CAT sees thin attendance on Day One

The Common Entrance Examination (CAT) saw a lean first day on Thursday with only 4,429 candidates registering, but the organisers are confident of better attendance in the coming days.

With no scheduled tests on Friday, tests will resume from Saturday and will continue till November 6.

“We are pleased that the first day of tests has ended smoothly, and will continue to stay focused on providing candidates with the best possible experience,” said Soumitra Roy, Managing Director, Prometric India, which conducts the examination.

The paper consisted of two sections–each with 30 questions. The first section was quantitative ability (QA) /data interpretation (DI) and the second was verbal ability (VA)/logical reasoning (LR). Each section was given 70 minutes’ time with a total of 140 minutes for each paper. The students were given a tutorial of 15 minutes to familiarise them with the test. Most students found the first section tough and the second one easy.

‘Maths tough’

Goutam from Hyderabad, who studies in Karnataka, said the overall experience was good but the mathematics section was quite tough. A similar reaction came from Bhargavi, Manjuvani and Prarthana, all from Bangalore.

However, Madhu Priyanka from Jharkhand, who works in Bangalore was confident of clearing it.

Dundappa Chimmat from Belgaum, Syed Bilal and Sanaullah from Al Amin College in Bangalore said it was a ‘challenging examination’.

The second section, reading comprehension (RC) passages were approximately 400 to 600 words long, reasonable easy to direct, an official statement said.

“This allowed students to save time, which could be spent on VA/LA. The RC passages were different for all students. As per last year’s pattern there were three passages with 10 questions overall,” the statement said.