AIMCAT0920 Analysis
Yet another saga begins! Yes it is indeed the AIMCAT season. A season of big game hunting, of refining skills and practicing for the kill. As always, we at T.I.M.E. would like to reiterate our promise of giving you the most challenging, enriching and learning experience – one that would make the CAT of 2008 seem like child’s play!!Over the years, we have seen quite a large number of students having a ‘fixed’ notion of what the CAT exam is going to be. This notion stems from their acquaintance with the previous years’ papers (in this case the 2007 and 2006 tests). Nothing can be more dangerous than the “CAT has been like this last year and it is going to be like that in this year as well” approach. The cardinal rule to doing well in CAT is to rid oneself of notions as to what CAT2008 could be like and instead to prepare for all possible permutations and combinations in the exam pattern and in the types of questions being asked.Let us now analyze each section of today’s AIMCAT:

Section 1 – QUANTITATIVE

Overall, the Quant section of AIMCAT0920 recreated the look and the feel of the Quant section of CAT2007 very closely, except for the fact that this section was, on the whole, of a level of difficulty slightly less than that of the Quant section of the actual CAT2007. Easy and doable questions were not difficult to find. More specifically, there were a significant proportion of such questions among the first half of the section itself, while the latter half had a few more of difficult questions. The DS questions had two easy/doable questions and two which could be classified as difficult There were several questions dealing with basic concepts like elementary geometry, concepts of number theory, simple equations, etc., sufficient enough in number for even the first time CAT-aspirants to give this section a decent shot, without having to complain of not having completed their full syllabus. The only way one could have missed the cut-off in this section could have been to thoroughly mismanage their time by getting stuck in difficult or unfamiliar questions and losing focus. A clear mind and disciplined approach would have easily enabled one to bag a decent percentile. An average student in Quantitative could have managed a score of around 20+ marks and any score from 28 to 44 marks can be considered to be good. Any score from 45 to 60 would be very good and 60+, excellent. The cut-off score in this section is expected to be around 28 marks.

Section 2 –
LOGIC & DATA INTERPRETATION

The Logic & Data Interpretation section of AIMCAT0920 was of a higher level of difficulty than that of the CAT2007 paper. The questions were not the ‘direct’ calculation based ones but were rather based on logic and involved understanding the situation clearly. The set on ‘boys standing in a queue’ was fairly straight forward and students should have solved it completely. The set on ‘Internet shopping malls in various countries’ was a calculation intensive one and did not test one’s ability to comprehend the data. The set on pie charts was quite easy and anyone who is familiar with ratios would have been able to crack it without much effort. However, the last question in the set was difficult and should have been left out. The sets pertaining to the ‘documents of Gill Bates’, ‘classrooms in a school’ and ‘Waist sizes’ were quite difficult and students choosing them ahead of the other sets would have wasted a lot of time without commensurate returns. The questions on Data Sufficiency were a mixture of both easy and difficult ones with Qs 47 and 49 being sitters. All in all a good paper to test one’s mettle in this very crucial section and highlight areas of concern and improvement.An average student in Logic & Data Interpretation could have managed a score of around 20 marks and any score from 26 to 40 marks can be considered to be good. Any score from 41 to 54 would be very good and 55+, excellent. The cut-off score in this section is expected to be around 26 marks.

Section 3 –
VERBAL

The Verbal section of AIMCAT0920 was of a slightly lower level of difficulty than that of the CAT2007 paper. The RC passages barring the one on “Japan” were of the CAT type and were based on ethics, economics and philosophy. Students who had not done varied and extensive reading would have found the passages difficult to read and comprehend. Students would have been better off attempting passages 1 and 3, whereas passages 2 and 4 would have troubled even the most prolific of readers. The Qs on grammar and usage were tricky and could have fooled most of the students into making mistakes but then, since this is the first MOCK, there is quite some time to plug the gaps and reinforce the weak areas. Most of you would have tried solving the questions on Vocabulary and a smart elimination based approach would have helped in getting 2 out of the 3 questions right. The para-jumble questions were tricky and would have daunted even the most well prepared of students and as such should have been avoided.All in all, an average student in Verbal could have managed a score of around 16 marks and any score from 22 to 36 marks can be considered to be good. Any score from 37 to 45 would be very good and 46+, excellent. The cut-off score in this section is expected to be around 22 marks. The overall cut-off for at least 1 IIM call would be in the range of 88-92 marks and any score in excess of 108 should fetch 3 or more IIM calls.

Hope it help to many, well, i think i have screwed up here big time, but yes i spend one full day analyasing my mistakes and have come up with some learnings. Shall post it afterwards..

Regards,
Ameya