IIM's - CAT exam discussion

CAT 2012 - Thoughts based on CAT 2011

2012-01-16T12:26:00.003+05:30

CAT scores are now out, and this is a good time to think about what we have seen from the results. We had published something similar post CAT 2010. Many of the takeaways mentioned in that post hold good now as well.

Opinions that have been reinforced

First-principles based preparation is a must.
We had discussed this last year as well. Almost all questions are application-intensive, and few can be answered using a blanket-formula. So, forget the shortcuts and the word-lists, learn from the basics. This means that if you are going to a coaching center for aiding your preparation, it is important to go to a place where the quality of teachers is very high. Oversimplified preparation can take you till 75th percentile, but not any further

Journey from 90th to 95th percentile is tough. 95th to 98th and beyond is tougher still.
This bit is obvious, but still important because one needs to get a reality check before pinning all hopes on CAT. If you have given it your all and ended with 85th percentile. It is probably time to refocus, aim for a 95th percentile and join some good college once you get that. The number of good B-Schools in India tops 50 and a 95th percentile could still get you a great college. Also, when you are preparing for CAT, do the basics well and early, make sure you have enough quality to hit 90th percentile-ish consistently, and then restart and fine-tune preparations for the final climb. Do not sit back and do the same things over and over again.

Importance of good profile has gone up
You would have heard stories of how someone who had flunked n papers in engineering managed to get an admit in IIM Cal in spite of all this. That era is slowly disappearing. You can no longer say - "I have skeletons up my cupboard and in order to get away from that I want to do an MBA" (I know that feeling. I had that same feeling 10 years ago :-)). Focus on academics, clear that paper you hate, make sure you do well in your job. All those things matter. And all those things matter more now than they ever did.

New pointers from CAT 2011

Reading is uber-critical
We cannot over-emphasize this point. The guys who have the reading habit have a healthy advantage in CAT. Not only the RC section, almost the entire verbal section barring LR are going to be far easier for guys who have a habit of reading. Importantly, these sections are getting tougher to prepare for. There is no great way to "practice" for sentence rearrangement, paragraph completion, word usage, or fill-in the blanks. These are not grammar dependent, not vocab dependent. Ability to sift through these types of questions gets built with months of reading practice. So, if you have CAT in mind, set yourself a target of reading for at least 2 hours each day. Forget everything else, this alone will improve your score significantly. Read anything. What you read matters less than how much you read.

Cracking LR is a hygiene factor now
For guys not extremely comfortable with English, the thinking behind the verbal section goes like this - "If I can crack all 9-10 questions in LR and get some 5-6 other questions correct, I should be through." Good point. Some merit in this. But remember, a lot of people are going to go with the same strategy. Merely cracking LR will still leave you with too big a gap to bridge. Some of our students who cracked LR out of shape ended with 80th percentile-ish in verbal. Not bad at all. But if you want to climb above 90th percentile, you need to get going in the English section as well.

On the lighter side, age is not a barrier for cracking this exam
As someone who teaches for CAT, I hate it when people tell that they have been out of touch of math and have not studied maths for n years (especially when n is less than 5). One of the guys at 2iim got 100th percentile in CAT 2011 and he is on the wrong side of 30. So, there is no excuse for guys with 5 years experience telling themselves they are out of touch with math. For solving questions on percentages and averages, you do not need to be a 20-something :-)

Best wishes from 2iim for your interview preparation.

Diversity or Merit

2011-08-25T13:05:00.003+05:30

Some of the IIMs have clearly stated that they are going to give a boost to girl candidates and non-engineer candidates. B-Schools have always rated diversity very high and informally nudged things around here and there in order to get balance. I am of the view that the diversity-drama is a bit of a sham, a bit overcooked and is very unfair to both the "boosted" and the "boosted at the cost of". This post is an attempt at busting some of the myths

Engineers all have uniform opinions, so you get no 'other' view on things
What humbug. This is one of the most convenient non-truths. Quality of the input/view is way more important than the mere diversity factor. If you are discussing astrophysics, would you have a sportsperson on the panel because he might have something different to offer. I have had some of the most wonderful discussions with fellow engineers. And been irritated by the fetish for difference from fellow B-School grads (these could be engineers also). If you are watching test cricket on TV, would you choose a panel that has Richie Benaud and Harsha Bhogle or one that has Mandira Bedi and Charu Sharma. High quality discussion brings to light diverse views. Not the other way around. Do you think intelligent engineers are blinkered? What gives one the right to assume this.

Are there not even 500 good girls who can get into the IIMs. How anti-women are you if you say that girls should not be given a boost
The most important and the least-debated aspect of this whole issue is how patronising the above conjecture is to the girls. The best ones who would have anyway gotten in will now be seen as being among the ones who got a boost thanks to the system. The ones arguing against this kind of "boost" are not the ones who are saying there are not enough good girl candidates around.

On the contrary, I firmly believe that there are plenty of good girls around. I also firmly believe that they can get in, compete and do well without anyone offering them any extra help. Some of the girls who were my classmates were very good. I would love it if the country stopped patronising them in the pretext of helping them.

Everyone stereotypes. Next time some girl gets into an IIM, I am sure everyone around will go - Yeah, so what your chromosomes probably played a bigger role than your grey cells in getting you there. Which is so sad.

BA English and B.Sc Maths grads can be very intelligent too
Of course. I am not denying that. Only to test this, you have designed the CAT exam. The CAT exam is not a maths test, as everyone is made to believe. Worldwide, math and verbal ability have been taken as proxies for gauging intelligence. India is no different. The maths level tested in CAT is at best of the standard X level. As a signal of smarts, the exam is a pretty good proxy. If the examiners so believe that it is not a good enough proxy for smarts, they should change the entrance exam. Design it in such a way that no group is at an unfair advantage. Randomly adding marks at the end of the whole process is just backdoor entry.

All arguments be damned, we are conducting a social experiment because we can:
This is what the IIMs are telling us, in essence. The merits of diversity have never been demonstrated. We are just adopting received wisdom from everyone because it is convenient. All of education (especially in India) is a signal. A degree conveys the ability of a student to grasp/perform rather than the knowledge he/she might have gleamed in college. Engineering colleges are tougher to get into (the good ones. the ones that actually try to teach engineering), tougher to survive in, and tougher to get out of. The IIMs are effectively telling the kids to not go through this rigour if they want a better chance at getting into the IIM.

The worst affected are going to be the guys in the IITs. Poor sods. They crack JEE and believe they are getting into an elite crowd. Little do they know that at every level, they are going to be discriminated against due to their presence in this elite crowd. Some joker at IIT with a 99.6th percentile will end up with no IIM calls because he would not be bringing in diversity into an IIM, whereas a non-IIT engineer with 99.4th percentile will still get a call. All because the non-IIT engineer will bring more diversity. Ha. The joys of rightful discrimination.

IIM Cal probably has the best policy. Power to them.

IIMs to give an extra bonus to non-engineers and girls

2011-08-25T09:50:00.005+05:30

First, let us have the facts, which have as ever been embellished by TOI (Someone's idea of earning a salary is based on offending all groups of people. To begin with, the heading is 'graceless').

All the six new IIMs and the ones at Lucknow and Kozhikode feel it`s time to rebalance the gender scales in office spaces. So while IIM-Rohtak will give 20 marks to each girl and another 20 to a non-engineer, IIM-Raipur will add 30 marks to the overall scores of each girl-non-engineer. IIM-Lucknow has decided to grant five marks to each girl and two to non-engineers.

Across the board, almost all IIMs have decided to give a boost to girls and non-engineering candidates.

What does this imply?
Obviously, this makes things easier for girls and non-engineers. The bar for quant cut-off at least will now be much lower. I would argue that a 98th percentile overall will still leave you in with a shout if one is a girl, non-engineer.

The implication for engineers is more interesting. Not only will engineers have to focus more on verbal ability, they will have to stress on quant as well as the pool of seats available to engineers would have now shrunk again. So, the engineers will have to get more than 99.3 percentile in quant to have a shot at the IIMs.

What should one focus on?
Nothing much changes. Engineers, please do not assume that VA alone will matter. You will effectively be competing with the world on VA and with fellow engineers for Quants. Given that the engineering entry just got tougher, both need to be good. As we have mentioned in an earlier post, one should focus more on Critical Reasoning questions now.

What else has changed?
Almost all the IIMs are veering towards having a "writing" section in the second round. Again, perhaps part of the overall convergence that Naveenan had mentioned. So, keep this in mind for the post-CAT preparation phase.

Just another word of caution, do not get caught up in the inevitable diversity vs. merit debate that will spring up all around you. That is an important debate, no doubt. But, whether you are an engineer or not, scoring well on that debate gives you pish-tosh in CAT. Accepting some frameworks and chugging along is an absolute necessity to crack things in India/anywhere. So, have an academic interest in this debate, but do not get completely consumed by it, at least until CAT.

That said, those of us who have finished our MBA (including yours truly) can continue to pontificate and so, will be discussing this issue in future posts. ;-)

CAT 2011 - Verbal

2011-08-18T11:00:00.002+05:30

This post focuses on how the verbal section of CAT might be structured. To get our thoughts on the quants section, and on caveats, check out this post .

We break-down the verbal section also into 3 segments

Reading Comprehension - 9-12 questions: This section's importance should go up slightly in the newer format. Usually, we see 9-10 questions, this could creep up to 12 questions in some papers.

Sentence Correction, Sentence Rearrangement, Sentence Completion: 9-10 questions: Traditional verbal sections. These can be done reasonably quickly, but error rate could be higher. Pick the best ones and have a go. The crucial take-away here is - Do NOT be in a mad rush to run through your RC passages. Take time over RC. This is not a speed-reading exam.

Newer type questions: They are saying Logical Reasoning, we think it is more likely to be what is termed as critical reasoning or analytical reasoning: First up, let us clarify the definitions.

An LR question will usually be of the type - 4 houses - blue, red, green, yellow with four residents - engineer, doctor, teacher, painter, with 4 cars - Santro, Innova, i10, BMW. The engineer does not drive a santro and does not stay next to the doctor etc

The critical reasoning question will be usually a mini-case study with an inference-type question at the end of it. Example
Sachin Tendulkar's test average in matches India loses is 15 runs lower than when India wins a match. This clearly demonstrates that Sachin's performance clearly drives India's performance. Which of the following, if true could undermine above argument

A. Average of most batsmen is lower in losing causes than winning causes
B. India has won most of its matches at home
C. India wins only high-scoring matches, etc

These used to be called Analytical Reasoning questions and were fairly common in the CAT exams of late 90's early 00's.

The big difference of the change in format could be the fact that these kind of questions make a comeback.

The final 9-10 questions could easily be 3-4 LR, 3-4 CR, 1-2 Fact, Inference, Judgement type questions.

So, while preparing for this section, focus on sentence construction and error-types, get some practice for analytical reasoning questions and remember to read slowly.

CAT 2011 - Preparation plan

2011-08-17T16:40:00.003+05:30

With only around two months to go, it is a good time to think about the overall paper. We also need to keep in mind the changes in format. So, have given below our ideas of how the paper might be structured.

Caveat alert: This is our view of how they might structure CAT and might have absolutely no link with how CATIIM is thinking about it (Always good to get the disclaimers in early. This is the one thing they drill into investment bankers). With that out of the way, let us get to the sections.

This post focuses on quants. Will follow up with a verbal specific post

Quants
We would look at this as three segments, of about 10 questions each

Segment I: This is going to be the section that covers simple quant topics - Averages, Percentages, Profit & Loss, Pipes Cisterns, Simple Interest -Compound Interests, Shares, Progressions, Ratio-Proportion, Speed-Time, Races, Mixtures, etc. There should be around 10 questions in this segment. Almost all questions in this section will be do-able but time-consuming. Student should shoot to get 8-9 of these in about 30-33 minutes. Even if it takes more than 3 minutes per question, it could be worth it.

Take your time but get it correct

Segment 2: This is the set of concept-heavy questions - Number Theory, Geometry, Permutation-Combinations, Inequalities and perhaps a bit of Set Theory. These will be slightly non-formulaic questions. But these will help you save time in case you have the fundas right. Should shoot to attempt 6-7 of these in about 13-15 minutes.

Pick the correct questions and solve them really quickly

Segment 3: 3-4 questions of pure DI, 2-3 questions of DI presented in unconventional format, 3-4 of Data Sufficiency etc. Attempt 7-8 of these in about 22-25 minutes. In this segment DI will be time-consuming, DS will be hit or miss.

Overall, shoot to try 22-23 questions. This number should be good enough to hit 99th percentile +. There are two big mistakes that one should avoid.

1. Getting lots of practice for simpler topics, ignoring No.theory+Geometry: This is absurd. Get problems under the belt for the simpler topics, study from first principles for No. Theory and Geometry. One should know the basis for each formula, not just the formula. You should know how to solve problems like the ones seen here . And be clear on concepts in geometry

2. Skipping simple-topic questions because they take more than 3 minutes to solve: 3 minutes per question is good speed. If you understand a question based on Speed-Time and can definitely get it right in even 3.5 minutes, go for it. The concept-heavy topics are the ones where you should shoot to save time. Do not be in a mad rush for speed in the questions from the simpler topics. You HAVE TO get these correct. So, no point making some silly error here.

CAT Format changes - Some additional points

2011-07-28T09:33:00.002+05:30

Just thought I would add 2-3 inputs from Naveenan and Vimal (my colleagues at 2iim who run the centers at Mumbai and Bangalore respectively).

Importance given to verbal ability has increased: Verbal accounts for 50% of the exam now, up from 33% previously. Being merely quant-strong will not be enough to crack this exam. Students need to look at Sentence Correction and critical reasoning more aggressively

Stamina will count for a lot now: In the past editions, students had the advantage of changing sections mid-way, front-loading reading components, shuffling within a paper, etc. Now, a student will spend 2 hours before starting the exam, then spend 70 minutes doing quant, and then start the first verbal question. By the time you near the end of the verbal section, you would have spent more than 220 minutes staring at a computer. If you are the kind that gets tired reading RC passages, then you will have to work a lot on improving stamina.

The other point that emerged from discussions is the fact globally exams are converging on one pattern. India is moving towards lowering primacy given to DI/LR exactly at the point of time GMAT/GRE are increasing importance to DI. So, perhaps we are reaching a middle-ground where patterns are beginning to converge.

CAT Format changes - What does this mean?

2011-07-27T12:15:00.003+05:30

The format for CAT 2011 has changed. The key changes are as follows

1. Only two sections now, instead of 3. We will have one verbal and one quant section only, with 30 questions in each section. The DI-LR section has been split mid-way and been apportioned into quant and verbal. Quant will now contain - math + Data Interpretation while verbal section will include Logical Reasoning.

2. Timing raised to 140 minutes (from 135 minutes). The big change here is that now the time limit is two water-tight 70 minutes. A student can no longer apportion timing as he/she pleases. The exam will now comprise two sections of 70 minutes.

What are the key implications for students?

1. Only two section cut-offs to worry about: This simplifies life
2. Time management becomes much easier
3. Balance across sections will get rewarded: Earlier students weak in verbal could just spend five more minutes in the section and compensate for this. With water-tight sections, this kind of time-shifting is ruled out
4. Verbal assumes more importance now. The widespread perception is that CAT was still a "quant" exam. This change in format could lead to increased importance given to verbal.

What has been left unsaid?
This part is pure conjecture. These are the things I expect to see.
1. In the verbal section, the LR questions will be more like CR questions (Critical reasoning questions). We will see more questions that resemble mini-case studies and fewer questions that are puzzle-based. In my view, the verbal section will have 9-11 qns from RC, 3 each in sentence rearrangement, sentence correction and sentence completion, one puzzle that has 3-4 questions and 5-6 questions based on arguments, hypotheses etc.

2.The puzzle based questions will still feature in the quant section. The DI-LR section is effectively getting squeezed out a little in this format-change, in my view.

What trends will be seen?
1. More skewed percentiles: The guys who are really strong in quant/verbal are now going to ace this section without worrying about hoovering up time for the other section(s)
2. Candidates with balance will be at an advantage.

How should preparation style change?

Focus more on RC. Spend more time on critical reasoning and case-study type questions. CAT used to have these kind of questions about 10 years ago. They used to be called as Analytical reasoning. Dig up those archives and have a go.

If you are reasonably strong in the basics, forget about building speed doing random (baseless) speed-building exercises. Multiplication speed, reading speed are all going to matter less. The examiners are effectively saying - "I give you 2.5-3 minutes per question. If you can think clearly, you will never be hard-pressed for time"

Longer-term, where is this going?
The path has been laid out. They want to make this an exam that can be taken more than once a year. A more standardised test, a test more in line with global practices (GMAT, GRE), test that isolates quant and verbal, are all steps to ensure that they can make this a through-the-year exam either in 2012 or 2013.

CAT 2011 - Thoughts based on CAT 2010

2011-01-13T17:39:00.002+05:30

CAT 2010 results were released a few days ago, and it is time to think about what we have learn from the results. I have categorized my thoughts into two categories.

Opinions that have been reinforced

1. CAT is not an impossibly tough exam. A number of diligent non-genius candidates have done really well. (All the evidence I am going to refer to is anecdotal and not based on any survey.). Thorough preparation, lots of practice and good planning should be enough to get candidates close enough. The final ingredient is perhaps a little bit of luck, but we cannot budget for that. The previous post on Self-belief holds good even now.

2. CAT rewards preparation from first principles: Quant, DI and verbal have all become more application-intensive and CAT 2010 has continued on with that trend. There is a higher bias towards non-formulaic questions. In maths and verbal, intuition and deeper-understanding is getting rewarded vis-a vis blind formulaic learning. As my boss never tires of saying - Intuition can be built with practice.

3. Balanced preparation is a must: With competition this high, one cannot afford to say my strength in quant should take me through. A few of our students learnt that lesson this time around

New pointers that CAT 2010 has shown us

1. Quant level across the country is pretty high: 15 years ago, \a student needed to just now a bunch of formulae, and need not have been conceptually sound. 6-8 years ago, when CAT made a shift towards more application-intensive questions, it was sufficient if one was conceptually sound. And you could get away without much practice. You always had time to derive 1-2 formulae, do trial-and-error and build hypotheses, verify with bunch of examples, etc. Now, the luxury to do all that is disappearing. A student almost needs to pick the right method to solve a question straightaway. No time for any trial-and-error business. One needs to have basics sound and practice gazillions of questions. The more different kind of problems you can lay your hands on the better.

2. To crack DI, one needs to be good at DI and LR: One out of two wont go. There are some tough DI passages and tough LR questions that you are better of leaving. The option of "I will kill DI and leave all LR questions" will not work

Those of you who are preparing for CAT 2011 and beyond, best wishes.

Belief in Self - That is ALL the difference

2011-01-13T17:33:00.004+05:30

At the risk of imitating Mr. P. Chidambaram, I am going to seek the help of a tamil verse from the book Thirukkural, written by the poet Thiruvalluvar

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Vellathanaya Neermattam Maandhar tham
Ulla thana duyarvu

The meaning of this "kural" is - if you have seen a lotus, it will go up when the water rises in the tank and go down when the water level fell. Like that, the rise or fall of a human is based on his behavior and thoughts.

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Many an youngster is daunted by the fact that the CAT is written by 200,000+ students every year. Out of these, only 2,000 students make it to one IIM or the other. Only 15,000 students make it to a Tier - 1 b-school. The youngster conveniently concludes "I do not have a halo behind my head. I do not belong to those 2,000 students. Heck, I doubt if i even belong to those 15,000 students".

Think about it for a moment. Did those 17,000 (2,000 + 15,000) students make it to those b-schools because of a halo behind their heads? Were they differently built? Did they study in schools that the other 180,000 youngsters did not go to? Were the opportunities available to them as kids vastly different from the ones available to the other 180,000? Definitely not.

I think the ONLY difference was that the 17,000 students believed in themselves and believed in their ability to work hard while it was not the case with the other 180,000. Rather than write pages and pages of gyan, let us look at an real life example.

Year 2001: Our protagonist, X, is in his final year of college. As is the tradition amongst his batchmates, he also decides to write CAT. He does not prepare for it. Performs poorly. Arrives at the convenient conclusion that he is not 'CAT material' (whatever that means)

Year 2005: All along, X had not even given CAT a second thought - even though he always wanted to do an MBA. His colleague at the same office, Y, mentions that he had taken the cat in 2004 and is attending interviews at the IIMs for his admission.

That is when it dawns on X how naive he had been. He had let go 4 valuable years without even trying to figure out what it takes to crack the CAT. Y mentions that he had been preparing for a year for his CAT and it was not all THAT difficult. That is when it occurs to X that ALL it takes is preparation and a belief in self and anybody would be able to crack the CAT.

X starts preparing for the CAT exam in the same year. Keeps at it. Does not let go of his target. Cracks the CAT and goes on to study at an IIM in the city whose name starts with an A.

To this day, X is thankful to Y for having changed his mindset; for having opened his mind to the untapped opportunities; for helping him realize his dreams.

This is the real life story of one of our students. Last we heard about this guy, he helps CAT aspirants reach their goal.

There is an X in each of the 180,000 students who did not make it to a tier - 1 b-school of their choice. The X in this story was lucky to have bumped into Y. Are you one of those 180,000 X's? Do you still have to wait for the CAT to happen to your friend for you to start believing in yourself?

Our firm belief: It is not a matter of ability. It is a matter of self belief.

All the best ! God Speed !

=================================================
With CAT results just gone by, and many students mulling over CAT 2011, I think this is an excellent time to read an article like this.

The article is by none other than X, who currently runs 2iim Mumbai.

Admissions into IIMs - How important is work experience in getting an admit?

2010-12-09T23:01:00.002+05:30

There are many versions of this key question. How do the IIMs rate work experience? How much does it count for? All other things being equal, will the IIMs always prefer experienced grads? How much more should fresh graduates score in order to stand a chance?

Like many of the research reports, let me start with a disclaimer. I do not claim to have any inside knowledge on how the IIMs process applicants, and most of what I have to say is based on anecdotal evidence.

There is no objective normalization process for accounting for experience

The IIMs most likely do not have a scoring system for awarding points for work experience. It is my belief that the selection committee goes in with an idea of how they want the batch to be structured and conducts interviews with this backdrop.

As in, IIM Bangalore might say tell the selection panel, we would like to have around 60-80 fresh grads, 60-80 grads with 1-2 years experience and around 50-60 grads with more experience than that. Based on this, we have called 300 freshers, 300 1-2 years' experienced grads and 200 very experienced candidates for the interview.

So, after this kind of plan is made, effectively, the groups are more or less competing within each other, and therefore there is no way someone can make a statement like "if you have 4 years experience, you can get in with a score that is 1 percentile point lower than someone with 0 years experience". It is quiet likely that the mean and median score of shortlisted fresh graduates is higher than that of heavily experienced candidates, and this is what we mean by saying that experience counts for something.

Does 1-2 years experience count for much?

Not really. The guys with less than 24 months of experience constitute a high proportion of any batch, and any experience less than 24 months rarely counts for much. These candidates are unlikely to have picked up any great understanding of either their industry or organizational dynamics to make a huge impact.

Does the type of experience count?

All B-schools price diversity (some more so than others), so a different profile always counts for something. A lawyer/ doctor always has an edge over a software professional in our country. There is little doubt about this.

Will the IIMs shift towards more experienced candidates

With a shift to round-the-year exam to be conducted by an external agency, the IIMs will inevitably begin to value profile and experience more. So, this trend is likely to happen

Will the IIMs shun fresh graduates?

Extremely unlikely. No matter which position an institute holds, it will be keen on attracting the best talent available. So, if one IIM shifts towards picking only experienced candidates, then it will effectively lose out on fresh talent. As a talent pool, the fresh graduates compete favourably against other groups. Among the top 10 of any graduating class, one would usually find more than 70% of candidates with 0-2 years experience, with perhaps up o 40% being fresh graduates. There is limited statistical evidence to suggest that fresh graduates do not get value from an MBA. A large number of companies prefer to recruit fresh grads for internships and prefer to select fresh grads for entry-level positions. So, any one IIM, if it chooses to change its profile will end up losing out on talent. So, unless there is a concerted effort from the top 20 B-schools in India, the dynamics cannot change overnight.

I think India will slowly shift towards taking in more experienced candidates into their B-Schools. But this shift will be slow and more or less synchronised across institutes.

Will personal interview and GD be more difficult for fresh graduates?

The short answer is Yes. Fresh graduates have less to talk about themselves, less personal experiences to count on and refer to, will likely have had few opportunities to make presentations to anyone and are generally a little raw. Experienced candidates are naturally better-equipped to handle one-on-one sessions and group discussions. This is why fresh graduates should spend more time preparing themselves for GD-PI and should focus on presenting their case well.

Bottom-line

If you are a fresh graduate, do not let this talk of experienced candidates standing a huge advantage get to you. You are effectively competing against fellow fresh grads for the seats and in any case, you have likely done better than an average experienced candidate in the CAT exam and that should count for something.

If you have 1-2 years of experience, this is not a game-changer, so make sure you have enough talking points about your job.

CAT can now be taken through the year - What does this mean?

2010-11-30T12:57:00.002+05:30

Now, it is more or less official. The CAT exam is set to be conducted through the year. If not from 2011, this is set to happen from 2012 onwards. This is a significant shift from the CAT, and coming close on the heels of the shift to computer-based exam, this changes the CAT market substantially.

Why have the IIMs done it?

The IIMs have tried to make three transitions over the past 3-4 years - paper-based to computer-based, once a year to round the year and to try and create a separate entity to run the exam. All three suggest that the IIMs want to make this a broader standardized test, rather than being purely viewed as an entrance exam for the IIMs. Historically, more than 100 universities have used the CAT, but many among these have used multiple exams (CAT, GMAT, GRE, JMET, etc) for selecting students.

The IIMs are eying a larger share of this market and want to remove the timing constraint in taking the CAT exam. Last year, 2 lakhs students took the CAT. If it is made a round-the-year exam, that number could easily go up another 30-40%. Add to this the fact that there would be many students that would be attempting the CAT more than once a year, this is great news for CAT. A large number of professionals find it difficult to plan for the CAT. Now, with more freedom to choose the dates, a large number of these will start writing the exam.

How are things different for test-takers?

Freedom to select dates on which you can take is always a boon. One can account for everything from foreign assignments, exam schedules and superstitions when selecting the correct dates. But, in every competitive exam, any change is likely to be a zero sum game. This change, I believe will be a disadvantage to freshers and a boon to experienced candidates.

Experienced candidates are usually the ones that struggle to plan well in advance, struggle to set aside 10-11 months to prepare for the exam, and generally end up not putting in enough preparation for the CAT. Now, anyone shifting jobs will want to take a 6-week break, prepare for CAT and take it at the earliest (somewhat similar to the GMAT). More importantly, the CAT scores will get de-emphasized even more and profile, experience will matter more.

Scoring 99.94th percentile in a once-a-year CAT might more or less guarantee a seat in one of the top 10 univs, but scoring a corresponding score in a round-the-year CAT will be less of an achievement. This de facto implies that profile, experience, academic background, etc matter more. Indian schools might become similar to the global ones in that, they will start with a CAT cut-off and then shortlist based on profile, rather than shortlist based on CAT scores. This will be disadvantageous for fresh graduates. This will also be disadvantageous for candidates with a standard profile (such as an Engineer with 3 years of experience in Patni/Polaris).

More experienced grads will prepare for this, more of them will prepare better, and for many of them the experience will count for more. So, freshers might not be the happiest bunch due to this change. Having said that, India is probably the only country that allows so many freshers to do an MBA. Globally, students with zero experience doing an MBA is the exception rather than the norm. So, this shift towards selecting more experienced candidates was also always coming, I guess.

How does this change the preparation pattern?

The content does not change at all. One needs to prepare for the same quant, DI and verbal. But, a 12-week intense routine will probably be the preferred route, rather than a 15 month course of low intensity. Till 2000, students used to prepare for less than 4-5 months for the CAT. Only after these coaching institutes realized that getting college students early is very lucrative, did the cycle of preparation slowly expand to 15 months. This is probably an overkill. Students will start opting for the short burst rather than the low-intensity momentum-killing build up. More experienced candidates will want to prepare over a 12-week cycle, more diverse candidates will want to give it a crack. Fresh grads will probably still prefer the 12-month routine, mostly because this will ensure the ground work is done if ever they want to take the CAT 2-3 years down the line. Hopefully, some newer players will emerge in the test-preparation space :)

All in all, this is good news, one can plan for CAT better, the IIMs are set to make more money, and quality of paper should improve further. Who knows, the CAT might begin competing with the GMAT outside the Indian market as well. I am among few people who believe that the quality of the CAT exam is excellent (barring the few errors). If they manage to cut the error-rate, we could have an excellent test on our hands. Probably worth marketing it globally.

CAT - In defence of the CAT

2010-11-25T10:55:00.004+05:30

As CAT 2010 draws to a close, we will soon be hearing a lot of feedback on the quality and consistency of the exam, the technology, organization, etc. It is about the same time that we will hear people saying that the CAT is a pointless exam, an exam that tests unnecessary skill sets, and an exam that is needlessly too difficult. People will tout examples of various calculation-intensive questions friends of friends of theirs saw in the paper and feel vindicated about their claim that the CAT is a very computation-heavy random exam designed to test unnecessary things. You will probably also hear the inevitable "Why is it necessary to do 24.5 * 35.4 in 10 seconds to be a good manager".

Most of the people who say this know little to nothing about the CAT, and at any rate have not spent enough time either thinking about the paper or evaluating it. They are happy to accept the established stereotype and help it along.

My colleagues and I have been taking the CAT almost every year and can state unequivocally that the quality of the paper has improved with time. There are 3 key myths that people have been spreading about the CAT

1. It is a calculation-intensive exam: On an average, about 5 out of 40 questions in Quant + DI are of this type, and one can skip this and still score 100th percentile in CAT. CAT was calculation-intensive in the late 90's, it has tested application heavily in the past 10 or so years.

2. CAT does not test relevant skills to be a manager - also stated as "Why should someone know Set theory to be a good manager?": At some level, CAT is an entrance exam designed to test basic intelligence. Any academic performance is a signal that the student can potentially do well. So, the CAT is looking for a signal of intelligence. Around two lakh students of diverse backgrounds take this exam every year. One needs to find something very basic to use it as a proxy for intelligence. Testing numerical ability, problem solving ability and comprehension ability are probably the best proxies available. What would you rather test - general knowledge, science, subject-knowledge? Anything else pales in comparison. Also, remember, CAT is not an entrance exam to be a manager. It is an entrance exam to get admission into a school that will train you to become a manager.

3. Some questions in CAT are too difficult: This is a problem that has come about because of a specific characteristic of India - one of large numbers. CAT needs to make a distinction between the average and the good. But if this were the only distinction that CAT needed to make, a consistent and simple paper would suffice. But the CAT also needs to make the distinction between good and really good and really good and exceptional. Remember, they need to devise a mechanism to distinguish the top 0.2 percent within the top 1 percent. This suggests the need for creating "men and boys" questions. Questions that demarcate the exceptional from the merely very good. Any paper where the really good students can attempt 55+ out of 60 students within 135 minutes clearly indicates that this is not too difficult. If the paper is peppered with simple questions, the exam just tests just speed, and not understanding. A slightly tougher paper that requires a high level of application is required for getting the top 0.2% from a sea of applicants.

Most people will agree that it does not require a genius to crack CAT. It just requires loads of application, good decision-making ability and adequate preparation. Sounds like a good test for finding managerial talent to me :)

Now, finally to the point that irks people the most, why should calculation-speed be a factor at all? When the whole globe does not really rate calculation-speed, why does India (CAT) cling to this notion? The answer again, is straightforward. India still believes it is a critical skill set. And the CAT is trying to find the best proxy to select smart Indian kids. Why should the CAT not test what India finds important. If anything, the CAT has been doing a lot to de-emphasise this feature. Over the past 10 years, the number of number-intensive questions have fallen sharply, and rightly so. India is moving on, and the CAT is setting the pace. CAT cannot move on all on its own, then they will end up getting all the wrong candidates.

So, there goes my defence of the CAT. I am sure the IIMs wont care much about giving their viewpoint. So, here is my version of how they might have done it.

Having said all this, some things irk me a lot. The complete lack of consistency in the paper is an issue that CAT needs to address. More importantly, the CAT needs to be error-free. Especially now that they have multiple sessions. The CAT was not error-free this year. Far from it. And god knows how they treat the wrong questions. I cannot think of a single fair way of treating error-filled papers. Hope they improve on this.

CAT scores count for no more than 20%

2007-09-28T14:50:00.000+05:30

Thanks to the RTI Act, IIM B has made it public that your CAT scores do not have a weightage of more than a fifth when admission decisions are made by the institute.

IIM B always had placed a premium on academic prowess that spanned much more than the 3 to 24 months preparation that students do to crack CAT. They did and still continue to place a lot of importance to a student's long term performance starting from Class 10. So, if there is anyone out there in class X and has a long term aspiration of cracking CAT, then make sure that you score well in your board exams as they matter as much as your CAT scores will 5 to 7 years from now.

For those, who have crossed the 10th, 12th or graduation bridges (especially for those amongst us who crossed the bridge not so colorfully), hopes of graduating from an IIM need not come to an end. IIM Calcutta, at least till the recent past did not place much emphasis on your previous academic record. In fact, the Admissions Committee Chairperson has gone on record a couple of years back that CAT score is sacrosanct and a high CAT percentile is certain to get you a GDPI call from IIM Calcutta.

I can vouchsafe for that claim. I have had classmates who had scraped through their graduation. A gentleman with a 5 CG from IIT Bombay was a classmate of mine. Another gentleman who is presently the CEO of a fast growing IT company barely managed 61% in 12 standard board exam (Tamilnadu State Board) and graduated with a 59% as a BA Sociology graduate.

The trend continued much after I graduated from IIM C. A gentleman three years my junior graduated from IIMC. Before joining IIMC, he graduated from Calcutta University with a B. Com degree. He had an aggregate of a little over 45% in his graduation. Very recently, a student of mine with a 6.5 CG from BITS Pilani made it to the IIMC. However, at IIMC he made a vow to be among the top 20 and made it to the top 18 and is presently working for a world renowned Business Consultant.

So, for all those who cannot go back and correct your scores at school and college level, there are still few IIMs left that give adequate credit to one's CAT scores. A 99.7 + percentile is likely to land you calls from a few of the IIMs, IIMC including, I hope. This is probably your only chance to redeem past sins should you aim to seek an admit from one of the IIMs.

I wish you all success in your CAT endeavors.

Cracking CAT a year later potentially costs $200000

2006-03-22T12:03:00.000+05:30

Well.... all of us have read this. Top salaries of fresh IIM graduates have touched $200,000. It may not even make sense to convert the salary into Indian Rupees - as the figure almost looks mythical. However, it is true. Without delving into the depths of how many students from the IIMs manage to get such salaries, whether it it CTC or gross pay or take home etc., let us look what does that mean to you as a CAT aspirant.

1. Making it to a top B school such as an IIM a year earlier makes so much of a difference to your career. Look at it this way. Let us say, you are 25 and you expect to work till you turn 60. Each additional year of work with an MBA means so much in furthering your career on a fast track - whats worse - some of these job openings do not exist without a top ranking MBA degree. So, crack CAT soon. Crack it this year. It is better not to postpone somethings.

2. Well I am going to contradict myself. The career paths and astronomical salaries that are talked about are typically reserved for students of the elite institutes. So, do not do an MBA or a PGDM from any random Business School. Let us say, unfortunately you get only 97 percentile in CAT this year and have managed an admit only from a not so very popular XYZ Management Institute - it might make sense not to take that admit and slog another year to crack CAT and get an admit from one of the elite institutes such as the top 3 or 4 IIMs, XL, FMS etc., Remember - most people DO ONLY ONE MBA in their lifetime. Even if your MBA education is delayed by a year, do not settle for anything less than the best.

3. What does it take to get there?
Thankfully, IIM A has given some clarity on what you should aim to get in each of the sections. A 25% net score in each section with a overall score of 33.33%. This alone will not guarantee you a call. However, one is unlikely to get calls without this score. So, if you are practicing your Mock CAT Tests right now, make sure that you set targets that are a little more than what IIM A has stated so that you are well equipped to crack the cut off on the D day.

Best wishes for all those who aspire to make it to the top IIMs this year.

K S Baskar
Director - Ascent Education - classes, correspondence course for CAT

The surprise in CAT 2005

2006-01-13T18:50:00.000+05:30

Well, the IIMs had to have the last laugh. This time it was in terms of a reduced number of questions. 30 questions to a section and a total of 90 questions.

Each section had 10 one-mark questions and 20 two-marks questions. When the IIMs reduce the number of questions, the biggest victim was the choice that a test taker had in terms of the number of questions that he could skip.

For instance, when there were 165 questions in CAT as in CAT 1999 and CAT 2000, you had 55 questions to each section. And in the case of quant and DI, from these 110 questions you had to choose 40 to 45 questions and get most of them right. So, you could skip about 65 to 70 questions. That is a lot of choice that is available to you. But when you have only 30 questions in hand, and 20 of those are 2 marks questions, then every question you skip or get wrong will cost you a lot. And it looks like it did cost a lot to many who had scored quite well in the practice test.

Having gone through the paper, I believe the section that was tough was the Verbal section. Some of the questions that carried two marks had two plausible answers and it is mere chance that the answer a student chose matched that of the correct ones as IIMs would have thought.

And one big revelation this time was that the IIMs clearly mentioned that the negative marks for getting a question incorrect is one-third the correct answer. So, all the double guessing of progressive negative that CAT test takers in the past had to put up with is off.

What next in CAT 2006? They might just decide that in addition to having negative marks for getting a question incorrect, they would want to penalize you for not attempting a question. Well, CAT 2002 or 2003 had a Math question using this concept!

CAT 2004 - not all questions are equal

2005-01-05T13:40:00.000+05:30

CAT 2004 sprung a surprise - how can CAT not have a surprise?

For the first time in the history of CAT, IIMs have assigned different weightages to different questions - in the quant section there were 20 one mark questions and 15 two marks questions - totalling up to 50 marks. In the DI section, there were 26 one mark question and 12 two marks questions adding up to 50 marks and in the verbal section you had more variety - half a mark questions (10 of them), one mark questions and two mark questions adding up to 50 marks.

Therefore, the age old advice that all questions are equal and carry the same mark will no longer apply. To that extent one can claim that there is a paradigm shift in the way one should go about strategizing for CAT.

However, the truth is that nothing has really changed as far as how a student should look at CAT - because in most cases the one mark questions in CAT were considerably easier than the two mark questions and the half a mark question in verbal were the fill in the blanks question and were the - "see and mark" types.

What is with all the hype about the CAT cut off, 6 calls, workex, non-engineers

2004-09-27T20:19:00.000+05:30

A lot of time, energy, anxiety is usually spent on predicting / knowing / doing a post mortem analysis of what the cut off in CAT will be?

Though a post mortem analysis after you have taken your CAT might have very little to offer you other than few anxious moments and some sleepless nights, the analysis of what happened in previous CATs could hold a lot of value before you take CAT.

CAT has changed a lot over the last decade or so. In the early 1990s, CAT used to have anything between 180 to 220 questions comprising two to four sections. There were years in which CAT had sectionwise time limits. Those seem to be somewhere in the distant past. As mentioned in the most recent CAT bulletin, there are no sectionwise time limits these days. Time limits apart, the kind of questions that appear in CAT and its impact on scores and cut off have changed dramatically over the last 10 years.

Of the 180 questions that were there in CAT in early 90s, 40 to 45 used to be from the verbal section (you can a actually read it as vocabulary section). We guys used to know the GRE Barrons word list in reverse order and use all sorts of nonsensical words like pleonasm and tautology in our day to day vocabulary. It did help. One got to answer and get a net score of about 30 plus in less than 15 minutes from this section. RC used to be a separate section and had mostly factual questions. Quant was usually considered to be the tough section. But Quant in those days mainly comprised direct application of concepts or formulae.

All those have changed. For instance, the most recent CATs have only 150 questions. The 30 odd questions that have found their way out include the vocabulary section. Quant is no more direct application of formulae. Along with these changes have gone the days of 130 and 140 attempts in CAT.

A friend and an IIM classmate of mine, K Venkatesh (CEO Maarga Info Systems) attempted 177 out of the 180 questions in the CAT that we took in 1991. He got calls from all the four IIMs, (we did not have I and K those days!) and converted B, C and L and joined C. While, I myself managed to attempt about 130 questions in that CAT.

However, any average student who gets into an IIM today will be ecstatic if he/she manages to attempt 130 and would even brand CAT as a very easy exam. In the last few CATs at least, candidates scoring above 99.5 plus percentile in CAT need not attempt anything above 80 questions to be there. What is probably needed is high levels of accuracy 95% plus accuracy. i.e., one should get about 75 of the 80 questions right.

Will continue later...

K S Baskar
PGDM - IIM Calcutta - Class of '94
Director - Ascent Education

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