CAT 2020 test-takers have been (im)patiently waiting for the official CAT 2020 mock to release ever since the change in the examination duration was announced. A media release on the official website had stated that the official mock test will be available to understand the format of the test. Now that the official mock has been released, what does it hold for the test-takers? Does it answer the questions around the CAT 2020 examination pattern? Read on!What Does The Official Mock Entail?The announcement clearly states that the objective of the mock test is not to disclose the exam pattern for CAT 2020 and the actual exam may or may not contain a similar type or number of questions. So if you are going/ did go in with the idea that you are going to know the number of questions in each section, you are sure to get disappointed.There are a total of 100 questions in the mock test, with the 34-32-34 split across the VARC, DILR and QA sections, respectively, just like the previous CAT papers. The questions have been hand-picked from several past CAT papers. You may like to take a look at the actual past papers here. Do remember, the pattern may change in the actual CAT paper this time. Career Launcher’s Vice President Gautam Bawa talks about the expected CAT 2020 pattern here. Do read!There are a couple of discrepancies in the CAT 2020 official mock test.
According to the Instructions Screen, every correct answer will fetch 3 marks, every incorrect MCQ, there will be a penalty of -1, and there’s no penalty for incorrect TITA questions. However, the display on the questions shows the marking scheme of +3/0 for all questions (be it MCQ or TITA). Pro Tip: Do not assume that there won’t be any negative marks.
The Instructions screen states that every section will have a fixed time of 40 minutes, and candidates won’t be able to navigate to the next section until the 40 minutes for that section are over. But, a few CAT takers have reported they were able to submit each section even before 40 minutes. Pro tip: Don’t assume that you can hop from one section to the next before the time is up.
To sum up, the CAT 2020 official mock does not change anything. The examination pattern is still uncertain. We don’t know the number of questions in each section and the total number of questions. Another question that CAT test-takers have is what would be the ideal score to get a XX percentile. Our suggestion is to not worry about this, as it’s not in anybody’s control. What an aspirant can do is make the most of the time in hand, and up their preparation. All the best!