CAT Results wait - another comic to cool nerves

CAT 2014 - General Thoughts

Now that we are out of the immediate percentile-predictor mode of CAT 2014, it is probably a good time to gather our thoughts on CAT 2014.

Paper has definitely become easier 
This is one of the few unambiguous inferences that can be drawn. In 170 minutes, someone who has prepared decently well can reasonably hope to attempt 50+ questions . It has become easier across the board, but probably the drop in difficulty level in math is sharper. DI and LR have also become easier, primarily because now solving a grid gives you a shot at getting 4 answers correct, instead of the 3 in previous avatars of CAT. In some sense, CAT is reverting to the type of papers we used to have in the 1995-2004 era. Lots of questions in the easy-to-moderate range and very few tough ones.

So, how does this change preparation?
One needs to focus slightly more on speed. For cracking CAT in the years 2009 to 2013, speed was not critical. If you had the right fundaes, but were not this manic-intensive test-taker, you could still hope to crack 99th percentile. The questions pushed you conceptually; and staying on top of fundamentals was more important than cranking up the speed. However, with number of questions going up and level of difficulty coming down, the student who can do the routine questions quicker has an advantage.

Any question has two components - i) cracking the funda and ii) doing the solving part. In CAT 2009-2013, the former was more critical. In CAT 2014, the latter is more important. There were a great many "regular" questions, for which one need not have even paused for thought. How well you have done the "drill" will matter.

Math-geek advantage reduces?
If you can crack the regular ones quickly, you will be able to easily find 25 questions in Quant. You can happily skip the 5-6 "tough" ones that only the geniuses can get. Given that very few are going to have time to attempt more than ~35 questions in Quant, now a well-practiced certified non-genius can compete with the math geeks and even hit up to 35 questions.

Why have the IIMs done this?
God knows. They have not deigned to share their thought process with the unwashed. Till last year, they thought that having 60 tough questions over 140 minutes was good; this year they have decided that 100 simpler questions over 170 minutes is better. And this was probably instituted because the person in charge of CAT this year has a niece who said 170 is her favourite number, and between tough and easy, she likes easy.

The IIMs are clearly entitled to choose the process they believe is best. We have absolutely no say in that. But it is a shame that they do not believe they have a duty to communicate the thought-process behind these changes.

Contrast this with how international exams treat their students. The GMAT changed its pattern about 2 years ago (when they introduced a new Integrated Reasoning section). They gave a bunch of sample questions to practice, tested out a bunch of questions, explained why this was being introduced and started this process a good 2 years before they instituted the change.

Contrast this with beloved CAT's communication which broadly went like "This year new format, student-friendly. You are all lucky you have us. "

What about the other player, TCS?
TCS brought its version of we-dont-really-care to the table. The instructions were vague (and in different fonts). The practice exam on the website had a bunch of screen-capture shots. Some questions had 4 choices and some had 5.

The worst was on display on the day of the exam. In the center that I went to, only one person had complete knowledge about the processes. The rest 7-8 were muppets just making up the numbers. They had a high-handed attitude to boot as well. In their college, these jokers run semester exams and lord it over their students. For CAT, they should take the role of service-providers, or hosts. They did nothing of that sort. The invigilators who were present chatted throughout the exam, they kept opening and closing the doors and windows randomly. One had to cajole an additional sheet out of them. And apparently these issues were seen across centers in different cities.

In the case of both Prometric and TCS, the exams are being conducted at some other premises, and not their own. But we got the feeling that Prometric owned the exam and drilled in some basic processes into the college invigilators. TCS seems to have taken a more laisse-faire approach to the whole do.

When will we get a Harvard at Bangalore, or Wharton in Chennai?
As an alumnus from IIMB, I have had a soft-corner for the IIMs and have held them in high regard. Now, with every passing year, the IIMs have started behaving in increasingly heavy-handed fashion. They do not care about communicating their admission processes clearly or in articulating the reasons behind the different processes they have.

The IIMs have built their reputations almost entirely on a monopoly of talent - of both students and faculty. They have not lived in an era where they have had to compete for either. I cannot wait for the day when foreign institutes set up campuses in India and take away this monopoly from the IIMs.



 

CAT 2014 - Attempts and Percentiles

Let us list and bust a few of the myths regarding CAT attempts and percentiles

1. Number of attempts and percentiles have a strong correlation
This is of course true. But the correlation is extremely overstated. Every year, there are lots and lots of students who attempt 65% of the total questions and end up with less than 85th percentile. The far deeper correlation is likely to be between accuracy and percentile. The number of attempts is merely the most visible metric and therefore the most discussed. Unfortunately, quite a few students chase magic attempts numbers and end up shooting themselves in the foot. Come results date, we will hear a lot of students cribbing that the scoring, normalization, etc were incorrect.

In CAT 2013, a few of our students secured more than 90th percentile in a section having attempted only ~8 questions in the section. If you had read any of the forums, you would believe that guys who attempted less than 15 in a section should basically throw in the towel.

2. All students have 85% accuracy
The only thing the attempts and percentiles tell us is that there are a LOT of people who have accuracy rate of less than 50%. They get more than half the questions wrong. The CAT is a high quality exam. Pausing for thought and worrying about detail pays off in this exam. Guys who have cracked this exam will tell you that being in a frenzy never helps.

3. If you have attempted less than 65 questions in CAT 2014 you have no chance
At least half the students who are going to join IIM ABC are going to be guys who attempted less than 60 questions. The vast majority of guys who attempt 65+ questions are going to end up with less than 95th percentile. There are lots of students who appear for CAT every year, attempt lots of questions, and consistently get between 85th and 90th percentile. Its a shame that they do not change their strategy.

So, where does this leave us.
If you have attempted fewer questions but are sure about most of them. the score might surprise you to the upside.

As far as percentiles go, I would guess that they would be in the following range
Overall attempts ~ 40  - ~90th percentile
Overall attempts ~ 45  - ~94th percentile
Overall attempts ~ 50  - ~98th percentile
Overall attempts ~ 55  - ~99th percentile
Overall attempts ~ 60  - ~99.4 percentile
Overall attempts ~ 65  - ~99.7 percentile
Overall attempts ~ 70  - ~99.9 percentile
Overall attempts ~ 75  - Higher than this

Two caveats
1. These are at-best informed guesses. At worst, they are random numbers in a sequence.
2. All of these numbers are based on the assumption that at worst 2-3 questions are wrong. I do not understand the term "around 70% accuracy". Any paper where you believe you will have around 70% accuracy, you are basically leaving to the machinations of fate. If you think around 3 out of every 10 could be wrong, then very easily 5 out of 10 could be wrong.

Note that the density of scores is usually very low right at the top. Between 100th percentile and 99th percentile, the difference in number of attempts (correct answers) will be around 20 (perhaps even more). It is fairly crowded in the 90th-98th percentile range. With the same number of attempts, 4-5 more correct answers might determine the difference between a middling 89th percentile and sure-fire 96th percentile. This is why we ask students to take gazillion mock CATs and fine-tune everything.

Those students still waiting to take the exam, the one suggestion I would make strongly is to not get carried away by all the attempts numbers you are hearing. An enormous number of students live for the kick of saying that they attempted a lot of questions on D-day. A great proportion of this "huge number of attempts" gang end up having attempted 10 questions too many for their own good.

CAT GMAT XAT SNAP IIFT NMAT etc

There  are so many of these entrance exams that it is all very overwhelming. So, let us see if we can get some clarity out of these.

As far as India is concerned, the biggest fish is CAT
Give or take 90 out of the top 100 select based on CAT, with quite of a few of these selecting based only on CAT. This includes the IIMs (13 of these, soon to be 18), IITs, SP Jain, FMS, Bajaj, NITIE, MDI, IMT, among a great many others

For international MBAs, it is GMAT
Almost all universities in the US, UK, Australia, Singapore, Europe select based on GMAT. In India ISB and Great Lakes select based on GMAT. All the IIMs (+ MDI, XLRI etc) use the GMAT score for admissions into their executive MBA programs.

CAT or GMAT, which one should I take?
There are two simple rules
1. If you want to do in India, take CAT. If you want to go abroad, take GMAT.
2. If you are a fresher, take CAT. If you have more than 8 years of experience, give preference to GMAT

If you have 2-4 years of experience, and not sure whether you want to do MBA in India or abroad, then the decision is even simpler. Take both.

What about XAT?
There are around 30 decent colleges that select based on XAT. Within this, probably XLRI is the only college that selects only through XAT. Almost everyone else accepts CAT also (XIMB, LIBA GIM etc)

The big two are CAT and GMAT really, XAT is important because it can give you a second option.

What about these other exams?
Now, IIFT selects based on a separate exam. Symbiosis uses SNAP, NMIMS has NMAT. These three give you access to narrow groups of colleges, so write these based on whether you like that particular college. There is a government-mandated CMAT and then MAT. Of these, CMAT is more or less useless. MAT is accepted in a lot of private colleges, but there is practically no college that accepts MAT that will not give you a seat based on a good CAT score. If you are confident of getting 90th percentile in CAT, then skip MAT.

What about the quality of the exam?
CAT is of a good quality (note high quality, not difficulty). The quality of the GMAT exam is even better. Now, what do I mean by quality? The questions are challenging but not impossible, the level of difficulty is consistent, the framework is well defined and the exam is generally well conducted. Among the others, IIFT and NMAT are alright, at least they care enough to set decent papers.

The really worst papers are XAT and SNAP. XAT papers usually carry errors and have wild variances in difficulty across sections. SNAP also do not care much about the way they set their papers. Symbiosis probably thinks it is a good idea to sell some applications and create some excitement around the college name. SNAP has been accused of even picking some questions from freely available sources on the web.

The following chart should give an idea about all these exams, their level of difficulty, their quality (subjective opinion, bear this in mind) and how many people take these exams.

Note that the bubble size broadly outlines how many prepare for these exams

So, how does one prepare for all of these?
Prepare for CAT, forget all other Indian exams. If you are taking any of the other Indian exams, all you will need to do is make are a few some adjustments that shouldn't take more than 3-4 days. Focus slightly more on XAT; because even though the paper is inconsistent XAT can open more doors than most of the other exams.

Plan for GMAT separately. Since it is an American exam, you will need to make some adjustments regarding what is more vital. GMAT tests concepts better, and de-emphasizes computation. GMAT verbal is also tougher than that of CAT. So, even though more than 75% of the syllabus is common across CAT and GMAT, a few adjustments need to be made.

How CAT, XAT and GMAT are different, syllabus-wise.

Explaining the abbreviations used in the diagram
FIJ - Fact, Inference Judgement. Even CAT Seems to be phasing this out. You should see a maximum of 1-2 questions from this in the exam.
SE - Sentence Elimination
LR - Logical Reasoning (puzzle)
WU - Word Usage
TC - Text Completion (Fill in the blanks)
PC - Paragraph Completion
DI - Data Interpretation
Trig - Trigonometry
BDM - Business Decision Making
RC - Reading Comprehension
AWA - Analytical Writing Assessment
IR - Integrated Reasoning
CR - Critical Reasoning
SC - Sentence Correction
GK - General Knowledge
P&C - Permutation and Combination.

Note that this is a broadly indicative chart. Kindly do more research on your own after keeping this as a starting point. Dont get all officious about it if I have missed some topic or category.

CAT Preparation - Handling Pressure

CAT is a high pressure exam for many, and how to cope is probably a key determinant for cracking this exam. For a lucky few there is no great pressure and this is just another exam to have a go at. If you are one of that brigade, you should probably even skip this article and stay in that carefree bubble. No point thinking and reading about pressure and panic, and planting seeds into the brain.

Quite a few students freeze during the exam, a select few even entertain thoughts of not taking the exam at all. And a great many become slightly fearful and lose some of the 'josh' that needs to be present.

I am not an expert at handling pressure and am not going to give much by the way of prescription here. I want to showcase three well-written  articles on pressure - well, two on pressure and one on 'josh'.

As one of the pieces states "We live in an age obsessed with success, with documenting the myriad ways by which talented people overcome challenges and obstacles. There is as much to be learned, though, from documenting the myriad ways in which talented people sometimes fail."

All three are based on sports and are wonderful articles to help us understand what pressure does to people. Sportsmen need to do their bit in the presence of gazillions and which is why their chokes always provide us the backdrop for us to understand pressure.

The Art of Failure - Gladwell.com

This wonderful piece focuses on Jana Novotna's implosion at Wimbleson. Quite a long piece but totally worth reading. The author distinguishes between choking and panicking, and from a student perspective, choking is probably a bigger threat than panicking in CAT.

Some interesting extracts are given below - But I would recommend that you read the entire piece.

She was crumbling under pressure, but exactly why was as baffling to her as it was to all those looking on. Isn’t pressure supposed to bring out the best in us? We try harder. We concentrate harder. We get a boost of adrenaline. We care more about how well we perform. So what was happening to her?....

Panic, in this sense, is the opposite of choking. Choking is about thinking too much. Panic is about thinking too little. Choking is about loss of instinct. Panic is reversion to instinct.....

Given below is the probably the most important insight. "I hope I dont mess this up" -  is not a good mindset to take into an exam.

What is it we tell underperforming athletes and students? The same thing we tell novice pilots or scuba divers: to work harder, to buckle down, to take the tests of their ability more seriously. But Steele says that when you look at the way black or female students perform under stereotype threat you don’t see the wild guessing of a panicked test taker. “What you tend to see is carefulness and second-guessing,” he explains. “When you go and interview them, you have the sense that when they are in the stereotype-threat condition they say to themselves, ‘Look, I’m going to be careful here. I’m not going to mess things up.’ Then, after having decided to take that strategy, they calm down and go through the test. But that’s not the way to succeed on a standardized test. The more you do that, the more you will get away from the intuitions that help you, the quick processing. They think they did well, and they are trying to do well. But they are not.”......

They failed because they were good at what they did: only those who care about how well they perform ever feel the pressure of stereotype threat. The usual prescription for failure–to work harder and take the test more seriously–would only make their problems worse..... (Dear students, take 3 days off if you are continuously agonizing about the exam).

That is a hard lesson to grasp, but harder still is the fact that choking requires us to concern ourselves less with the performer and more with the situation in which the performance occurs........ (Go in to have fun with the paper. Dont worry about letting down your Dad)....

The second article is also interesting because it is a team sport and relates to cricket.

Why the Proteas Choke at the Cricket World Cup 

South Africa choked in the most important cricket match since their return to cricket in the 90's, the semi-final of the 1999 world cup.

Again, some simple extracts

It is obvious that Klusener was so locked into the idea of winning the match for South Africa that he was unable to step out of himself.....

What they needed when the scores were equal was clear-headedness and the presence of mind to coolly look at where they were and what had to be done......

The Haal Of Pakistan

Having seen two long articles on pressure, let us go through one on adrenaline. This is a fabulous article on the Pakistan cricket team from one of my favourite writers. This one is about 'josh' or 'haal' as the writer calls it. One should prepare to reach this level where the senses are heightened before the exam,

Again, some extracts

And then there is total frenzy, so overwhelming and real you can almost hold it in your hands. Such is its force that it can be deeply moving even through the sensory dilution and sanitisation of TV, even on ball-by-ball commentary online...

Fielders start hitting the stumps and taking catches which, in other situations, we can easily imagine them dropping.....

Please try to go into the exam by telling yourself this

“And it is a tamasha. I swear to God, we used to say it, we used to talk about it like this. Chal para kaam, chaloji, pakro [‘It’s begun, come, grab on to it’], that kind of language in the middle.”....

Suddenly, jaan aajati he......

“You could say denial if the outcome ended in failure; but here the outcome is success. Most times that self-belief is latent, but it gets triggered by some unexpected circumstance. And once triggered, it feeds on itself and explodes. I guess another way of seeing it is that this self-belief has an activation threshold, and once the threshold is met, there’s no stopping it and it goes all the way......

All three are long(-ish) articles, but interesting ones to understand pressure and josh. Before a critical exam, all of us have anxiety and adrenaline. Figure out ways to tone down one, and kick in the other. and that alone is worth 200 hours of preparation. Truth is, we do not really know how to do this. Otherwise, sportsmen with their infinite array of analysts would not choke. But, set aside some time to think about this.

Best wishes for CAT.

CAT 2014 Notification: What does this mean?

CAT 2014 notification is out .

First up, let us review the facts

Time duration: 170 minutes instead of 140 minutes
Number of questions: 50 per section, instead of 30 per section previously
Dates: Nov 16th and Nov 22nd, two sessions per day, instead of 40 sessions in the previous avatar
Change in pattern: Candidates can shift from one section to another, the time limit is 170 minutes for the overall paper. Previously, we used to have 70 minutes per section. Now, the time limits are not in silos and one can choose to spend unequal amounts of time on each section.

Thankfully, the IIMs have chosen to clarify why they are doing these changes. All these changes have been done to make the exam "aspirant-friendly". They might have changed the format dramatically, it is reassuring to know that the IIMs have at least retained their sense of humour.

How does this change preparation strategy for individual sections?
The study plan remains the same. The syllabus, framework remain the same. Practice the basics, build intensity and take lot of tests in the end. Do not pontificate too much on why these changes have been made. Be happy that the test has been made more aspirant-friendly, and continue preparation with the warm glow that comes from knowing someone is looking out for you.

How does it change the plan for CAT?
1. Stamina matters: Taking an exam for 170 minutes is tough. This is not a college exam that can be taken even with "day-dream spells" in the middle. This is an intense exam. The extra half hour can be sapping. I have been taking CAT in the past few years purely for the experience (the implication being that the pressure is less). I get drained out completely by the end of the 140 minutes. I am so tired that I can barely drive back home. An extra 30 minutes is going to kill applicants who do not have stamina. So, start building intensity and stamina from now on.

2. Time management needs to be better: Given the freedom to shift from one section to another, students might flit from one section to another too many times and kill momentum in both. Have a plan that broadly allocates time across the two sections, and have one buffer for going for playing it safe in case you are worrying about section cut-off. Do not plan to shift from section I to II once every 10 minutes. Just because the freedom has been given , it does not mean one has to use it. Till 2009, CAT gave students the freedom of shifting from one section to another. Those of us who have taken CATs in both forms will tell you that this freedom of shifting from one section to another is a double-edged sword. I used to consistently "steal"  a few minutes from quant and use this for verbal. This did not help my overall performance much. My best results came when this freedom was taken away from students. The pressure of worrying about section cut-offs sometime takes something away from the performance. So, be careful with this new found time-management freedom.

3. Students with one strong suit and one weak suit will have a small advantage: A student who is frightfully good in quant and just about average in verbal can now spend 95 minutes on verbal and 75 on quant and "balance" things out. Because this option is now available, students with sharp variance between the two sections can now plan with this in mind. Just a word of caution though, trying to be too cute can come back to bite you in this exam. Plan to have mild tweaks, avoid major overhauls.

Obviously, you will have to take a few mock CATs to get used to the new pattern. As always, the best place for getting the newer version of mock CATs is 2IIM.

Best wishes for CAT 2014.

Strategies for taking Mock CATs:

Is CAT punishing incorrect answers far more harshly?

Every year, after CAT results, we have students complaining about the scoring. Generally, it is just considered overreaction by students. However, this time there have been some funny patterns emerging from the scores. There are two key trends that we have seen

1. A few good students have not just underperformed, their scores have fallen off a cliff
2. Students with very high attempts have seen unusually low scores

Anecdotally, I have seen the following scores/numbers that I am not able to completely wind my head around with the current assumptions that we have made.

1. I had two students more or less equally good in quants. One froze in the exam and attempted 6 questions and ended with a score of 86th percentile. The other probably pushed himself too hard in the exam and attempted 19 questions to end with 78th percentile.

2. Another good student attempted almost equal number of questions in Quant and Verbal, and got 90+ percentile in one and less than 60th percentile in the other

3. We have heard multiple stories about someone getting 50th percentile+ with zero attempts in both sections.

All of these lead me to believe that one assumption we have made with the computation of the raw score is probably incorrect. We have all believed that a correct answer fetches a student +3, and an incorrect one fetches -1.  And then these scores are normalized to factor in level of difficulty.

My suspicion is that the IIMs have created a framework that punishes inaccuracy far more harshly than this. 

On a +3/-1 system someone who attempts 19 and gets 6 wrong would get 39 - 6 = 33 marks. Someone who attempts 6 and gets all 6 correct would get 18. Now, this giant difference in raw scores is unlikely to get bridged in the normalization process.

However, if the IIMs said each student gets -1 for the first incorrect answer in the section, -2 for the second one, -3 for the third and so on, then the person with 19 attempts and 6 wrong could get 39 - 21  = 18 which is same as the score of someone who got 6 out 6 correct.

Alternatively, the IIMs could compute the score, normalize it, scale it to 225 and finally multiply by accuracy level to get the final score. Under this assumption, the final score of the person scoring 13 correct and 6 wrong would be their normalized score * 13/19, which is a more than 30% drop in score. Whereas the one scoring 6 out of 6 would retain his entire score.

I have just given two outlines that punish inaccuracy beyond the +3/-1 framework. I am sure we can create many more. My guess is that the IIMs want to say that 10 out of 10 is way better than 14 out of 18. From a student perspective, the earlier you can wind your head around that the better.

In my view, the most important message sitting inside the scores this time around is this - Do not chase attempts, agonize over accuracy. This is the mantra most trainers have been screaming for many years now. The relevance of this mantra just shot up now. So, all of you who are preparing for CAT 2014, get into the habit of getting every attempt correct from now on. If you are unsure, leave the question. If a question seems too easy, have another read to verify. Do not live in this speed-world where attempting 10 questions in 20 minutes and getting 8 correct is considered better than attempting 6 and getting ALL of them correct.

Finally, a disclaimer. All of this is more of less just conjecture. We can never be sure of the method the IIMs use for getting the normalized scores for CAT. This is just an attempt to interpret based on anecdotal evidence. Research based on statistical evidence is often wrong, so take anything based on anecdotal evidence with a pinch of salt.

Best wishes for all students who are appearing for their interviews. I look forward to meeting all 2iim students at the GD/PI workshop.

The above piece is from Rajesh Balasubramanian, a director at 2iim who trains student for CAT and takes CAT every year. 

Under what circumstances is it a good idea to quit your job and prepare for CAT?

Under what circumstances is it a good idea to quit your job and prepare for CAT?

NONE!

This is one of those essay topics that can ideally feature in competitions seeking ultra-short contributions. The one-word response would be, ‘None’!  However, having told my boss that I definitely want to comment on this topic, I cannot get away with the ultra-short version. So, here goes.

Thanks to my earlier avatar as an investment research analyst, I have acquired this habit of getting my disclaimers in early. I am not going to sit on the fence. It is NEVER a good idea to quit your job. So, if you are among the group of people that has decided to quit and you do not want to hear anything against that decision, skip this article and move ahead to the next one.

Every week, I get at least two enquiries from students who are keen to take a step up by focusing exclusively on the CAT preparation. This roughly translates to, “I hate my job.  I want to have a decent-sounding reason to quit”. Beware! there are two major pitfalls in quitting a job to prepare for CAT.

1. The personal interview phase becomes trickier: You will lose scores for work experience, and might face uncomfortable questions in the interview. Sample this
1. “Quitting a job at an MNC to prepare for CAT makes me doubt your ability to weigh risk-reward.  I think I would be fueling your foolhardy decision-making if I gave you a seat here.  What are your thoughts on this?”
2. “I met eight candidates before you, all of whom have managed busy work schedules and squeezed in CAT preparation while you have focused exclusively on CAT. All other things being equal, why should I select you over them?”
3. “So, you cannot hold a job and prepare for a competitive exam at the same time?  After MBA, you will have to multitask at an even greater level.  You are basically telling me you are not equipped to handle that.  Thoughts?”

Do not think that it is a smart idea to say that you have not quit your job but taken a break to pursue your passion of working in industry X and therefore joined your cousin.

As a general rule, professors do not think it is a great idea to take a break for the sake of CAT preparation and will interpret any shift to a ‘small company in a preferred industry’ on your resume as a proxy for this.

2. Pressure increases: Bear in mind that if you take a break in June, you do not take a six-month break for CAT preparation, but rather a nearly 12-month break.  CAT is not an exam that one needs to prepare for 50 hours a week; it calls for intensity over two-three hours a day.  A longer preparation time could easily lead to a plateau in results performance.  A large number of candidates run out of practice material that really tests them but can never cross 90^th percentile. This is essentially because the intensity disappears from preparation.  If you set yourself a target of preparing for eight hours a day for 180 days, you are creating a recipe for losing intensity within weeks.  All these factors will intensify the pressure on the day of the exam.  Importantly, this plays a role in affecting decision-making after CAT as well.  If you do not have a viable plan B, the temptation to join a college ranked 60^th (because this is the only decent admit) will be high. The assurance that comes with having a viable plan B is vital for cracking this exam.

There are many other reasons for not taking this decision, but the two mentioned above are the most important.

Compared to 10 years ago, the admission processes for the IIMs have changed dramatically. When I took my CAT in 2000, the admission process was extremely CAT score oriented. If you had a decent CAT score, all else was pretty much forgotten (particularly true for IIMC).  In the current era, the CAT score is taken as but one metric in a broad basket of input variables. Ten years ago, it might have been a decent (if still risky) idea to trade 2 percentile points for one year of work experience.  In the current era, the trade-off is not even worth the discussion.

Do not try to use CAT as an excuse for getting out of a taxing/boring job.  Even after your MBA, odds are that you will go through a few bad jobs (and bosses!)  If you must quit, do so in August, have a job in hand that you plan to join by Nov 1^st.  Take a six-to-eight-week break, have a go at CAT in this time window and hope for the best.