CAT 2020 Registration
CAT 2020 Registration will commence from first week of August 2020 and last date to register will be in third week of September. It is an online process where candidates have to create their login ID, fill detailed application form and pay the required fees. There are speculations that application form is expected to get delayed due to COVID-19 pandemic and extended lockdown but there is no official confirmation to it yet. Last year a record number of candidates 2.44 lakh registered for the exam. Aspirants appearing or having passed graduation with minimum 50% marks are eligible to appear for CAT.
Update: CAT 2020 notifocation is expected to release in last saturday of July 2020, IIM Indore is most like to conduct the exam.
- Relexation of 5% marks is granted to candidates belonging to reserved categories.
- Eligible Candidatescan register by paying fee of INR 1900 for General category. While for individuals belonging to other SC/ST categories will be INR 950.
- Candidates who successful register for CAT 2020 can download their admit cards from iimcat.ac.in till the exam day.
- Form Correction Facility for CAT 2020 will be provided by conducting IIM in case candidates make mistakes while filling the application form.
There have currently not been any new changes to the CAT Exam pattern. It will have a duration of 3 hours and will contain 100 questions.
CAT Syllabus 2020
Preparation is the key to success in all aspects of life. There are few, if any, instances where things will be handed to you on a golden platter. CAT (Common Admission Test) certainly does not represent such an instance.
CAT is one of the toughest and most competitive exams in the world with lakhs of aspirants vying for a few thousand seats in the best B-Schools. Therefore in order to succeed in this brutal arena, the aspirant needs to ensure that he/she is putting in the right effort in the right way.
For this very reason, there needs to be a structure in which they prepare which is where the CAT exam pattern and the CAT syllabus come in. Before diving deep into the CAT syllabus, an overview of the CAT Exam Pattern will also help.
Overview of CAT Exam Pattern
The CAT Exam is Computer Based Test (CBT) rather than an Online Test. The distinction between the two is that in the CBT, the questions are kept constant and simply presented to the students in an online format rather than an Online Test where the questions are stored in question banks and the computer decides the questions to be asked of the students (E.g. GMAT).
The CAT Exam consists of 100 Questions spread across three sections:
- Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC)
- Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR)
- Quantitative Aptitude (QA)
- Each section is allocated 1 hour each meaning that the exam lasts for 3 hours or 180 minutes in total (20 minutes extra is provided in each section for candidates who have a disability).
- It is not possible to switch between sections although switching between questions within the section is allowed.
There are a total of 34 questions in the VARC section
- 24 questions (5 sets) in the Reading Comprehension sub-section
- 10 questions in the Verbal Ability Sub-section
- There are TITA and Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) in each sub-section with the majority in the Verbal Ability sub-section.
- According to the CAT Exam Pattern in 2019, there were 7 TITA questions in the VA sub-section and none in the RC sub-section.
There are a total of 32 questions in the DILR section
- 16 questions each in the Data Interpretation (DI) and Logical Reasoning (LR) sub-sections
- According to the CAT Exam Pattern in 2019, there were 8 TITA questions which were distributed across the sub-sections equally.
The final section is the QA section which accounts for 34 questions
- There were 11 TITA questions in the CAT Exam Pattern of 2019 although the number can change each year.
The CAT Exam Pattern for 2020 is expected to remain very similar to CAT 2019 if not the same.
CAT Syllabus 2020
The CAT 2020 Exam Pattern gives us a good idea about how to explore the CAT Exam Syllabus 2020. This article talks about the CAT Exam Syllabus 2020 by going through it section by section. By conducting this exercise, the candidate will be able to clearly distinguish between the topic in the CAT Exam Syllabus 2020 which can help him/her identify their strengths and hence determine their CAT 2020 Exam Strategy.
VARC CAT Exam Syllabus 2020
The VARC CAT Exam Syllabus, as compiled by experts at CL, is:
- Synonyms Antonyms (Vocabulary Based)
- Grammar or English Usage
- Correction in Sentence
- Fill in the blanks
- Jumbled Paragraph and Close Passage
- Analogies and Reverse Analogies
- Meaning/Usage Match
- Verbal Reasoning
- Summary Questions
- Reading Comprehension
- Facts Inferences Judgments
While it is a common spiel at every Coaching that Vocabulary is not tested in the CAT Exam 2020, it is not necessarily true. The manner of testing Vocabulary has changed over the years and now CAT generally asks for vocabulary question through the Reading Comprehension passages so that students also stand a chance to deduce the meaning of the word from context. Apart from this, the synonyms and antonyms are regularly asked in other MBA Entrances Exams due to which they have to be prepared for as well.
Similarly, Fill in the Blanks, Grammar Usage, Facts, Inferences and Judgments and Correction in Sentence are loosely part of the CAT syllabus as they have been asked in the past but are no longer tested although they do play a significant role in other MBA entrance Exams.
Verbal Ability CAT Exam Syllabus 2020
The Verbal Ability section over the past 3-4 years has focused majorly on 3 types of questions:
- Summary Questions
- Jumbled Paragraphs
- Odd sentences in Paragraph Jumbles.
The Summary questions usually consist of:
- Small passage (80-100 words) with 4 options
- Objective is to find the best summary for the passage
- In these types of questions usually, the key is to find the options which does not contradict the passage in any manner
- Once you are able to eliminate the other options, the right answer would emerge.
The Jumbled Paragraph questions are usually TITA which means that there is no margin for error.
- In these type of questions, there are 4-5 sentences given out of order
- Together they form a paragraph and the aspirant has to find the order which best suits the group of sentences. In order to solve these types of questions
- The first thing that each aspirant needs to do is identify the first and last sentence of the paragraph.
- This is usually quite easy since the first sentence introduces a topic while the last sentence makes some kind of a judgment or conclusion.
- Following this, the first sentence should lead to the second sentence and so and so forth.
The Odd Sentence in Paragraph Jumbles is also a TITA questions for the past 3-4 years:
- The objective for this type of question is to identify the sentence which does not match with the theme established in the rest of the paragraph.
- These questions may be easy or difficult depending on how it is presented.
- For easy questions, the sentence will talk about something completely different from the theme of the rest of the passage.
- On the other hand, in difficult questions, the sentence will be on the same topic as the rest of the passage but will differ slightly in terms of the opinion being offered or the theme being set.
- It is also possible for the sentence to introduce a topic within the theme which is not pursued further.
Overall they can be quite tricky to deal with.
Reading Comprehension CAT Exam Syllabus 2020
The Reading Comprehension consists of questions based on passages in the exam. The questions are generally of three types: Fact-based, Inference-based and Vocabulary-based. The Vocabulary based questions have already been discussed above.
The fact based questions, as the name suggests, demand answers on the basis of facts mentioned in the passage. They are usually the easiest questions in the section.
The Inference-based questions are slightly trickier since the aspirant has to deduce the tone and theme of the author before answering these questions.
DILR CAT Exam Syllabus 2020
The CAT syllabus for the DILR section for CAT 2020 is:
- Caselets and Tables
- Bar Graphs and Column Graphs
- Venn Diagrams
- Line Charts & Pie Chart
- Combination of two or more types linked to each other
- Number and Letter Series
- Calendars, Cubes and Clocks
- Binary Logic
- Seating Arrangement
- Matching
- Logical Sequence
- Connectives
- Blood Relations
Data Interpretation CAT Exam Syllabus 2020
From the above syllabus mentioned, the DI CAT Syllabus consists of caselets and tables. These caselets have data in the form of bar graphs, column graphs, venn diagrams, lines and pie charts.
This data has to be interpreted in order to solve the questions in the CAT exam 2020. In order to solve these questions, the data has to be structured in the most intuitive manner so that the questions can be solved. In certain questions, there will be variables that have to be left untouched since they may be provided in the questions. The only way to prepare for this section in the CAT exam is to solve as many problems as possible.
Logical Reasoning CAT Exam Syllabus 2020
The topics for Logical Reasoning in the CAT syllabus across the years consists of numbers and sequences, arrangements, syllogisms, logical sequences, blood relations, calendars, cubes and clocks. The questions are usually arrangements with a combination of the other topics. As can be seen, the number of topics for reasoning is quite numerous and the combination can lead to very tricky sets. This can one of the reasons that CAT 2015 and CAT 2016 were considered to have difficult DILR sections. The reasoning topics can lead to very complicated sets when combined with each other.
The major concern with solving LR questions is not to solving them but solving them as expeditiously as possible.
Conclusion
In this section, solving a limited number of questions with great accuracy would be enough to get a good percentile in this section.
Quantitative Ability CAT Exam Syllabus 2020
The QA syllabus is quite vast :
- Number Systems
- LCM & HCF
- Profit, Loss & Discount
- Percentages
- Speed, Time & Distance
- Time & Work
- Simple & Compound Interest
- Ratio & Proportion
- Averages
- Quadratic & Linear Equations
- Complex Numbers
- Logarithm
- Binomial Theorem
- Sequences & Series
- Surds & Indices
- Inequalities
- Probability, Permutation and Combination
- Set Theory
- Functions & Geometry
- Mixtures & Allegations
- Trigonometry
- Coordinate Geometry & Mensuration
The vast number of topics in the CAT syllabus means that it needs to be broken up into more manageable chunks. The sub-sections in the QA CAT syllabus include:
- Commercial Maths
- Arithmetic
- Geometry
- Algebra
- Trigonometry
- Sequences and Series
- Alligations and Mixtures
Commercial Mathematics is reasonably easy to prepare for since the number of questions is limited and the formulae to be learnt are fairly straightforward.
Arithmetic is also fairly basic and should be easy to prepare for. Most of the topics in Arithmetic are of Class X level and the only trick is to solve them as fast as possible.
Geometry has several rules and finding the most important Geometry rules would allow the aspirant to solve these problems as fast as possible.
Algebra and Trigonometry may be used in conjunction with other topics or may be tested in the CAT 2020 Exam. Sequence and Series is a topic which is occasionally tested in CAT and regularly in other MBA Entrance Exams. With practice, the questions in this topic can be easily solved.
Alligations and Mixtures are similar to Sequence and Series in the sense that it is occasionally tested in CAT. It is fairly easy to solve problems of this type with the right guidance.
Conclusion
There is no CAT syllabus which is explicitly mentioned in the CAT Official Website due to which CAT does occasionally pull a surprise on the candidates. However every question in the CAT Exam is solvable since it tests the candidates on knowledge of the basics. Therefore every candidate should ensure that they are thorough in terms of their preparation of the basics. If the aspirant prepares according to the CAT syllabus, the room for unpleasant surprises is greatly reduced.
CAT 2019 Final Cutoffs for IIMs
| IIM | Cutoffs |
|---|---|
| IIM Ahmedabad | 99 |
| IIM Bangalore | 99 |
| IIM Calcutta | 99 |
| IIM Lucknow | 97-98 |
| IIM Indore | 97-98 |
| IIM Kozhikode | 97-98 |
| IIM Amritsar | 95-96 |
| IIM Nagpur | 95-96 |
| IIM Sambalpur | 95-96 |
| IIM Trichy | 94-95 |
| IIM Raipur | 94-95 |
| IIM Ranchi | 94-95 |
| IIM Kashipur | 94-95 |
| IIM Vizag | 92-94 |
| IIM Udaipur | 92-94 |
| IIM Bodhgaya | 92-94 |
| IIM Shillong | 90 |
| IIM Sirmaur | 90 |
| IIM Jammu | 90 |
Factors Determining CAT Cutoff
- The difficulty level of exam
- Number of test-takers
- Number of candidates qualifying for the next rounds
- Number of seats
- Institute repute or ranking
