CAT 2014: Marking Scheme declared; know now the testing room strategy to ace the exam

Amit Agnihotri Founder of MBAUniverse.com

MBAUniverse.com News Desk | :

November 7, 2014

CAT 2014 convening IIM has declared the marking scheme for CAT 2014. The marking pattern will more or less be the same as was present in earlier CAT years

The candidate will have a loss of 4 points for each wrong answer as he/she will lose 3 points for the question that was attempted and marked wrong and 1 point will be deducted out of his positive score

CAT 2014 convening IIM has declared the marking scheme for CAT 2014. The marking pattern will more or less be the same as was present in earlier CAT years.

Award of 3 Points for every correct answer

CAT 2014 test taker will be awarded 3 points for each correct answer. It implies that total maximum raw score in CAT 2014 will come to 300 as there will be 100 questions. The process of awarding percentile score based on equating and normalization is yet to be declared by the IIMs. In earlier CAT exams the percentile scores were declared out of 450 after equating and normalization process. However the number of questions in earlier CAT exams was 60, whereas this number stands increased to 100 in CAT 2014. Accordingly the maximum percentile awarding score after normalization and equating process is expected to be different in CAT 2014. CAT Centre 2014 is expected to declare the said process shortly

Loss of 1 point for every wrong answer

One third Negative marking also exists to the same extent as was imposed in earlier CAT exams. A penalty of one third point will be imposed for every wrong answer. It means one point will be deducted for each wrong answer. Now the candidate will have a loss of 4 points for each wrong answer as he/she will lose 3 points for the question that was attempted and marked wrong and 1 point will be deducted out of his positive score earned for each incorrect answer. If the test is not attempted judiciously, the loss in terms of percentile score could prove substantial.

No penalty for unattempted questions

CAT Centre 2014 has declared that there wouldn’t be any penalty for questions that are left unanswered.

Familiarise your-self well with the CAT 2014 exam pattern

CAT 2014 exam will be divided in 2 sections. First section will consist of 50 questions on Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation and the second section will comprise 50 questions on Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning. The second section will have a few questions on Critical reasoning as well. While Quant and Verbal will have major share in their respective section, questions on DI and LR will be the percentile booster.

Practice the Mock test more number of times

CAT 2014 has brought number of changes and amendments in the conduct and content of examination. Out of these changes, some of them are very important to know and understand to avoid any testing room problem and technical glitches. Prof S K Agarwal, mentor and Verbal Ability expert on CAT preparation suggests the aspirants to carefully read and understand the instructions contained in the practice test and practice the test more number of times to have a proper feel of testing room.

Get the feel of new type of questions

CAT 2014 new exam pattern in view of Prof S K Agarwal, Verbal Ability expert would add many new type of questions and proposes to replace the existent type. Although the CAT Centre 2014 clarifies “The objective of this sample/ Mock CAT paper is to make the candidates aware of the test environment. The actual content along with the difficulty level will differ from the content shown in the sample /mock CAT paper.”

It means that any change in the type and style of questions on any topic in the actual CAT 2014 exam cannot be ruled out. It also signifies that aspirants might not find questions on few topics in actual CAT 2014 test and on the other hand may find more new type of questions on other topics which may or may have not been studied by the CAT 2014 aspirants. The suggestion is to prepare well and practice well.

170 minutes to 100 questions: Time constraint is more

Speed and accuracy will be the key to success in CAT 2014 exam. The available time per question to solve is much less than earlier CAT exams. You are left with less than 2 minutes to solve one question in CAT 2014. This time was 2.32 minutes in earlier CAT exams as there were 60 questions to be solved in 140 minutes. According to Prof S K Agarwal mentor on CAT preparation it is necessary for the CAT aspirants to attempt 100 questions without break to have actual testing room experience. They need to get the accuracy analysed after they complete answering these 100 questions. The target should be to solve maximum number of questions in minimum time accurately.

Shed the greed; avoid wastage of time

The greed to attempt more number of questions taking them as a challenge in view of Prof S K Agarwal, expert and mentor on CAT preparation, is contrary to the testing room strategy. In fact CAT 2014 test takers should attempt only those questions which they can solve quickly and belong to their strong areas.

Make more attempts

Prof S K Agarwal suggests the CAT 2014 aspirants to maximize their attempts in the testing room. The strategy is to begin with the most favourite question types which they find are easy to solve in the first attempt. Second attempt should be focused on slightly more difficult questions and the third, fourth, fifth attempts should gradually go for higher difficulty type of questions.

There is no point getting stuck to one question as the answers to all the questions will carry equal weightage. Similarly avoid attempting such questions which are out of your strong domain and are more time consuming as loss of one mark for every wrongly answered question out of your positive score may prove to be fatal in getting you shortlisted for final admission round in IIMs and other top B schools.

Know and Practice well how to mark your answer in testing room

CAT 2014 has provided the facility to the aspirants to know the status of the question. The Question Palette displayed on the right side of screen will show the status of each question.

There will be 4 colour symbols to indicate the status of the question on the right hand side of question-answer screen

Green - Answered question

Red - Unanswered question

White - Question not viewed

Violet – Question marked for review

While answering the questions, you can use the following options:

Save & Next: It will save your answer and will move to the next question.

Clear Response: It will clear the already selected answer for the given question only

Mark for Review & Next: This navigating tool will mark your question

in Violet for review so that you can return later to confirm your answer selection. You will also be prompted at the time of submitting the test, if any questions are marked for review.

You can also view other details related to the test on the bottom of the right panel of the screen such as:

Question Paper: You can view all the questions in the test in one go

Profile: You can view your profile information

Instructions: You can view the test related instructions

Submit: It will allow you to do the final submission of your test.

No sectional time constraint: Use the freedom rationally

CAT Centre 2014 has clarified that candidates will have the choice to attempt any section first and the questions can be answered out of sequence too. Candidate will have the facility to toggle between the sections and attempt questions of their choice. An on-screen timer will mark remaining minutes for the test.

Now the key feature that used to exist in earlier CAT exams was sectional time constraint. Candidates were allowed to attempt the 2 sections in 70 minutes allotted for each section. This constraint stands removed in CAT 2014. Test taker can now attempt any question from any section in the overall allotted time limit of 170 minutes in CAT 2014.

This freedom according to Prof S K Agarwal, expert and mentor on CAT preparation should be used rationally. If you are strong in Quant or in Verbal and spends too much time in one section or goes to scan the entire test paper again and again, you are misusing the provided freedom of toggling between the sections. Please remember it is not only the overall percentile in CAT that is used by IIMs for shortlisting the candidates for final admission round, your balanced high sectional percentile also matters and as such is equally important.

If you wish to ace in CAT 2014 you have to focus on scoring high sectional as well as overall percentile.