CAT 2016 Analysis

CAT 2016 was conducted on 4^th December, 2016. Slot 1 was conducted from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM and Slot 2 was conducted from 2:30 PM to 5:30 PM.

SLOT 1 ANALYSIS

Question Paper Pattern

The paper had three sections namely Reading Comprehension & Verbal Ability, Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning and Quantitative Ability consisting of 34, 32 and 34 questions respectively. Each of these sections had a time limit of 60 minutes with no gap between the sections. Overall, the pattern was identical to CAT 2015 and the mock test provided on the CAT website.

Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension

This section consisted of 24 RC and 10 VA questions. However, this year the RC and VA parts were not present as sub-sections as it was the case in CAT 2015. There were 5 RC passages out of which 3 of them had six questions each and 2 of them had three questions each. The passages were of moderate length and also easy to read as they were from familiar areas such as Economics, Environment, Education etc. However, there were many questions which had close options and required re-reading part(s) of the passages, which meant that candidates had to spend more time per passage. This would have led to a decrease in overall attempts in comparison to CAT 2015. The 10 questions from Verbal Ability were all Non-MCQ questions which consisted of Para-jumbles, Odd one out and Para-summary type of questions. While Odd one out and Para-summary type of questions were of moderate difficulty level, the Para-jumble questions without any options were difficult to crack.

Overall, this section can be termed as Easy-Moderate difficulty level and a raw score of 52 marks can fetch a 95+ percentile.

Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning

This section had 4 DI and 4 LR sets consisting 32 questions out of which 8 were of Non-MCQ type. However DI and LR were not subdivided further as it was the case in CAT 2015. As reported by many test takers this was the most difficult section of the paper. There were quite a few doable sets in this sections but doing more than 2-3 questions in each of these sets was difficult. So selection of the right sets was the key to a good performance in this section. Taken as a whole, the DILR section in CAT 2016 was a notch higher in difficulty level as compared to that in CAT 2015.

Overall, this section can be termed Difficult and a raw score of 39 marks can fetch a 95+ percentile.

Quantitative Ability

This section had 34 questions out of which 7 were of Non-MCQ type. One noticeable change in this section as compared to that of last year is the increase in the number of Geometry questions. There were 6-7 Geometry questions which can be considered to be Moderate-Difficult level. Overall, this section was dominated by questions from Arithmetic and Geometry and there were about 8-10 easy questions for the taking. Many students have complained that the square root symbol looked like Pi in as many as 3-4 questions, which has led to confusion. There was at least 1 question which was erroneous and could be excluded from final evaluation.

Overall, this section can be termed as Moderate difficulty level and a raw score of 45 marks can fetch a 95+ percentile.

On the whole, about 58-62 attempts with an accuracy of about 80% would fetch a 95+ percentile and about 68-72 attempts with an accuracy of about 80%, would fetch a 99+ percentile.

SLOT 2 ANALYSIS

Question Paper Pattern

The exam pattern in the evening slot was similar to the one in the morning slot with the same number of overall questions. The total number of Non-MCQ questions also remained unchanged across sections.

Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension

This section consisted of 24 RC questions and 10 VA questions. There were 3 RC passages with 6 questions each and 2 RC passages with 3 questions each. The passages were mostly short and easy to read but were marked with some questions having very close options. The verbal ability section of the second slot had the same number and type of questions as the first slot with similar level of difficulty.

Overall, the difficulty level of the paper was easy-moderate. A raw score of 52 can fetch a 95+ percentile.

Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation

This section contained only two sets which were of easy-moderate level with all the other sets being in moderate-difficult range. In most sets like in slot 1, additional data was provided for questions within sets making the sets further hard and time consuming. Careful selection of questions within sets was very important for achieving a good score in this section. The difficulty level of this section in the afternoon slot was slightly higher compared to the forenoon slot.

Overall, the difficulty level of the paper was difficult and around 16-18 questions can be considered as a good number of attempts. A raw score of 34 can fetch a 95+ percentile.

Quantitative Ability

This section had the same number of questions as in slot 1 and had similar number of TITA questions i.e. 7. The question distribution was also similar to that of slot 1 with more number of questions from Geometry (6) and Arithmetic (13). The overall difficulty level of the section was higher compared to last year and can be termed as moderate.

Overall, attempting about 22-24 questions can be considered as a good attempt. A raw score of 45 can fetch a 95+ percentile.

On the whole, about 55-59 attempts with an accuracy of about 80% would fetch a 95+ percentile and about 65-69 attempts with an accuracy of about 80%, would fetch a 99+ percentile.

Based on our analysis, we have created a Percentile Predictor. Click here to find out your expected percentile!