CAT goes non-Science student-friendly

With 2.9 lakh applications received of the Common Admission Test 2008, an estimated 2.4 lakh students took the examination on Sunday, said Mr Gautam Puri, Vice-Chairman, Career Launcher. 

In the comparatively moderate-difficulty paper, the English section threw a surprise item with 40 questions instead of the regular 25. 

“Previously English used to be one-third of the paper. The 15 extra questions were split between the usage and comprehension sections. This addition makes the paper more balanced and scoring against last year’s, where the English section was ambiguous,” said Mr Puri. 

Some students, like Hari Om Tripathi, found the paper lengthier because of this but said that the easier Quantitative Analysis section made up for it. While the Quantitative section was not too difficult, Data Interpretation had gone up a notch or two, he added.

The change in the pattern of the paper could have been brought about with the intention of taking in more non-engineers, said Mr Biswaroop Padhi, Director, IMS Learning Resources Pvt Ltd, Ahmedabad. 

“There was a 40 per cent weightage given to English this time and it should help bring in more non-Science students. It is a good step as the top 15-20 colleges of India were being dominated by engineers. Also, this change could have been brought around due to the RTI (Right to Information) Act where a lot of people would be able to question as to why engineers were given preference for admissions.” 

Rahul Modani, a Junior Telecom Operator with BSNL, who took the test, said, “I am happy; due to this change people with strong English will be able to make it. But that also means that the sectional cut-off might be high.”

The rough cut-off marks for Data Interpretation (DI) could be pegged at 28-30 marks, while for Quantitative at 30-32 marks and for English at 46-48, said Mr Puri. If a student scores 125 marks in all, he should be eligible for a call from any of the Indian Institutes of Management, which take in students via CAT scores, he said. 

“If a student has made an attempt of 10 to 12 questions in DI and Quantitative and 40 to 45 in English with very few mistakes, he will have done a good job of the paper,” he said. 



From next year, CAT is slated to go online and will no longer be conducted through centres in India. 

Mr Padhi of IMS said, “It can be done in two ways, either transferring the entire test online and making it a computer-based test or making it a computer adaptive test, the way GRE and GMAT are conducted. I do not think it will restrict students from appearing for it as our target students are mostly Internet users with a high rate of usage.”

For those who think they have not fared too well in the exam, Mr Puri had to say that they should now focus on the other exams of institutes such as Symbiosis, XLRI, FMS, IIFT and others to be held in the next 45 days, which are a gateway to the other top management colleges of the country.