I managed to write the CAT exam in the first slot on 16th November, 2014. As was expected, the difficulty level of the exam has decreased a bit with the increase in the number of questions. Complying with the CAT disclaimer, I have not mentioned any questions or question types in this post.
Section 1: Quantitative Ability (QA) & Data Interpretation (DI)
The 50 questions allotted to this section had more QA questions as compared to DI. The QA section had a lot of sitters which could have been solved in less than 30 seconds. However, the DI section was slightly on the tougher side with the sets containing a lot of data. The time saved in the QA section could have been used on the DI section for the calculation intensive sets.
Section 2: Verbal Ability (VA) + Logical Reasoning (LR)
Here again, the VA section was easily attempt-able as compared to LR. Only the most basic question types were asked in the VA section and around 60% of the questions could easily have been solved. The LR section was comparatively tougher in the sense that it required more time to solve the case-lets. A candidate taking a few minutes additional minutes and keeping his cool could easily have solved all the LR cases.
Some pointers:
1.Since there are lot of questions, it is imperative that the easiest questions are chosen first. Don’t get bogged down on a single question. It is not worth the effort when you can solve other easier ones.
2. Take 1-2 minutes at the beginning of the test to use the option for scanning the entire paper. It will give you an idea of the number of the questions as well as the difficulty of that particular section.
2. As mentioned in the quant workshop, try to substitute the answer options in the questions wherever possible. Some of the questions could have been solved in under 10 seconds using this technique.
3. Again keep track of time when solving the DI and LR cases. Leave the cases if you are spending too much time and not finding any breakthrough. You can easily compensate by solving additional QA or VA questions if required. Also, it is not necessary to solve the entire case. A case consisting of 4-5 questions may have 1-2 easy ones. Attempt those and move on.
4, Again as mentioned in the workshop, in the LR section start with the data point which contains the most information and work with the other conditions from there. Go through all the conditions 2 or 3 times and the pieces will start to fit together.
5. For the students who took the test on the 1st Day, there are a lot of reports floating on the Internet as to the number of attempts made and the corresponding percentiles. Its best to numb yourself to such reports. I am sure you have done your best and there is no point worrying about the number of attempts.
6. For the test takers on November 22nd, don’t alter your strategy based on reports of the first day. There is a very good possibility that the difficulty levels of the sections may change. Its best to allot equal amount of time for each part and some buffer to attempt additional questions in the easiest section.
Hope this post has been useful. Send us your queries and we would be happy to help in any way possible. All the Best!
