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Has it occurred to you ever why a 99 and above percentiler in CAT 2016 may not be shortlisted by IIM A, B, C, L or any other IIM for admission to PGP 2017-19 and how come that a moderate 95 percentiler in CAT not only gets shortlisted but also converts the call in final admission? The only reason is – dip in sectional percentile score.
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There are number of instances where CAT aspirants have scored a very high over percentile of 99 and above but could not be shortlisted by any IIM. In fact there were 1814 candidates who scored 99 percentile but hundreds of them were not fortunate enough and were not shortlisted by any IIM. On the contrary there were candidates who scored moderate percentile of 93 or 95 but were shortlisted for PI round by many IIMs.
Only Reason: Role of sectional scores
According to Prof S K Agarwal, expert on Verbal Ability and mentor on CAT 2016 preparation, the basic reason due to which candidates do not get shortlisted by any IIM despite scoring high overall percentile of 99 is lagging behind in scoring the qualifying percentile in one or other of 3 sections in CAT.
This is true. If you score 100 percentile in Quant, 98 percentile in Verbal Ability but score 69 percentile in DILR section in CAT 2016, you are as good as zero percentiler so far as IIMs are concerned. Despite scoring overall 99 percentile, your dream of getting into an IIM is at bay.
IIM Cut-off goes higher than qualifying percentile
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 2016 sectional cut-off percentile may go beyond 90 to 97. If you score as high as 99 percentile in 2 sections and score 80 percentile in 1 section, you may be shortlisted by IIM as your sectional and over all percentile are above the minimum qualifying sectional percentile. But if there is a dip in percentile in any section, you will not be shortlisted by any IIM despite scoring high over all percentile.
Need to maximize sectional percentile
Experts and mentors on CAT 2016 preparation emphasise on maximizing your sectional scores in each of the 3 sections. IIMs need a minimum sectional percentile of 80 to 90 in each of the 3 sections namely Quantitative Aptitude; Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension; and Data Interpretation & Logical reasoning.
In fact it is your high sectional percentile that pushes up the overall percentile. If you score 85 to 95 percentile in each of the 3 sections, you will be in the 98-99 percentiler club and will be shortlisted by one of the top IIMs. But if your score in any of the 3 sections goes below 80 or 70 you will not get even the call for PI round from new IIMs not to say of old and top rated ones. The need, therefore is to plan strategically and prepare accordingly so that you may score a high and balanced sectional percentile in all the sections.
Plan well: Equal weightage to 3 sections
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 2016 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 might 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.
How to score high sectional percentile
Target not less than 18+ correct in all the 3 sections. This will be possible when you are able to attempt 22 to 24 questions our of 32/34 questions in each section with 80% accuracy as CAT 2016 will also have 1/3 negative marking.
Accordingly your preparation plan should focus on all the 3 sections and you must devote time to improve your weak areas by strengthening your basics.
Practice more
CAT 2016 aspirants have roughly 4 months to go before the examination. It is a boon for the candidates that CAT 2016 is proposed to be conducted in November 2016 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.
Keep 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 2016 preparation, none of the sections has higher weightage than other section 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.
CAT 2016 is the mandatory exam for admission to MBA/PGDM programmes in the year 2017 in 20 IIMs and other top rated B schools. A high sectional score in CAT 2016 will be needed to get shortlisted by IIMs in final admission round.
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