CAT 2017 exam on November 26 is designed on the pattern to further improve the academic and gender diversity in IIM class rooms. Responding to MBAUniverse.com regarding the changes proposed in CAT 2017 to further improve the diversity in IIMs, Prof Neeraj Dwivedi, Convener CAT 2017 and faculty at IIM Lucknow says “CAT is designed to be suitable for candidates with diverse backgrounds. IIMs at their individual level have been taking various steps to bring diversity to classrooms.” Admission policies of IIMs confirm this fact, says Prof Dwivedi further.
Accordingly the CAT 2017 exam pattern, ways and means may not be much different than its predecessor two exams namely CAT 2015 and CAT 2016.
CAT 2017 Important links
- IIM Ahmedabad Admission 2018: CAT 2017 cut offs announced; needs 70 sectional percentile
- IIFT 2017: Entrance exam date changed to December 3; no clash now with CAT 2017 exam date
- CAT 2017: List of 140 test cities out; Noida, Mathura, Purnea, Samba & more small towns included
Improving academic diversity in IIM class rooms is the key motive behind the changes brought about in Common Admission Test (CAT) since 2015. Now CAT 2017 proposes to further the effort to limit the dominance of more engineering graduates making it to IIMs. Accordingly, the admission policies of IIMs have been modified and changes in CAT exam pattern have been brought about to increase academic diversity in IIM class rooms.
The changes in CAT 2017 exam pattern aim to help IIMs bring in greater diversity in the classrooms and will go a long way in enriching the learning experience.
CAT 2017 exam notification was released on July 30 and prior to that a press release was sent to the news sites on July 29 with the details, key dates for CAT 2017 exam.
Common Admission Test (CAT) is reviewed every year by Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) before finalizing the structure and pattern of the test. Then the changes are introduced in CAT exam pattern, if found suitable. Like last year, CAT 2017 will also be having Non-MCQ type questions in the exam apart from keeping the number of sections to 3.
Division of weights in CAT 2017
CAT 2017 exam will be divided in 3 sections. Number of questions will be 100. An aspirant friendly change aimed to improve academic diversity in IIMs is the increase of time to solve the 100 questions from 170 minutes in CAT 2014 to 180 minutes in CAT 2017.
There will also be equal time limit of 60 minutes assigned to solve questions for each of the 3 sections. The test takers will not be allowed to move from one section to another before completion of 1 hour assigned to the particular section.
Section-1: VARC
The first section in CAT 2017 is VARC (Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension). This section will consist of 34 questions to be answered in 60 minutes.
There would be 5 RC passages followed by 24 questions in MCQ pattern, based on these RC Passages. The Verbal Ability proposes to have questions on Grammar, jumbled paragraphs; paragraphs summary; Out of context sentence in a jumbled paragraph among others.
Section-2: DILR
Second section in CAT 2017 exam will comprise questions on Data Interpretation (DI) and Logical Reasoning (LR). This section will have 32 questions in MCQ and Non MCQ format. Earlier LR was a sub-section of Verbal Ability section and Data Interpretation (DI) was a part of Quantitative Ability section. A new section with DILR questions has been created. This section with DILR questions will also have to be solved in 60 minutes. Despite being shorter by 2 questions than Quant and VARC sections, candidates will have the opportunity to have full one hour to attempt this section.
Section-3: Quantitative Ability
The third section will be of Quantitative Ability (Quant). Questions on Data Interpretation (DI) have been removed from this section and will form the part of DILR section. This section in CAT 2017 will contain 34 questions with a time limit of 60 minutes to solve. The questions will be of MCQ and Non-MCQ type.
Non-MCQs in CAT 2017: No penalty questions
The questions in CAT 2017 exam will be divided between MCQs and Non-MCQs. While MCQs will carry a penalty of 33%, wrong answers to Non-MCQs will not carry any negative marking. It is expected that Non-MCQs will constitute percentage of questions in the range of 25 to 30 out of 100, offering greater flexibility in scoring pattern in CAT 2017.
Non-engineers to get equal opportunity
The changes in CAT exam are brought about to bring about holistic improvement at operational and content level in the exam. IIM Lucknow the CAT 2017 convening IIM proposes to create a level-playing field for all candidates, no matter what educational background they come from.
Earlier top rated IIMs and other B schools had much higher number of students from Engineering background. This number has gone down in last 2 years due to changes in CAT exam pattern. Now CAT 2017 will provide equal opportunity of scoring high to the test takers irrespective of their academic background.
The candidates from Humanities, commerce, Arts, science, medical & paramedical streams will get the opportunity to score high in CAT 2017 with equal weightage on Quant, VARC and DILR. With some of the weightage awarded for gender diversity, the vision of CAT 2017 convener to improve gender diversity also in class rooms of IIMs may become a reality in academic session 2018-20.
Quant not to dominate in CAT 2017
The domination of quant in Common Admission Test (CAT) 2017 due to the high weightage awarded to it in calculation of percentile has resulted in higher selection ratio of a particular class of candidates. This weightage has been reduced in CAT exam now, with the introduction of 3 sections, subjective answer questions and different scoring pattern.
IIM Lucknow would also be rationalizing weights assigned to different components of the CAT 2017 exam. This will help in removing skewness to a large extent to particular class of students.
Admission to around 6000 seats in 20 IIMs in 2018 will be offered on the basis of CAT 2017 scores and subsequent admission rounds. CAT 2017 exam registration and application would open on August 9 and will close on September 20, 2017. CAT 2017 will be a single day two session exam to be held on November 26, 2017.
CAT 2017 is the mandatory exam for admission to MBA/PGDM 2018-20 programmes in all the 20 IIMs, FMS Delhi, SPJIMR Mumbai, MDI Gurugram, IMI New Delhi, IMT Ghaziabad, JBIMS Mumbai, TAPMI Manipal and other hundreds of highly ranked B-schools in India. Professor Neeraj Dwivedi, faculty and admission chair at IIM Lucknow is the convener for CAT 2017.
Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more updates on CAT 2017
See Also:
- CAT 2017: Preparation guide for first & second timers; how to aim & get high score?
- CAT 2017: 12.5% Application fee hike in 2 years; Registration starts August 9 – note the key points
- CAT 2017: 10 Questions on CAT exam & CAT Registration answered by IIM Lucknow; must read
- CAT 2017 Notification release on July 30 by IIM Lucknow; 5 do’s on this Sunday
- CAT 2017: Online Registration & Application begins on scheduled date; be ready with your documents
| Take CAT 2017 Mock Full Length: To assess your preparation in revised CAT 2017 exam pattern with 100 questions. | ||
| CAT Previous Year Question Papers, Answer With Solution: CAT 2008 | CAT 2007 | CAT 2006 | CAT 2005 |
||
| Section 1: Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension | CAT 2017: Quiz 1 | CAT 2017: Quiz 2 |
| Section 2: Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning | CAT 2017: Quiz 1 | CAT 2017: Quiz 2 |
| Section 3: Quantitative Ability | CAT 2017: Quiz-1 | CAT 2017: Quiz-2 |
