CAT 2014 Tracker - Best held CAT in years, Normalization will not be a dampner

22nd Nov 18 : 45 hrs

The news is that the 4th slot saw Logical DI and was slightly tricky as compared to the 3rd slot. General consensus is that while that gap is not too much but the 4th slot was slightly (and please stress on the word 'slightly') more difficult than the 3rd slot.

Join us for a LIVE Chat with ARKS Srinivas, CEO of Vistamind at 8.30 pm on CAT Day #2, IIFT and Life after CAT!

InsideIIM Creator Ankit Doshi's view on normalization - "I think the problem of normalization will not occur. I don't think there will be too many people expressing shock when results come out. When 40,000+ people take the test across slots, the sample is big enough to give a decent idea of how an individual would do even if all 1.75 odd lakh people took the test. The results would be very similar. However, they will use a normalization formula based on Mean and Standard Deviation but given the lack of variation in the difficulty we have seen with the 4 slots, it is unlikely to change the numbers in a big way. I think this has been the best held CAT in the last 6 years. There is a lot of scope of improvement in terms of facilities at the centres but for now we can compliment IIM Indore and TCS."

For e.g. we could see normalization equating 135 scored in one slot to say 138 in another adjusting for difficulty but it is unlikely that 135 in one slot is equal to say 155 in another. Such a variation will not happen.

 22nd Nov 15 : 00 hrs 

No real surprises guys except that everyone is reporting that DI was slightly tougher than the others. LR was moderately easy.

The toughness in DI was more to do with the length rather than the complexity of the problems.

Quant was so easy that some of the questions were basic arithmetic and application of formula.

Good students are attempting 65-75. There will always a few who will attempt 80+

So 50 Correct and 15 wrong if you attempt 65 can get you a 99 percentile according to experts at Vistamind

Indicative Cutoffs Revised based on the 3rd slot

Percentile	Section I	Section II	Overall
80	45-48	41-44	88-91
90	53-55	49-51	98-101
95	63-65	59-61	113-115
99	71-74	67-69	130-135
99.5	75-78	71-73	141-146
99.8	82-85	80-83	166-170

 

Join us for a LIVE Chat tonight at 8.30 pm with ARKS Srinivas on CAT Day #2, IIFT and Life after CAT!

 

17th Nov 21:15 hrs -

Due to our incessant requests, ARKS Srinivas has given us a few estimates of the likely cutoffs. He is very clear though that they are just estimates based on his experience and he gave it on Team InsideIIM's request. You can see that he has made a marginal upward revision as compared to the LIVE Chat yesterday

 

Percentile	Section I	Section II	Overall
80	42-44	38-40	85-88
90	50-52	46-48	95-98
95	60-62	56-58	110-112
99	68-70	64-66	127-132
99.5	72-74	68-70	136-140
99.8	78-80	76-78	160-164

 

16th Nov - 22:15 hrs - 

ARKS Srinivas just called again. He has access to more data from Vistamind students and feels that he will have to revise the cutoffs upwards by at least 5-10 marks in both sections. We will post the revised cutoffs as soon as we get access to them.

16th Nov 20:45 hrs -

LIVE Chat with CEO of Vistamind - ARKS Srinivas - IIM Calcutta alumnus is now on. Rush here! Ask him anything about today's exam, future course of action, expected percentiles, prep strategy for the remaining days etc.

Live excerpts of LIVE Chat -

ARKS Srinivas seems to be quite conservative

"First CUT Analysis for CUTOFF : Section 1 (45/47 - 90 percentile) ; Section 2 (42/44 - 90 percentile)"

"For 99 percentile : Overall Score of around 120/125"

"99.5 percentile : Section 1 (63/65 net score) : Section 2 ( 61/63 net score): Overall : 135/140 net score"

"80 percentile : Section 1 ( 35/36 Net score), Section 2 (34/35 Net score): Overall - 78/82 net score"

"There is no guarantee that the difficulty level will be the same on 22nd but the chances are high that the level will be same."

"Section II Analysis : Verbal had Parajumbles, Odd man out in Parajumbles, Critical Reasoning (gist of the questions), Sentence Correction, RC had Four sets of 4 questions. In the first slot, students reported that there were 4 sets with 4, 3, 3 ,3 questions (14) and then another two passages with 1 question each. It could have been CR question too."

"Section I Analysis : Geometry (6/7 questions); Numbers (4/5 questions) ; Arithmetic (8/9 questions), DI (4 sets of 4 questons each); Algebra (8/10 questions). QA : Coordinate geometry/trigonometry (simple questions) were given. If one is good at the basics in each of the topics, then it would have been easy to score around 20/25 questions from the 34 questions of QA itself. For a good student - it would be easy to score around 60 in section I "

16th Nov 20 :00 hrs - 

LIVE Chat starts in 25 mins from now here. Please register if you're not an InsideIIM user to ask your question. ARKS Srinivas will be with us to answer all your queries on today's slots and the minimum scores required.

16th Nov 19:00 hrs -

135 marks could give you 99.5%ile says ARKS Srinivas, CEO of Vistamind - You can chat with him live at 8.30 pm. He also says 125+ should be 99%ile

"If you are looking at Top 6 IIMs/FMS , attempting less than 60-65 questions could be a problem", says Hemang Panchmatia, Director - CREDence Academy

We have been saying the same since morning - Very few people have accuracy levels of more than 75%ile.

Also, people who are strong in either of the section are going to cream this. They have the opportunity to really maximize overall score and just about do well in the weaker section to get calls.

InsideIIM.com Creator - Ankit Doshi's view is - "A minimum of 70 attempts is required. Even at 70% accuracy you will only just about score 126 marks. For getting calls from IIM C,L which look for high overall CAT Percentiles, 70 attempts will be the bare minimum."

Hemang Panchmatia's Analysis - Slot 2

Easiest Exam in Years

Around 68-75 attempts required to get 95 Percentile+

Section 1 :

Quant - 34 Questions

Focus was on Algebra and Geometry. No questions on Functions and Graph will be relief to many.

DI - 16 questions - Easy sitters well mixed with tricky time consuming sets.

Section 2 :

Verbal Ability - 18 questions

Focus was on Parajumbles - (8 questions)

Summary Inference questions - (7 Questions)

Complete absence of Paracompletion and Vocabulary based questions was positive surprise for most candidates.

Reading Comprehension - 16 questions

It was a manageable and had none of the complexities associated with CAT RCs

Logic - 16 Questions

Medium Difficulty 1-2 sets were very easy. Others are best avoided.

 

Study Tips for those in the remaining slots :

1) Solve actual CAT papers of 1996-2004 era - They reflect current difficulty level

2) Brush up Algebra, Geometry. Practice Summaries and Parajumbles.

3) Approach CAT 2014 as a speed exam. It will require change in mindset

4) Relax - CAT has become like a flat Indian pitch - high scoring game inevitable

 

16th Nov 18 :07 hrs -

Report from TSEC, Bandra in Mumbai

One student has attempted 96 questions. Another has attempted 75.  Another student has attempted 85.

Quant was extremely easy. 3 students had a technical difficulty in their exam. They had to switch computers but no extra time was given to them. Very unfortunate.

At Thakur Centre in Kandivli - No FIJs for students in this slot - at least the ones we spoke to. DI was tougher.

It seems taking a cue from the previous slot, students were more aggressive in attempting in this slot. It is tough to tell whether this slot was easier than the earlier one.

 

16th Nov 13: 49 pm -

ARKS Srinivas, CEO of Vistamind says he will wait before he gives any detailed analysis. We will be doing a LIVE Chat at 8.30 pm in the evening today with him.

The news across India is that students who have done well in mocks this season are all attempting 70-75 questions in total each.

Some students have got RCs with only 1 question!

Geometry is almost 20% of the Quant section!

Creator of InsideIIM.com, Ankit Doshi's view based on the first slot feedback is that people trying to control attempts aiming higher accuracy will be in trouble. 99%ile+ will require higher attempts unless your accuracy levels are closer to 85-90% which is not very common.

16th Nov 12:42 pm -

CAT Day 1 Slot 1 Report from Mumbai centre in Dadar 

Lots of Algebra

Ratio & Proportion

Functions

Co-ordinate Geometry

Inferential RCs

Parajumbles

Summary Questions

Logical Reasoning sets were manageable - 4 sets

DI was calculation intensive - 4 sets

Number of attempts : Almost everyone that we met has attempted more than 70 questions. More than 35 attempts in each section is easy manageable.

Stay tuned for more updates. We will keep updating this page as we hear more.

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