be used to give respective percentile score for each candidate. Wish you all the best for Your comming CAT.