CAT Past 5 years Analysis and Trends

CAT 2015 is scheduled on November 29, 2015. The national level MBA entrance exam conducted by IIMs is known for its surprise thrown to the test takers every year. Over the last 5 years, the CAT exam pattern has changed thrice. While you are preparing for the exam, know the trends of the past 5 years and the new pattern which has been introduced in 2015.

LATEST : Candidates appeared in CAT 2016, conducted on December 4, 2016 can check CAT 2016 Student Reaction and Analysis here

IIMs have announced major changes in CAT 2015 exam pattern. Before knowing the analysis and trends of the past 5 years, it is important for you to know the new exam pattern in detail.

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CAT 2015 - New Exam Pattern

From 2015 onwards, the CAT pattern will undergo major changes. The structure of the test will be as follows:

Unlike the pattern followed last year, there will be 3 sections instead of 2, Quantitative Ability, Verbal & Reading Comprehension and Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning. The duration has been increased to 180 minutes instead of 170 minutes, The sections are time bound once again with 60 minutes per section. The test takers cannot switch sections. For the first time, candidates will be able to use on screen basic calculator for computation purpose. Some questions will not have multiple choices. Rather, they have to directly write the answer in the space provided on the screen.

CAT Past 5 Years Pattern In a Glance

The following table brings to you the test structure of CAT over the past 5 years.

 Now let us have a look at the year wise analysis and trends of CAT over the past five years.

CAT 2014 

CAT 2014 was also conducted by IIM Indore in an absolutely new pattern. The difficulty level of the test was moderate to tough. Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation section was moderate and Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning section was moderate to tough. Logical Reasoning was the toughest part of the exam.

CAT 2013

CAT 2013 was conducted by IIM Indore. The test was on the expected lines and did not throw any surprise. The difficulty level was moderate to tough. The test was taken by 1.74 lakh candidates. The candidates faced some wrong questions on Day 1. There was also controversy around questions getting leaked making the Non Disclosure Agreement void. After the declaration of result, controversy ensued over the normalization issue after 95,000 candidates obtained 0 or negative scores, as a result of which as candidates who attempted no questions were placed at around 55 percentile bracket. Several CAT 2013 candidates filed Writ Petition which led the Indore High Court to send notice to all 13 IIMs, Ministry of HRD and CAT testing agency Prometric India Pvt. Ltd.

Let us have a look at the section wise analysis.

Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation

According to experts, the weightage on the topics like Arithmetic, Geometry and Mensuration were reduced. On the other hand, Algebra questions were increased. Other areas included Higher Math, Permutation Combination, Quadratic Equation, Functions, Interest, Data Sufficiency etc.

The Data Interpretation questions were on Bar Graph, Pie Chart, Tables to name a few. The DI section was on the tougher side. The overall difficulty level was moderate to tough.

Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning

The VA & LR sections were divided into 3 parts, the Reading Comprehension, English Usage and Logical Reasoning. There were 3 RC passages out of which 1 of the passages were tough while 2 were of moderate difficulty level. The English Usage questions were on Para Jumble, Para Completion, Word Usage etc.

The Logical Reasoning part was a mix of tough and easy questions. The LR questions were mainly on the topics of matrix, ranking, arrangements etc.

CAT 2012

CAT 2012, conducted by IIM Kozhikode was a moderate to tough test in terms of difficulty level. The test did not encounter technical glitches. The pattern of the test followed previous years’ pattern and the questions did not throw any surprise in terms of topics and areas. The test was taken by 1.95 lakh candidates.

Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation

Some of the questions were very tough and time consuming. The Data Interpretation sets were also moderately calculation intensive. The Quantitative Ability area included questions on Arithmetic, Algebra, Higher Math, Geometry, Numbers, Logs, Permutation & Combination and Functions.

Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning

This Verbal Ability section had 3 Reading Comprehension passages out of which 2 were easy and 1 was of moderate difficulty level. The English Usage questions were on para completions, jumbled sentences, grammar etc. 

CAT 2011

CAT 2011 which was conducted by IIM Calcutta underwent major change in terms of the exam pattern. Instead of 3, the exam had 2 sections, namely Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning & Verbal Ability. The total number of questions remained 60. Each section had 30 questions. The overall difficulty level of the test was moderate to tough. The total number of test takers was was 1.86 lakh.

The area wise demarcation of the questions is given in the table below:

The duration became 140 minutes and the sections were time bound as well, of 70 minutes each. QA & DI was the compulsory first section. The marking scheme remained the same, 3 marks for each correct answer and -1 mark of negative marking for each wrong answer.

Now let us have a look at the section wise analysis.

Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation

The section was of easy to moderate difficulty level. The Quant questions were tough but the Data Interpretation questions were simple in nature. The section was time consuming but not calculation intensive. Few questions were from previous years’ CAT papers, which were on Data Sufficiency and Ratio.

Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning

The Verbal Ability area included questions on English Usage and Reading Comprehension. According to the test takers, the English Usage (Para Completion and Para Jumbling) and 3 sets of RC questions were tricky. On the other hand, the Logical Reasoning questions were easy to solve. This section too had some time consuming questions.

CAT 2010

The second year of computer based CAT was conducted by IIM Lucknow. The test was taken by 1.85 lakh candidates. Unlike the first year, the test taking experience was smooth and glitch free. The test structure was similar to that of CAT 2009. The difficulty level was easy to moderate. Most of the test takers found that the Verbal Ability section was easier and on the other hand, Quantitative Ability section was tough. The Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning section was of moderate difficulty level.

In the Quantitative Ability section, most of the questions were of moderate difficulty level. Out of 20 questions, 4 to 5 were very tough. The Verbal Ability questions were on the expected lines, making the section easy. The Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning section was a good mix of calculation intensive and reasoning based questions.

CAT 2009

From the traditional paper pencil based test, CAT became computer based in the year 2009. IIM Ahmedabad conducted the test and it was Prometric India Pvt. Ltd.’s first year as the online testing partner. The test was taken by 2.3 lakh candidates. Owing to the huge shift in pattern, the first year of the computer based CAT experienced massive technical glitches resulting in retest. CAT takers also questioned the normalization process of the test. As far as the difficulty level of the test is concerned, it was not as tough as it used to be in the yester years. The overall difficulty level was moderate. The duration of the test was 2 hours 15 minutes.

Owing to the Non Disclosure Agreement, the question topics and number of questions per area cannot be disclosed in detail. However, according to expert analysis, the difficulty level was easier compared to the previous years. The Reading Comprehension passages were shorter and the Data Interpretation questions were time consuming. English Usage questions were of similar difficulty compared to the previous year. Quantitative Ability section was easier. The overall difficulty level was even easier in the retest which was conducted in January 2010.

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