Everything you need to know about CAT 2018
Common Admission Test (CAT) is a national-level management entrance examination.
- It is conducted by the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) on rotational basis.
- Apart from 20 IIMs, CAT is a gateway to 8000+ other business schools in India.
- It is held in the month of November.
CAT SYLLABUS AND CAT PAPER PATTERN
There are three sections in CAT examination-Quantitative Ability, Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension and Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning.
There are 100 Questions out of which 34 are Quantitative Ability (QA) questions, 34 Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC) questions and Logical Reasoning (DILR) questions.
Period of 60 minutes is alotted to solve each section.
Each question carries 3 marks and there is negative marking of 1 mark for each wrong answer.
There are two types of questions- MCQ and NON-MCQ. There are no negative marks for NON-MCQ questions.
CAT ELIGIBILITY
The candidate must posses a Bachelor’s Degree with atleast 50% marks or equivalent CGPA (45% for SC,ST and PWD/DA category).
Also GEM (General Engineer Male) students have the tough competetion and can enter IIMs only with the score above 99%le.However students who are non-engineer, special category and female have less competition.
LATEST UPDATE ABOUT CAT
- CAT 2018 exam date announced and it is on 26th November 2018.
HOW TO CRACK CAT?
CAT is considered one of the toughest exam among all other entrance exams.
The test is much more than one’s skills in the English language and quantitative aptitude.
It evaluates one’s managerial capabilities- working under pressure, managing time,making decisions and tackling change.
So many students neglect this aspect, so in order to do well in CAT, you should develop managerial aptitude and also develop the skill of time management which is the most crucial skill. Develop the sense of Good Judgement as it is not possible to solve all the questions in the stipulated time.
Identity your strengths and weaknesses by giving ample amount of mocks and spend twice the time to overcome your weaknesses.
Developing those above skills and identifying one’s own strengths can surely help you to crack CAT with good score and enter top B-schools.
BEST STUDY MATERIAL FOR CAT
- How to prepare for Quantitative by ARUN SHARMA
- How to prepare for Data Interpretation by ARUN SHARMA — Only for basics.
- Word Power Made Easy — By NORMAN LEWIS.
- Newspaper Editorials — The Hindu and The Economic Times.
- How to prepare for Logical Reasoning by ARUN SHARMA.
- Past papers and mocks
- Puzzles by SHAKUNTALA DEVI
ONLINE COACHING
Online classroom is designed to fulfill students with academic and strategic needs for CAT and other MBA examinations.
It provides tests,articles and important academic articles.
This program is designed to give students the physical classroom experience and provide knowledge from the well-experienced faculties.
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Through live-lectures,tests,assignments and discussion groups it provides all-round learning experience to the student preparing for CAT and other MBA entrance examinations.
What will you learn ? — Concepts,theory and definition of different CAT topics, Important exam-related concepts, shortcuts and important formulas, tricks and tips to solve various CAT-level questions.
TOP INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Crack any Personal Interview : QUICK TIPS
Athough being overwhelmed on receiving the call from top B-schools,anxiety and nervousness also gives student its company.Top B-schools ask many different and strange questions like ‘If you were a bird what kind of bird you would be?’.However it is difficult to prepare for all such uncertain questions.Here are few top toughest and common questions ask by the interviewer.
Q1. Tell me about yourself ?
Q2. Why are you interested in this B-school or program ?
Q3. Discuss a time when you were a leader.
Q4. What your friends/colleagues and/or supervisor describe you ?
Q5. Tell me about your weaknesses and strenghts.
Q6. What are your short term and long term goals ?
Q7. Tell me about the time you failed.
Q8. Can you describe me a conflict at work and how you handled it ?
Q9. Why MBA ?
Q10. Why should we select you ?
IIM Ahmedabad-Personal Interview Experiences
IIM Bangalore-Personal Interview Experiences
IIM Calcutta-Personal Interview Experiences
ABOUT WAT- Written Ability Test
WAT or Written Ability Test is pen-paper based writing test of 20–30 mins duration. It is a latest addition to the final selection process for IIMs and other top B-schools. Earlier, after scoring good marks in MBA entrance exams like CAT,MAT,XAT,SNAP,etc and shortlisted for final admission round, two more hurdles had to be cleared (GD&PI) to get admission in decent B-school.However, now most of the IIMs have replaced Group Discussion (GD) round by WAT in the final selection round.IIMs and other top B-schools have found WAT a better testing process to assess a candidate than GD as many candidates could not express their opinion and views and make their presence felt during GD round unlike in WAT round, where candidates can freely express his/her views and opinions on paper.And adding to it’s advantages WAT is also a mean to examine the writing skills and coherency and clarity of thought process.
WAT TIPS
- READ! READ! READ! Since the topics in WAT require good amount and quality of knowledge read all current affairs thoroughly. Read every news which came up in last one year or maybe even before that.
- Writing both quantity and quality information can make a good call. IIM Calcutta had set a limit of 200 words last year.So practice penning all your points in the most economic way as possible.
- Avoid writing such points on which you cannot discuss or your views are ambiguous.
- Write in simple and easy to understand language.
- Try to give positive views as negative views might give a wrong message.
- Correct use of punctuation and there should be no grammatical error.
- Introductory paragraph must be clear and the topic and the views on it should be clearly mentioned and one paragraph should discuss one segment i.e. do not mix the issues or make any contradictory statements.
- Last paragraph should contain your concluding point summarizing your writing piece.
TOP MBA B-SCHOOLS USING WAT IN 2018
- IIM Ahmedabad | Time Limit : 20–25 mins | 300+ words | Probable Topics : Current Affairs,Finance,Economics,Socio-political
- IIM Bangalore |Time Limit : 30 mins | 400 words approx. | Probable Topics: National, International
- FMS Delhi | Time Limit : 20–30 mins | 300 words | Probable Topics : Current Affairs, economic, National, International
- IIFT | Time Limit : 20 mins | 300+ words approx. | Probable Topics : Current National, International
- IIM Calcutta | Time Limit : 20–25 mins | 400 words | Probable Topics : Current affairs,Business,Science,Abstract topics.
