CAT – MBA Admission Test – Overview
CAT is the gateway to the cream of India’s management institutes, the IIMs. CAT or Common Admission Test, is a fitness test; it is the most popular test among prospective management students because it is accepted by top institutes. CAT is one of the most demanding entrance exams in the world for any higher institute.
CAT MBA Entrance Exam is used as a criterion for selecting candidates for admission to the six IIMs – IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow, IIM Indore and IIM Kozhikode. Common Admission Test is one of the biggest MBA entrance exams conducted in India every year. CAT score is also like that accepted by more than 75 non-IIM institutes across Indiasome of which are as famous as IIMs.
Eligibility for Post Graduate Management programs of all IIMs and to appear for IIM-CAT is at least a three year Bachelor’s degree in any discipline from a recognized University with 50% marks in graduation. The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), the leading business schools in the country (and considered the best in the world) conduct this test to select potential students for the next round of the admission process (consisting of a personal interview and group discussion) for their MBA and fellowship programs.
Those appearing for the final graduation examination are also eligible to appear for the Common Entrance Test. Some people feel that Common Admission Test (CAT) is a rejection procedure rather than a selection process. Rejects those who can’t get their minds to work at breakneck speed for two and a half hours straight.
CAT exam covers questions in five broad areas such as verbal ability and reasoning, reading comprehension, quantitative skills, data interpretation and logical reasoning.
The number of questions asked in the Common Entrance Test varies each year and is typical CAT Question Paper it can have between 75 and 150 questions. The Common Admission Test assesses the candidate’s presence of mind and ability to perform under pressure. The announcement of the Common Admission Test appearing procedure is done in leading newspapers in August every year for admission to the program commencing in the second half of June of the following year. The test will be held in November. CAT 2007 Notice for admission to the 2008 session.
Generally, CAT tests three of your abilities:- Problem Solving- Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning- Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension. The CAT exam requires competency in all sections of the paper. So the number of sections in the test doesn’t really matter; what matters is whether you are competitive and have answered questions in all sections.
All the questions are multiple choice with four/five alternative answers and the candidate has to select the best answer for each of the questions and mark it in a special answer sheet on the optical reader. Questions are assigned differential marks. The test consists of 150 to 200 objective-type questions and is usually divided into three to four sections. The number of questions on the test has steadily declined from nearly 200 in the 1990s to 90 in 2005 and only 75 in 2006.
Very little strategy can be applied in choosing the easiest questions. Reduce this and don’t waste time with questions that are long. One misconception is that you have to love the entire Questionnaire – not at all. If you can solve 38 to 40 percent of the questions CORRECT, you are done.
Not an engineer – no problem You don’t need to be an engineer to get into an IIM. In fact, not being an engineer can help in the interview part. IIMs promote diversity. And being a non-engineer, you may be compared to other non-engineers. Instead of engineers who can be compared to IITians.
In-person or postal coaching is helpful for CAT preparation. Coaching institutes will teach you shortcuts and you will get a chance to appear for mock tests conducted for CAT. There are many good coaching institutes – Bulls Eye, Ascent, TIME, IMS, Roots Education and Career Launcher. It is difficult to say which institute is the best coaching institute for MBA entrance. It totally depends on the faculty. Before joining coaching classes, first consult students who have already joined that particular institute. You can also try MBA Preparation Question Bank available online. These MBA test preparation CDs help you practice the tests.
– Anurag Chopra India Entrance Exam Portal
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