CAT 2007 EXAM

Sunday was a big day for MBA aspirants as nearly 2 lakh of them took the CAT (Common Admission Test) in 23 cities across the country for admission into B-school.About 35,000 students from the Delhi region appeared for the test.

Even as over two lakh aspirants were expecting a googly or two, Common Admission Test (CAT) for IIMs threw no real surprises this year.With a total of 75 questions in 150min, the exam pattern was same as last year.The total number of seats in IIMs this year is expected to be in thetotal range of 1700.
Their was mixed reaction from student's Math section of the exam tough, English was easy. “Paper was not a balanced one. Math was tough,” said one student. “The easiest was verbal section. English was easy but Math was tough,” said another.

Career Launcher believes that CAT was moderately difficult this year. When asked about what cutoffs does Career Launcher prescribe, Mr Lahiri said, “We expect the Quant section cut-off to be 26 to 28; Language section cutoff between 26 to 28 and LR & DI section cutoff between 34 to 36. Career Launcher believes that overall cutoffs will be in the range of 102 to 107.

However TIME The overall cutoff for at least one IIM call would be around 88-90 marks.
A careful analysis of the paper reveals that the Verbal Ability section, though shorn .

Let us now take a closer look at each of the three sections in the paper:
Quantitative AptitudeThe section was not only the most difficult in the paper; it was also, undoubtedly, the most difficult QA section to appear in the last several years. A cursory look at the questions in this section itself was sufficient to make an average CAT aspirant’s heart sink.
If one had started to think that the Quant section of the CAT had, in any respect, lost it’s “sting” or that it no longer struck terror in the hearts of the test taker’s, then one was in for a rude shock in this year’s QA section. The questions, were very evidently “tough” and finding a “familiar” question seemed to almost impossible. The emphasis was clearly on a thorough understanding of and proficiency in the concepts of QA and also on very high presence of mind – to glean the basic issue out of a seemingly complicated question in a very short time.
On the whole, a student with an average ability in QA could have managed just about 14+ marks in this section and any score from 19 to 30 can be considered to be good. Any score from 31 to 50 would be very good, and 50+, excellent.
The cutoff for this section is expected to be in the range of 19-21 marks.

Logic and Data InterpretationThe questions in this section were, contrary to most expectations, not very reasoning intensive. Almost all the sets involved considerable calculations. Also, there would have been a certain sense of discomfort felt by most students due to one or two sets which seemed to call for one’s judgment to be exercised in understanding and manipulating the data given.
The L & DI section of CAT2007 was a distinct departure from the trend of reasoning based DI sets, observed over the past few years.The one major relief in this paper was that in most of the sets, the data did not take much effort to understand but the calculation intensive nature of the sets sort of made up for this concession.
On the whole, a student with an average ability in DI could have managed a score of about 22+ marks in this section and any score from 30 to 44 can be considered to be good. A score in the range of 45 to 60 would be very good, and 60+, excellent.
The cutoff for this section is expected to be in the range of 30-32 marks.

Verbal Ability If there is any word to describe the RC passages in this section, it would be ‘excruciating’. The passages were very painful to read and almost impossible to comprehend; added to this were five very close choices which would have forced many students to give up the ghost!!All those who had counted on the Verbal area to salvage this section would have been thoroughly mauled (for the sheer lack of a more sinister word). The grammar questions would have stumped even the best experts of grammar and the Paragraph completion questions were tricky in the choices. The saving grace were the Para Jumble questions and the questions on ‘words/phrases’.
The four RC passages on “Paradigms in Scientific Traditions”, “Expressions of Experience”, “Ethnology” and “Sociology” were straight from hell(!) with most of them being so dense as to give serious competition to the densest element on this planet!! attempting around six to seven questions in two out of the four passages, with a strike rate of about 60%, would be quite an achievement – translating into a score of around 10 to 12 marks.
On the whole, a student with an average ability in VA could have managed a score of about 10+ marks in this section and any score from 18 to 30 can be considered to be good. A score in the range of 31 to 40 would be very good, and 40+, excellent.
SOURCE :time