The Common Admission Test (CAT) was held today in two shifts-- 9:00 am to 12:00 noon and 2:30 pm to 5:30 pm. IIM Kozhikode was the officiating IIM for the CAT this year, which is an eligibility test for admission to postgraduate management programmes in premier B-schools in the country. CAT is a three-hour examination comprising three sections: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC), Quantitative Ability (QA) Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR). Candidates get one hour for each section.
Close to 2.44 lakh candidates are expected to have appeared for the CAT 2019 today at 376 test centres spread across 156 cities.
"CAT generates a lot of buzz and discussion every year for one simple reason: it is never the same, and it always has an ace up its sleeve, a new surprise every year. This year's story was the same. While VARC was slightly more difficult than the relatively easier levels of the previous three years, QA came down a notch in difficulty level. LRDI also became easier as compared to the previous year," said Mr Ramnath Kankadandi, National CAT Course Director, T.I.M.E.
"The VARC section tightened the screws a little bit, after three years of easy VARC sections. While the broader pattern remained the same - 24 RC questions and 10 VA questions - the difficulty level of the RC questions was a major digression from previous years' difficulty levels. One can say it was not a breeze even for those well-versed with the language," he said.
On the QA section, he said, "The difficulty level of QA, one could say, was slightly lower than that of CAT 2018, but this section was by no means as easy as the QA section of CAT 2017."
"Overall, CAT 2019 appears a little easier than CAT 2018, with two sections (DILR and QA) being on the easier side than those of CAT 2018, and one section (VARC) being tougher," he added.
According to Vijay Jha, Academic Head, CAT and Aptitude Exams at Gradeup, "The overall difficulty level of the exam was moderate to tough. Out of the three sections, VARC was the toughest while QA and DILR were both equally intimidating."
The results will be announced in January 2020. "In order to ensure fairness and equity in comparison of performances of candidates across different test sessions, the scores of candidates shall be subjected to a process of Normalisation," reads the exam notification released by IIM Kozhikode.
CAT 2018 result was announced on January 5, 2019. 11 candidates had scored 100 percentile and 21 candidates had scored 99.99 percentile.
Admission to JNU's Atal Bihari Vajpayee School of Management and Entrepreneurship is done through CAT score. Application process is likely to begin in January.
There are 20 IIMs in the country, the two oldest ones-- IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta-- were established in 1961. IIMs reserve 15% seats for SC candidates, 7.5% seats for ST candidates, 27% seats for NC-OBC candidates and up to 10% seats for EWS candidates.