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.



 

Strategies for taking Mock CATs:

Scored 74 in 10th, 82 in 12th what are my chances for getting into IIMs?

I have scored 74 in 10th std, 82 in 12th std, 64 in UG, what are my chances with the IIMs, especially A, B, C? 

This video, in a tribute to Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy more or less says the answer to this question is 42. As the video says, only certainties in life are death and taxes.

To elaborate on this, I am going to start with a quote from Donald Rumsfeld for this one "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know".

Now, why have I written all this? This question, and its sister-questions, cousin-variants, nephews-nieces etc can all be categorized under "No need to know unknowns".

Suppose I were to tell you that to get a call from IIM B, C and L you will need to have 99.68, 99.71 and 99.23 with your profile, how exactly will it influence your CAT preparation? Further let us say, you have attempted 82 questions in the paper with 10 minutes to go. You know that with this attempt number, you should be able to get 99.73. Will you stop right there and say, "I can take rest now. I dont need any more marks."

I took my first CAT (relevant one) in 2000. Back then, the exam was paper-based. There were no percentile scores, no section updates, no new IIMs. We guys took CAT in December. By about February, IIM A, B, C, L would post their interview invites by snail mail (no email either). So, if you did not receive that post, you can assume you just missed out. So, you had to keep the postman in good spirits. There are endless stories of guys nearly missing out on interviews because the post got mixed up.

Now, thanks to this surfeit of information available, there is this enormous temptation to analyze everything and try to get  some 'certainty'. Whether this question gets 100 replies or 1000 replies, whether 'experts' chip in or experienced candidates share their 'wisdom', you are no more likely to know an exact target or a surefire solution than you were before.

So, forget about this, put your head down and prepare for the exam. There is one thing that you can be sure of. Ceteris Paribus, a higher CAT score will give a candidate a higher chance of getting any admit.

As far as your question is concerned, for IIM A, B, C you need 99.6+, for IIM ILK you probably have a shot with 98.5+ (with L requiring more). 96+ should give you a shot with the new IIMs. If you are thinking, why couldn't this guy have given this last paragraph without going on a rant. Where is the joy in that?

Note: I had written the above as an answer to a query on Quora. Since Quora does not protect writers' freedom, I have pulled down the answer from Quora and published it on the blog

Top B-Schools and other related questions

This is the time when we get to hear a lot of questions on how to apply, where to apply, which exams to write, etc.

Let us start with B-school rankings. Like all the best rankings, we have come up with our own way of handling this. Unlike the best rankings, we have not conducted a survey to create some data to validate what we wanted to put anyway. If you want a really phony survey, refer to the outlook one. If you want a reasonable honest decent one, the pagalguy one is good. If you want a survey that does not even want to pretend to be anything but an advertising campaign, look for anything with IIPM top 10 in it.

Anyway, on to our own list. We have just categorized the colleges into three tiers.

Tier I
Based on CAT: IIMs A, B, C, L, I, K, SPJain, MDI, NITIE, Bajaj
Based on XAT: XLRI
Other: ISB, FMS,

Tier II
Based on CAT: IIMS - Ranchi, Rohtak, Raipur, Trichy, etc. Symbioisis SIBM, NMIMS, IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, TISS, TAPMI, IIT Kanpur,
Based on XAT: XIMB
Other: SCMHRD,

Tier III
Based on XAT: KJ Somaiyya, Goa Institute of Management, XIME, LIBA
Other: Great Lakes, Other Symbioses. BIM, etc.

Needless to say, this list is indicative and highly subjective. This is not much more than a starting point for students to do research.

Exams to write
Anyone interested in MBA should definitely take up CAT, XAT and FMS. Other exams to consider are SNAP, MICAT and any regional exams. JMET is no longer included because entry into the IITs is going to be through the CAT from this year onwards.

How to choose elective/specialization
To start with, there is no hard and fast specialization in most MBAs. A degree in MBA-Finance is not like a BE Civil engineering degree. A student can specialize in finance and/or marketing or neither and still get a job in P&G or ICICI. Thumb rule while applying to companies is this - If you are applying to P&G call yourself a marketing guy, if you are applying to Goldman Sachs call yourself a fin guy. So, do not worry about specialization till you join college. You wont have to worry about this till you start your second year if you are doing a two-year course.

Which college is best for marketing/fin/HR, etc?
Specialization brands have not yet come up in India (They are not such a big deal globally either). Go for the better college, do not sweat over specialization. The only colleges known for something different are
XLRI- HR
NITIE - Ops
MICA - Advertising

And even these are not too clearly defined.

Best wishes for the entrance exam season

Diversity or Merit

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.