CAT Previous year Paper Analysis

The Common Admission Test (CAT) is an entrance examination conducted by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) for admission to 20 IIMs and over 100 B-schools across India. CAT 2017 exam will be held on Sunday, November 26, 2017 in 2 sessions of 3 hours duration each. More than two lakh candidates are expected to appear in the examination this year. The test is conducted every year by one of the IIMs based on a policy of rotation. This year CAT will be conducted by Indian Institute of Management Lucknow. The registration for CAT 2017 started on 9th August  and will close on 20th September 2017.

If you are an aspirant preparing for the CAT 2017 exam, here is the CAT 2016 paper analysis exclusively for you. After you analyse the paper, Solve CAT practice paper. CAT Practice sets will give you a brief idea on how you can solve the problems in less time and with greater accuracy. 

The Common Admission Test (CAT) 2016 was conducted on 4th December 2016 by IIM Bangalore. Over 2 lakh candidates took the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2016 exam.The exam was scheduled from 9 am to 12 pm (first slot) and 2 pm to 5 pm (second slot).

Exam Structure

The paper consisted of three sections namely Quantitative Aptitude, Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning and Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension with 100 questions.

Section	No. of MCQs	No. of non-MCQs	Total no of Questions	Total Marks
Section I – Verbal & Reading Comprehension	24	10	34	34
Section II – Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning	24	8	32	32
Section III – Quantitative Aptitude	27	7	34	34
Total	75	25	100	100

Section wise Analysis

Verbal Ability: In terms of level of difficulty, the section was easy to moderate. The exam was very similar to the exam last year. The subjective para-jumble questions were tricky in nature.  The exam did not feature any question from vocabulary, FIJs, Phrasal verbs and so on. There were many logical structure questions. The options were extremely tricky. Only one passage was difficult to read. The others were easy and two passages were also very interesting. The questions in Verbal ability were dominated by Verbal Logic and did not carry any negative marking. The summary questions were easy.34 questions were asked in this section. Students with good reading skills had an advantage in this section.

Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning: This section was lengthy and time-consuming in nature. Overall, this was the toughest section in the exam.LR-DI was the toughest section in the exam.There were 16 questions each from the DI and LR areas. There were approximately 10 non-MCQs in this section.The Data Interpretation questions were from categories like Tables, Bar Graph, Charts and Line Graph.

The students are advised to join the CAT Mock test series to get familiar with the actual test environment. Every CAT aspirant should take the Mocks religiously as it helps to build accuracy. Mock tests your preparation, determines your speed and accuracy and highlights your strengths and weakness.

Quantitative Aptitude: There were 34 questions of QA. There were 7-8 Questions of Non MCQ type and the rest were MCQs. In terms of level of difficulty, the section was moderate in nature but the section was trickier in comparison to the last year. There were questions from regular topics like Algebra, Geometry, Modern Math, Arithmetic and Number Systems. Commercial Math (Percentage, Profit & Loss & Ratio) had good number of questions. There was not a single question on probability.There were a good number of questions from Geometry with one question from Pyramids as well.

The results of Common Admission Test was declared on 9th January 2016.CAT 2016, on the whole, was slightly difficult as compared to the CAT 2015. The Quant and DILR section was Moderate to difficult, VARC section was relatively easy, the Odd Para Jumbles and Para Jumbles questions were difficult.

Also solve CAT Question Papers of previous years to check your current level of preparation.Candidates must go through the previous year question paper to understand the break-up of questions for different sections. Attempt at least 2 to 3 mocks every week and analyze them thoroughly. The analysis of mock paper will bring clarity on strengths and weaknesses.