AIMCAT100919 Analysis
“Strike Two!” is what most of the students who gave a shot at AIMCAT0919 would nervously be telling themselves. Since, after having taken a rather amateurish, warm up swing at AIMCAT0920 a few weeks ago, without managing any spectacular performance as such, this AIMCAT would only have made one feel seriously under-prepared. Fortunately, however, the rules in CAT prep are not as strict as in baseball and one is not asked to leave the pitch after just three strikes. But on another note, being in the game and not giving up is definitely the more difficult part in CAT prep. So brace yourself and keep up your spirits, for it’s a long journey still.
AIMCAT0919 was a 30-questions-per-section paper, with four answer choices per question. The paper was actually a hybrid of CAT2005 and the latest CAT paper, i.e., in terms of the number of questions and number of choices this paper was similar to CAT2005 but it had no sub sections.
With one choice per question less, when compared to the previous AIMCAT, the Verbal section should have been a lot simpler. Quantitative more or less just as difficult as in AIMCAT0920, but Logic and Data Interpretation was of a much higher level of difficulty. Irrespective of how good or how worse you feel your performance may have been, remember that the final benchmark is your rank (or percentile) and whether you have managed to cross the cut-offs or not. So hold your horses till the dust settles and the results are out. Meanwhile spend some quality time analysing the paper, question by question, and figure out how you could have done better.
Let us now take a brief look at each section of the AIMCAT:
Section I – Logic & Data Interpretation:
Different data representations, convoluted descriptions of the data and the very tricky phrasing of the questions would have left most students teary eyed at their prospects in this section. Most of the sets appeared very difficult and incomprehensible and even those proficient in DI might have been wondering if they would achieve the cut-off score in this section. The set on the ‘gem-trader’ was very difficult to understand and interpret and hence should not have been attempted. The set on ‘Students and their Grades’ involved a lot of calculations, had many possibilities and students attempting them would have made quite a few errors. The set on ‘Prime numbers’ was the easiest of the lot and would have afforded decent scoring options for those whose forte is ‘trial and error’. The set on ‘XYZ Limited’ was easy for those comfortable with percentages. The set of questions on the pie charts were quite tricky and should have been left out. The DS questions were quite doable and students would have looked at them to salvage the section.
An average student in Logic & Data Interpretation could have managed a score of around 14+ marks and any score from 18 to 28 marks can be considered to be good. Any score from 29 to 42 would be very good and 42+, excellent.
The cut-off score in this section is expected to be around 18 marks.
Section II – Verbal:
This was, broadly speaking, a paper of moderate difficulty. Students may have found the RC passages on philosophy and ethics readable this time, having been exposed to these areas in the last AIMCAT, and (hopefully) with some similar reading thereafter. The passage on geopolitics would have been of interest to most, and therefore relatively easy to deal with. As in the previous AIMCAT, the RC questions were in the ‘moderate’ and ‘difficult’ categories and were of a variety of types, including interpretation and inference questions. As before, the para-jumbles required careful reading and recognition of idea flow, and were difficult. Some of the grammar and usage questions were also difficult, with errors that could easily escape attention. The vocab-based questions, usually the most ‘popular’ of VA questions (if such a term exists), appeared in the form of FIBs and were of moderate difficulty, except for one. The best summary questions tested the students on recognition of key ideas and idea flow and, for a student comfortable with reading, were do-able.
An average student in Verbal could have managed a score of around 18+ marks and any score from 28 to 40 marks can be considered to be good. Any score from 41 to 48 would be very good and 48+, excellent.
The cut-off score in this section is expected to be around 28 marks.
Section III – Quantitative:
The Quant section of AIMCAT0919 was considerably simpler compared to the Quant section of the previous AIMCAT. The section comprised of a good mix of questions from all topics with no particular topic/s being given significant weightage as such. This was very unlike the usual situation where topics like Numbers, Geometry or Permutations and Combinations often appeared carrying significant weightage. In fact, a common sense based reasoning approach is usually what is expected from a CAT examinee, wherein the basics of any topic are useful only to the extent of formulating the question and the solution mostly depends on one’s ability to analyse the situation using common sense, improvise on the basics and apply them – even under seemingly unfamiliar circumstances. Most of the questions were of a medium level of difficulty and several could be classified as difficult. There were, however, very few questions that were either very easy or very difficult. Some of the questions that should definitely have been attempted were Q. Nos. 61, 65, 66, 71, 76, 79, 84, 85, 87 and 88. Most of the other questions that were of a medium level of difficulty could also have been attempted.
An average student in Quantitative could have managed a score of around 18+ marks and any score from 24 to 35 marks can be considered to be good. Any score from 36 to 50 would be very good and 50+, excellent.
The cut-off score in this section is expected to be around 24 marks.
The overall cut-off for at least 1 IIM call would be in the range of 84-88 marks and any score in excess of 100 should fetch 3 or more IIM calls.
In the next post i will write about every of thid AIMCAT and some fundas.
Regards
Ameya
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