The Common Admission Test or CAT is a computer based test held in India. The test scores a candidate on the bases of Quantitative Ability (QA), Verbal Ability (VA) and Reading Comprehension (RC), Data Interpretation (DI) and Logical Reasoning (LR). The test is conducted every year by one of the IIMs based on a rotational basis.
In August 2011, it was announced that Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) would also use the CAT scores, instead of the Joint Management Entrance Test (JMET) to select students for their management programmes starting with the 2012-14 batch. Common Admission Test (CAT) 2015 was conducted by the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM Ahmedabad) on November 29, 2015. IIM Indore held Common Admission Test for the years 2013-14.
CAT 2018 exam will be conducted on the 3rd or last Sunday of November 2018 or on the 1st Sunday in December 2018 in a single day divided in morning and afternoon sessions. One of the top six IIMs will be the Convener for CAT 2018 and has announced that CAT 2018 exam pattern will remain unchanged.
CAT 2018/2019 Exam Pattern
- Exam Mode: CAT is the computer-based test (CBT) which will be conducted in 650 test centres.
- Sections: The Common Admission Test will comprise of three sections, i.e. Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension, Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning & Quantitative Ability.
- Type of Questions: The question paper contains both MCQ as well as non-MCQ type questions.
- No. of Question: Total 100 questions will be asked in the exam.
- Duration of Exam: The exam duration will be 180 minutes (3 hours); 60 minutes will be given for each section.
Section wise Weightage of Question:
| Sections | Number of Questions | Total Marks | Duration |
| Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension | 34 | 102 | 60 |
| Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning | 32 | 96 | 60 |
| Quantitative Ability | 34 | 102 | 60 |
| Total | 100 | 300 | 180 |
Ratio of CAT MCQs & Non-MCQs Questions:
From the year 2015, non-MCQs questions were also included in the CAT exam. These questions come without answers options. Candidates have to type the answers with the help of virtual keyboard. Here we have mentioned the ratio of MCQs & non-MCQs questions in CAT exam:
| Section | No. of Questions | No. of Non-MCQs |
| Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension | 34 | 10 |
| Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning | 32 | 8 |
| Quantitative Ability | 34 | 7 |
| Total | 100 | 25 |
CAT 2018 Section-wise Exam pattern
CAT exam pattern was totally revamped in CAT 2015 by IIM Ahmedabad and since then CAT exam pattern has followed the same CAT pattern for all the 3 sections.
The key features of CAT 2018 sectional exam pattern are:
VARC: 1st section
- Total questions: 34
- MCQs: 24 to 27
- Non-MCQs: 7 to 10
- RC passages: 5
- RC Based questions (All MCQs): 24
- VA questions (Mix of MCQs & non-MCQs): 10
- LOD: Moderate to Very difficult
- Section Highlights:
- No Grammar or vocabulary based questions since CAT 2015
- Verbal Ability questions remain confined to 3 topics only – Jumbled paragraph; Para summary; picking the odd sentence out of the jumbled sentences
DILR: 2nd section
- Total questions: 32
- MCQs: 28
- Non-MCQs: 8
- Share of DI questions: 16
- Share of LR questions: 16
- LoD: Moderate to difficult
- Section Highlights:
- Questions appear in set of 4
- Time crunch is faced by test takers as questions are more time consuming
Quant: 3rd section
- Total questions: 34
- MCQs: 23 to 27
- Non-MCQs: 7 to 11
- LoD: Moderate to difficult
- Section Highlights:
- More questions are on Arithmetic – Percentage, Profit & Loss, Time & speed, Work/days, Compound interest
CAT 2018/2019 Marking Scheme
Below we have given the marking scheme of CAT 2018 examination:
- Marking Scheme: Candidates will be awarded 3 marks for each right answer. All the question (MCQ type and Non-MCQ type questions) contain equal marks.
- Negative Marking: For every wrong answer one marks will be deducted. However, there is no negative marking for Non-MCQ type questions.
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