CAT 2016: AN OVERVIEW OF PAST TRENDS
Common Admission Test, the most sought after MBA entrance exam had crossed the 2 lakh mark in terms of the number of applicants last year. This time, the number has further increased by 13000. Close to 25% of the examinees make it to the top rated B-schools and IIMs every year. It can be said that the credibility of the exam owing to the reputed institutions that it is associated with has been pulling increasing number of candidates as evident this year.
Over this period of six years, CAT Exam has made a lot of changes in terms of the mode of attempting the exam as well as the pattern causing fluctuations in the number of applicants. One of the major dips in applicants was seen when it decided to go paperless in 2009. A lot of technical issues arose and eventually the exam was rescheduled for a number of aspirants. This event brought down the number of applicants significantly for a consecutive period of 4 years after which it regained momentum on the basis of reinforced trust imposed by students getting aware of the attractive career opportunities available on possession of an MBA from an institute of great repute.
The major changes in the CAT Exam pattern that made the students relieved was the introduction of an on-screen calculator and increasing the exam time by 10 mins to 180 mins in 2015. The number of questions was increased to 100 from 60 in 2014 to be completed in a span of 2 hours and 50 minutes. Consequently, the time to be taken per question reduced conveying a message across that, all along only accuracy was enough, but now a perfect balance between speed and accuracy was required making it more competitive and hyped.
In 2015, further to this, the Quantitative Ability (QA) section had 34 questions, while the Data interpretation (DI) and Logical reasoning (LR) sections combined had 32 questions with 34 remaining for Verbal Ability while in the previous year, Quantitative Ability along with Data interpretation section totaled up to 50 questions with the other 50 appearing from the combination of the latter ones.
Whatever be the changes, the approach of the competitive exam is to be taken into account by the students attempting the exam. Having a look at the past trends helps understand the perspective of the exam and the type of candidates that it is looking for. By understanding their relevance and preparing the right way, one would surely be among the percentage of the candidates knocking on the gates of reputed B-schools.
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