Common Admission Test 2015 will no longer have 2 sections only as the number of sections has been increased to 3 and the Questions on DILR which formed the part of Quant and Verbal sections will have separate identity now.
With effect from CAT 2015, Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning will be de-clubbed from their earlier sections and will form a new section comprising 32 DILR questions to be attempted in a time limit of 60 minutes.
Now the 3 sections in CAT 2015 exam will be ‘Quantitative Aptitude (QA)’; ‘Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DILR)’ and ‘Verbal and Reading Comprehension (VRC)’.
Separate 3rd section with greater weightage
Till now CAT exam used to have only 2 sections. The first section contained questions on Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation (Quant & DI) and the second section consisted of questions on Verbal Ability, Reading Comprehension and Logical reasoning. Both the sections had equal number of questions and equal weightage. CAT 2015 however, is going to have 3 sections to be solved in 1 hour each.
Till CAT 2014 there used to be 2 sections wherein DI and LR questions were divided and clubbed to Quant and Verbal Ability sections now the 3rd section based on DILR will be a separate section and securing a high score in it too, will be mandatory.
Quant loses glitter
The move to form the third section and removing DI part from Quant section has a more penetrating aim of reducing the high weightage earlier provided to Quant section. In fact Quant section is considered high scoring domain for Engineering students. IIMs now plan to have more academic diversity in their class rooms and hence the 3rd section on DILR has emerged in CAT 2015 to avoid skewness to the candidates from a particular background.
Prepare to score high percentile in 3 sections instead of 2
CAT 2015 has introduced time limit of 1 hour to attempt each of the 3 sections. Now the candidates will need high sectional percentile in all the 3 sections instead of 2 in CAT 2015. Accordingly preparing only for Verbal or only for Quant may not be a good strategy to attempt CAT 2015 with revised structure and content of the exam.
Quant, DILR, VRC with equal weightage
There is no overshadowing the Data Interpretation questions by Quantitative Aptitude questions nor can your best preparation on Verbal Ability cover the Logical Reasoning questions. Earlier CAT aspirants did not pay much heed to DILR questions and probably less than a fortnight or very few sessions were devoted to DILR preparation in the entire period of 6-7 months of preparation journey.
But the situation is no more like this. CAT 2015 aspirants have to prepare well on DILR questions now. There is no savior like Quant or verbal questions, if you find DI or LR questions a bit lengthy or time consuming. Your preparation plan needs quick and well devised modification to award equal weightage to all the 3 sections.
You have been preparing well for Quant and Verbal and can sure score high in these 2 sections. But preparing less and scoring low in newly created DILR section may not be afforded as all the 3 sections will have equal weightage.
18+ correct in all the 3 sections required
In CAT 2014 out of 50 questions in each of the 2 sections, a good attempt of 38-30 questions only on Quant or Verbal fetched high percentile as there were only 16 questions on DILR in each of the sections. Candidates who attempted even 2-3 questions on DILR but doing good in Quant and verbal were able to score high. But in CAT 2015 out of 34 and 32 questions in each of the 3 sections, you will need at least 18 correct to score 90+ percentile.
Even the CAT 2015 preparation centres have come to know this hard fact and have modified their class room preparation strategy with more sessions added on DILR concepts.
More Practice sessions
CAT 2015 aspirants have roughly 4 months to go before the examination. It is a boon for the candidates that CAT 2015 is going to be conducted on November 29, 2015 instead of in the month of October. You can have more focused practice sessions and more mocks on the new pattern dividing the weightage equally among 3 sections.
Please remember if you can attempt 16-20 correct in each of the 3 sections you can expect a very high percentile. Your preparation strategy needs to include attempting more mocks and analyzing the errors made while attempting them to crack the future exam with high accuracy.
The DI-LR section can give your mind a good twist. So better to prepare and practice the questions on it right from now. Understand the logics behind the problem, solve them in fun. It will keep you motivated and you will be able to solve them faster than before.
Prepare, while keeping watch on time
Your time is most important to manage. Don’t waste it. Divide the preparation equally now. According to Prof S K Agarwal expert on Verbal Ability and mentor on CAT 2015 preparation, none of the sections has higher weightage than other section now and all the questions carry equal marks, a well devised preparation plan covering all the 3 sections is the need of the hour.
You are not allowed to move to and fro among the sections till the time limit of 1 hour assigned for each section is over. So while preparing, make sure that you are doing justice to the speed and accuracy. You are supposed to attempt maximum questions with accuracy within time limit of 1 hour in each section. If you lag behind in any of the 3 sections, you may lose the race to IIMs.
Low score in any section: No call from IIMs
Although IIMs prescribe 85 to 90 percentile in each section of CAT to shortlist the candidates for second phase of admission round, the actual CAT 2015 sectional cut-off percentile may go beyond 90 to 97. If you score as high as 99 percentile in 2 sections and score below 80 percentile in 1 section, you will not be shortlisted by any IIM despite scoring high over all percentile.
Do remember you will need high but balanced sectional percentile
According to experts those who are good in DI but weak in Quant may not expect to make good the lost score from other sub section. For example low score in Verbal cannot be compensated by Logical Reasoning nor the low score in Quant can be compensated by DI. It is therefore needed to gain expertise and score high in all the sections. Too much deviation in percentile score of 3 sections may not get you shortlisted for the final admission round.
Prepare for different type of questions
You will confront MCQs and Non-MCQs in CAT 2015. Now the need is to prepare and practice such questions also where you will need to write your answers instead of picking out only the correct answer options. These non-MCQs will not be followed by any answer option and the candidates will have to write the answers on computer screen. Such questions will appear in all the 3 sections.
The QA and VRC sections will have 34 questions each, and DILR will have 32 questions.
Candidates will be allotted exactly 60 minutes for answering questions in each section and they cannot switch from one section to another while answering questions in a section.
The advisory from the experts is to solve fewer questions with accuracy instead of solving more questions without higher accuracy level.
CAT 2015 is the mandatory exam for admission to MBA/PGDM programmes in the year 2016 in 20 IIMs and other top rated B schools. A high sectional score in CAT 2015 will be needed to get shortlisted by IIMs in final admission round.
Related Article
CAT 2015: Academic diversity behind big changes; Descriptive answer questions with MCQs introduced
CAT 2015: announces No penalty for wrong answers to Non MCQs; to carry equal marks
CAT 2015: Know how to manage well the 3 sections instead of 2; expert tips
CAT 2015: Exam Notification out; 1 day exam on Nov 29; Result in Jan 2016; website functional
CAT 2015: Exam date announced prior to notification; chaos among aspirants; convener unaware
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