CAT 2021 Slot-3 Analysis:
The third slot of CAT 2020 took place from 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm on 28th November 2021. There were no surprises as far as the pattern is concerned. The pattern remained the same across all the 3 slots. We will try to discuss the difficulty level of the individual sections of this slot with respect to the first and second slots.
Section | Number of Questions | Duration | MCQs | TITA |
VARC | 24 | 40 min | 19 | 5 |
DILR | 20 | 40 min | 14 | 6 |
QA | 22 | 40 min | 14 | 8 |
Total | 66 | 120 min | 47 | 19 |
Also checkout CAT 2021 Slot-1 Analysis
Also checkout CAT 2021 Slot-2 Analysis
Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension:
The VARC section had 4 RC’s, each of which had 4 questions. The RC’s were from diverse topics, as depicted in the table below. 2 of the RC’s were fairly moderate, whereas the other 2 were on the more difficult side. The VA section had 2 OOC’s, 2 PJ’s and 2 PS’s; the difficulty level of the VA section was more or less similar to the other two slots. The Parasummaries were slightly on the difficult side and the parajumbles were on the easier side.
Areas of Questions | Topic | Number of questions | Overall Difficulty level |
RC I | Innateness of Language | 4 | Difficult |
RC II | Accuracy of time and entropy | 4 | Moderate |
RC III | Nanoparticles | 4 | Moderate |
RC IV | Concept of unconsciousness | 4 | Difficult |
Verbal Ability | |||
Para Summary | – | 3 | Moderate-Difficult |
Para Jumbles | – | 3 | Easy-Moderate |
Odd sentence out | – | 2 | Moderate |
Over All | 24 |
Estimated score for 99+ percentile: 39-44
Estimated percentiles | Raw Score |
99 | 39-44 |
95 | 32-35 |
90 | 26-29 |
85 | 22-24 |
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Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning:
The DILR section was also very similar to the other 2 slots. There were four sets, two of which had 4 questions each and two of which had 6 questions each. One of the 4-question sets was a quantitative set and candidates did stand the chance of getting the questions wrong, hence it would have been a good decision to avoid this set. The other 4-question set was a DI set and was pretty straightforward; it did not involve major calculations as well. One of the 6-question sets was on a Javelin Tournament, and had a lot of information in it, leading to a good number of cases. It would have been a wise decision to leave this set or attempt it at the end if no other set is yet to be attempted. The other 6-question set was on reviewing a set of 13 questions, and this was a doable set, however, it would definitely take some time. On top of applying logic, this set had a lot of counting involved and candidates might lose some marks if they did not keep their calm while attempting this set. This section, as usual, focused on set selection, much like the other 2 sections and those of the last 2 slots of 2020.
Set Type | Topic | Number of Questions | Overall Difficulty |
LR – Puzzles | Reviewing Questions | 6 | Moderate – Difficult |
LR – Games and Tournaments | Javelin Tournament | 6 | Difficult |
LR – Quants | Impurity + Purity | 4 | Difficult |
DI – Graphs | Employees – Projects | 4 | Easy |
Overall | 20 |
Estimated score for 99+ percentile: 24-30
Estimated Percentile | Raw Score |
99 | 24-30 |
95 | 19-22 |
90 | 15-18 |
85 | 12-14 |
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Quantitative Aptitude:
Well, the Slot-3 QA was a bit of a surprise since the previous 2 slots had a straightforward quants section. It would be wrong to say that the questions were difficult, but there were questions that involved a lot of calculations whereas the concept involved was simple. Since it is a matter of how many questions you get right in 40 minutes, this calculation-intensive and tricky section was more of a disadvantage to people who were planning on securing a good amount of marks in this section. Also, there were 8 TITA questions in this section. This was again an arithmetic-heavy section with close to 10-11 questions from arithmetic.
Estimated score for 99+ percentile: 37-40
Estimated percentile | Raw Score |
99 | 37-40 |
95 | 32-34 |
90 | 27-29 |
85 | 24-26 |
Note: These are only expected percentiles as per our deep understanding and actual percentiles may vary from these.