“I have attempted ‘x’ questions and expect ‘y’ of them to be right. What percentile can I expect? Do I stand a chance of getting an IIM call?  Which other colleges should I apply to?”

These have always been the most frequently asked questions after the CAT. The answers to these questions have always been probabilistic. However, this year, lack of information on how the IIMs plan to calculate percentiles and the absence of valid student performance data for the CAT(s) conducted over eleven days, make the estimation of percentiles and the subsequent choice of B-schools all the more uncertain and difficult.

However, we appreciate your need to take a decision on which B-schools you should apply to based on your ‘perceived’ CAT performance. We would therefore like to help you apply to the right set of B-schools by following the steps given below:

Step 1: Calculate your score assuming that each question carries 3 marks with 1 mark deducted for every incorrect response
Step 2: Refer to the following table to ascertain your chance of getting a GD-PI call from various B-schools i.e. how you fare vis-a-vis the ‘Indicative good score’ as well as other parameters used by various institutes(as per last year data)

Important Note:

1. The ‘Indicative Good Scores’ have been estimated on the basis of feedback received from various test-takers and reflect the least overall score a student should get to be eligible for a call.The student will also have to clear sectional cut-offs, if any
2. Getting more than the ‘Indicative Good Score’ IS NOT sufficient to get a call, other parameters like acads and work ex are also be considered for the GD-PI calls
3. The ‘indicative good score’ may slightly vary – as per the scoring assumption, level of difficulty of the test and the normalisation procedure to be used.
4. The students should ideally apply to institutes they are ‘keen’ to join unless they feel that they are far away from the ‘Indicative Good Score’
5. This is an indicative listing to aid students in their decision making process. However, IMS is not responsible for decisions taken by students on the basis of this information.

This article is taken from the IMS website.

The directors and chairmen of most MBA test prep companies (IMS, Pagalguy, etc.) have written open letters to the IIMs regarding the failure of CAT 2009. You can check out Kamlesh Sajnani’s (mere Boss ka Boss) viewpoint here.

There is a very large percentage of students who are crying foul and yelling ReTest – ReTest. If asked for a vote, I would say that yes – there should be a retest. As a matter of fact I have already voted on three sites that asked for it. But I very strongly doubt that there is going to be a retest. I might sound like a cynic but please come to terms with reality of the Indian education system. It is not one of the best and definitely not one of the most fair in the world. A very large number of colleges still accept students on PAID seats. CAT has always been slightly dependent on luck. This time the dependence on luck has been higher. The difference however is – this time you have a holy cow to blame. You can raise a finger at Prometric as well as the IIMs for making a mess of the entire system.

There is one more thing that I would like to point out but before that just answer this question to yourself – On how many occasions have you given an exam and felt that I could have done better? I bet the answer would be a high percentage. From what I can gather from various forums is that around 5% of students actually faced problems with the test but an overwhelming majority is crying for a retest. Is it that all of them want the system to be fair or they just want to give themselves another chance? Also, how can you actually know that a particular student is being honest about issues with his/her paper. We do not live in Utopia where everyone speaks the truth. It is quite possible that a few of these students who are yelling at online and offline forums are actually lying. Now, I am not blaming any individual and I do not want to hurt anyone’s sentiments but please understand that there is no way to validate these claims. IIMs & Prometric are guilty of not having a full proof system but you cannot measure the extent of failure based upon the feedback received from students who may have an ulterior motive. IIMs are often considered as the big guys, the holy cows, the people who can do no wrong. I guess that is the reason why a mistake from their part has generated colossal repercussions.

In the end, I would once again like to add the following:
Do I think that there should be a retest? – Yes
Do I think that there will be a retest? – No*
Isn’t it unfair? – Yes it is. Life is unfair. Deal with it.

* – I hope that I am wrong about this.

The idiom God is in the details, generally attributed to Gustave Flaubert, expresses the idea that whatever one does should be done thoroughly. Most of you would have seen the CAT notification, but even the best of us might miss out on the necessary details and I think it is important that they are noticed. The two most important points which are mentioned in the notification and the Cat-IIM website (Link – http://www.catiim.in/testduration_patterns.html ) are:

a) The duration of the test is 2 hours and 30 minutes including initial 15 minute tutorial.

This means that a student will have only 2 hours and 15 minutes to attempt the questions and not 2 hours and 30 minutes which has been the pattern since 2006. Before 2006, it used to be a 2 hour test.

b) There will be about 60 to 70 questions in the test.

This is the first time that the IIMs have declared the number of questions beforehand. CAT 2006 and 2007 had 75 questions each, so 60-70 is not very low. It does not mean that the questions would be tougher than previous years. In my opinion it has been done because of the following reasons:

i)                    Reading on the computer screen (especially for DI and RC) is a slower process than reading on paper.

ii)                   The actual testing time has gone down by 15 minutes.

iii)                 It is a computer based test.

Based on the information above, my expectation is that we are likely to see one of the following patterns:

1)      Quantitative Aptitude – 20 questions, DI & LR – 20 questions, English – 20 questions

2)      Quantitative Aptitude – 20 questions, DI & LR – 20 questions, English – 25 questions

3)      Quantitative Aptitude – 20 questions, DI & LR – 20 questions, English – 30 questions

I believe the second option is most likely, with 3 to 4 passages for Reading Comprehension.

I recommend that you try out the CAT Demo given on the CAT-IIM website (Link http://content.catiim.in/catdemo/index.htm ). Key features of the demo version are:

1)      Questions appear on screen one at a time. There is no scroll up / down or jump feature, which might be an issue. So prepare yourself for that.

2)      The length of the passage is smaller than usual.

3)      There are 4 options instead of 5. I believe that is going to be the case for CAT 2009.

With this, I would like to wrap up this session of Handa Ka Funda. Cheers!