By 
CAT 2018 is finally over and like every year, it has thrown some great surprises. While some candidates are elated by their performance, many of them are dissatisfied too.Well, no matter how someone performed, the paper was same for all. IIM Calcutta was the conducting body this year and it has surely conducted the exam pretty smoothly.
CAT 2018 examination pattern has remained same since 2015, with 100 questions divided in 3 sections. Each section had 1 hour duration and the candidates cannot switch between two sections. The exam was conducted in two slots – morning slot (slot 1: 9 AM to 12 PM) and afternoon slot (slot 2: 2.30 PM to 5.30 PM).
CAT 2018 has seen mixed reactions from candidates. However, most of the people agreed that it was tougher than last year’s exam. If you are looking to know how the exam went, and how tough or easy it was, then stay right with us. The section wise analysis of the exam is available below, take a look: –
Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension
First section of CAT 2018, Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension was not a tough job for candidates. Talking about the pattern, it remained majorly same as CAT 2017 as there were 24 Questions based on Reading Comprehension and 10 questions based on Verbal Ability. Also, 7 questions were TITA (Type in the answer) based and remaining 27 were multiple choice questions.
One change was that there was that CAT did away from 6-question and 3-question RCs. In the paper, there were 4 passages which had 5 questions (each) with them, while one RC was followed by 4 questions. So although the total remained same, the structure had changed slightly. Further, the sentence rearrangement or Para-Jumbles had 4 sentences, which made them easier.
In terms of difficulty level, the paper was not too different from last year’s paper. Further, both the slots were similar in terms of difficulty level. However, each of RC passages had 1 or 2 questions which needed deeper inference to eliminate the closer options. On the other hand, the Verbal Ability part was largely of same level as expected.
All in all, the VARC section of CAT 2018 can be called Easy. The score and percentile mapping should remain almost similar to CAT 2017.
Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning
Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning section has built its perception as the most difficult section of CAT, and there is no doubt about it. Even this year, the paper setter did put some pretty difficult sets in the CAT 2018 DILR section.
In terms of pattern, the paper was as expected. 8 sets with 4 questions each, totalling up to 32 questions. There were 8 TITA questions and rest were MCQs. Further, no set was completely TITA based set, rather such questions were inserted into some sets in the count of 1 or 2.
In terms of difficulty level, the paper was surely moderate to difficult. However, the slot 2 paper was a bit tougher than slot 1. Although both the sets had 2 to 3 sets which was easy-moderate, but attempting more than 18-20 questions was surely an uphill task.
Overall, this section was much like what everyone was expecting – A moderate to difficult section with some mind-grilling sets. In such a paper, attempting 18-20 questions with good accuracy can give a candidate a great percentile.
Quantitative Ability
Quantitative Ability section was the biggest surprise of CAT 2018. Unlike last year (and the expectations), this section emerged as the toughest section of CAT 2018. The reason being that most of the questions were lengthy in nature.
Till last year, CAT used to have some amount of questions which were direct application of any formula or concept. However, this year, such questions were almost absent and one had to dig deep to solve a question.
Although Arithmetic was still the most dominant topic this year too, but the questions from this topic were long and multi-stepped. Geometry had 6 questions, while modern mathematics and algebra had 11-12 questions. Slot-wise, both the papers were of similar difficulty level.
However, this year, CAT 2018 QA section had 12 TITA questions. This raised the difficulty level to another extent.
Overall, the Quantitative Aptitude section of CAT 2018 was moderate to difficult level. Candidates can expect good percentiles at much lower scored than what it was in CAT 2017.
CAT 2018: Overall Opinion
With two sections being on the tougher side, CAT 2018 was surely a moderate to difficult paper. CAT usually surprises candidates every year, and this year was no different. Overall, the exam was conducted pretty smoothly and thankfully there were no errors/glitches as such.
Candidates should now start focusing on upcoming management entrance exams as the season has just begun.
Comments