Reversing trend, this year CAT is the shortest ever

NEW DELHI: CAT - 2006 kept its promise with tradition, the tradition of change. If CAT 2005 was toughest CAT ever, students were treated to a pleasant surprise at CAT 2006.

In fact it was the shortest CAT ever. In comparison to a usual exam, which used to have 32 to 35 pages, this one had only 18. The number of questions was also reduced to only 75 (which are even lesser than last year's 90). Though students had half-an-hour extra for the exam but having to deal with 5 options for each question (instead of usual 4) left many gasping for more time.

The exam this year treated those with phobia of Math and calculations rather gently. Quant was relatively easier this year. The traditional phantasm of CAT - Permutation-Combination, Probability, Puzzles based on numbers took a back seat. In turn, Simple Equations, Algebra, Arithmetic, Functions and inequalities gained weight.

Data Interpretation was reduced to only one caselet of 5 questions and proved to be of manageable dimension. Reasoning, however, had its share of twists and traps and did not spare students easily. Data Sufficiency, like in CAT 2005, remained absent.

English was the biggest surprise of the pack. CAT 2006 gave a blink to Verbal Ability. Questions based on word-meanings, antonyms-synonyms, sentence correction, paragraph jumble were missed by many. Among three passages of Reading Comprehension, only 1 was easy. Ten questions of English Usage left a great room for debate given the subjectivity involved. In fact, the whole section of English exhibited a visible tilt towards assessing a candidate's ability to comprehend the statements and think logically.

The most striking feature of CAT this year was it saw a sort of trend reversal. CAT 06 was closest it could get to a 'pure aptitude paper' while keeping all its surprise and stealth intact. A number of questions could actually be solved working backwards across the three sections. Some of Indiatimes Mindscape Test Centre's student subscribers accepted that the marking pattern this year (+ 4 for correct answer and -1 for the incorrect) proved a kind of bait. Students were tempted to guess a lot of questions without being sure about them. Therefore, the likelihood of error would be higher.

Our expert team from Indiatimes Mindscape Test Centre took CAT-06. Here is their assessment of the exam.

This is the break-up of the three sections, number of questions wise, in terms of level of difficulty.

As per our experts' assessment getting an IIM call is going to be tougher this year. IIM's every year send calls to around 2500 students. Looking at the fact that approximately 200,000 students have taken CAT, call will be given to those who score in the bracket of 99 percentile and above.