Smooth sail for CAT; moderately difficult, say students

The Common Admission Test (CAT) for the Indian Institutes of Managements (IIMs) was successfully held across India by IIM-Indore on Sunday.

As per estimates, a total of 2 lakh out of the 2.28 lakh applicants appeared for the exam in all three slots, each spanning two hours.

‘No surprises’

Amid the Covid pandemic, CAT-2020 took off on a good note, addressing the students’ apprehensions positively. Most of the students expressed happiness that the test did not have any surprise pertaining to the number of questions and level of difficulty.

An examination official said, “Following a change in the number of slots and reduction in the duration of the exam, many students had expected a change in the pattern. The number of questions in the exam was reduced, although not exactly in proportion to the reduced duration of the exam. The usual 100 questions format was reduced to 76.”

Philip Thomas, product head at TIME Bengaluru, reviewed the paper as easy compared to previous years.

“The first section, VRC, was as tough as last year while quants and verbal ability sections were comparatively easier. Maybe due to Covid, the sections were kept at a level where someone with a basic understanding could also solve a couple of questions. This could make the cut-off go higher,” he said. A student said, “The overall difficulty level of the section was high. There were a total of four sets of reading comprehension. Compared to last year, this section was tough. Two passages were moderate and two were difficult. Questions were not straightforward as they were based on inference.”