Enrol for Common Admission Test -2018
Common Admission Test (CAT) is a computer based test held in India. The test scores a candidate on the bases of Quantitative Ability (QA), Verbal Ability (VA) and Reading Comprehension (RC), Data Interpretation (DI) and Logical Reasoning (LR). The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) started this exam and use the test for selecting students for their business administration programs. The test is conducted every year by one of the IIMs based on a policy of rotation.
Common Admission Test 2018 Information Bulletin
The Indian Institutes of Management will conduct computer-based Common Admission Test 2018 on Sunday, 25th November, 2018 in two sessions. CAT 2018 will be conducted by IIMs as a pre-requisite for admission to various management programmes of IIMs.
These programmes are:
Post Graduate Programmes in Management (PGP):
| IIM Ahmedabad | IIM Amritsar | IIM Bangalore |
| IIM Bodh Gaya | IIM Calcutta | IIM Indore |
| IIM Jammu | IIM Kashipur | IIM Kozhikode |
| IIM Lucknow | IIM Nagpur | IIM Raipur |
| IIM Ranchi | IIM Rohtak | IIM Sambalpur |
| RGIIM Shillong | IIM Sirmaur | IIM Tiruchirappalli |
| IIM Udaipur | IIM Visakhapatnam |
Fellow Programmes in Management (FPM) [equivalent to Ph.D.]
| IIM Ahmedabad | IIM Bangalore | IIM Calcutta |
| IIM lndore | IIM Kashipur | IIM Kozhikode |
| lIM Lucknow | IIM Raipur | IIM Ranchi |
| IIM Rohtak | RGIIM Shillong | IIM Tiruchirappalli |
| IIM Udaipur | IIM Visakhapatnam |
CAT 2018 ELIGIBILITY
- The candidate must hold a Bachelor’s Degree
“ with at least 50% marks or equivalent CGPA [45% in case of the candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Persons With Disability (PWD) categories] “
- Percentage obtained in bachelor’s degree would be calculated on the basis of practice followed by the concerned university/institution. In case of grades/CGPA, the conversion would be based on the process defined by the concerned university/ institution.
- In absence of any percentage conversion scheme, candidate’s CGPA will be divided by maximum possible CGPA and multiplying the result with 100.
- Candidates appearing for the final year of bachelor’s degree/equivalent qualification are also eligible to apply for CAT.
Media Release for CAT 2018
Following are some of the salient features of CAT 2018:
- CAT 2018 will be conducted on 25 th November 2018 (Sunday) in two sessions.
Registration for CAT 2018 will open on 8th August, 2018 and will close on 19th
September, 2018.
- CAT 2018 will be conducted in test centres spread across approximately 147 cities.
- Candidates will be given the option to select 4 test cities in order of preference. Cities and centres will be assigned to the candidates only after the last date for CAT 2018 registration and hence candidates need not rush to block slots and cities in the initial days of registration.
- Concerned authority will try their best to assign candidates to their first preferred city. In case it is not possible, they will be assigned a city following their given order of preference. In the rare case that a candidate is not allotted any of the preferred cities, he/she will be allotted an alternate city. However, candidates will not be able to select the session because it will be assigned randomly.
- Candidates must pay the registration fee through online payment modes only, which will include credit cards, debit cards and net banking.
- After submission of the application, candidates will be permitted to download their examination admit card from 24th October, 2018 onwards, till the date of test.
- The duration of the test will be 180 minutes. There will be three sections:
- Section I: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension
- Section II: Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning
- Section III: Quantitative Ability
- Candidates will be allotted exactly 60 minutes for answering questions in each section and they will not be allowed to switch from one section to another while answering questions in a section.
- Some questions in each section may not be of multiple-choice type. Instead, direct answers will have to be typed on the screen. The tutorials will clearly explain this. Also, we will allow use of basic onscreen calculator for computation.
- Tutorial to understand the format of the test will be available on the CAT website from 17 th October 2018. Candidates are advised to work on the tutorials available on the CAT website well in advance.
- The CAT website contains a section on Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) that addresses some of the commonly asked queries regarding CAT 2018. Candidates may also contact the CAT helpdesk over email or phone.
Important Dates:
| CAT 2018 Registration Starts | 8th August, 2018 |
| CAT 2018 Registration Ends | 19th September, 2018 |
| CAT 2018 Admit Card Download Begins | 24th October, 2018 |
| CAT 2018 Test Day | 25th November, 2018 |
Scoring & Equating Process in CAT 2018
NORMALIZATION OF CAT SCORES IN 2018
CAT 2018 shall be conducted in two sessions. Two different Test Forms shall be administered in two Test Sessions. In order to ensure fairness and equity in comparison of performances of the candidates across different test sessions, the scores of the candidates shall be subjected to a process of Normalization. The Normalization process shall adjust for location and scale differences of score distributions across different forms. After normalization across different forms, the scores shall be further normalized across different sections. The scaled scores obtained by this process shall be converted into percentiles for purposes of shortlisting.
For reporting purposes, Scaled Scores for each section:
Section I: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC)
Section II: Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR)
Section III: Quantitative Ability (QA) and Total along with the Percentiles shall be published.
The process of Normalization is an established practice for comparing candidate scores across multiple Forms and is similar to those being adopted in other large educational selection tests conducted in India, such as Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE). For normalization across sections, we shall use the percentile equivalence.
Here’s the section wise analysis of CAT 2018 by our Experienced Counsellors
- Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC):
There were 4 to 5 RC s plus a couple of questions from Odd One Out (sentence) and Critical Reasoning.
In both the slots, the RCs were based on Technology, Social Sciences, History Geography and Humanities in the broader perspective. The Reading Comprehension section did not have any TITA questions. The section was more aligned towards inference based questions like the central idea of the passage which were not too difficult.
| Odd One Out | 3 Questions |
| Para-Jumbles | 4 Questions (TITA) |
| Paragraph Summary | 3 Questions |
The Para-jumbles were TITA so adequate practice would have ensured good results.
Overall Difficulty: Easy to Moderate.
Good Attempts: 25-28
- Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR):
In the Logical Reasoning section there were 8-10 Analytics puzzles and 8-10 data based puzzles while DI section had 8 sets of caselets. The caselets focused on reasoning and analytical ability. One of them had TITA type questions. This section also had a bar graph which can be termed as difficult.
The Logical Reasoning section of second slot was easier than the first slot as it had basic seating arrangement, puzzles and less exhaustive data calculations. In, fact it was on the lines of the CAT official mock test released by IIM CAT.
Overall Difficulty: Difficult
Good Attempts: 15-18
- Quantitative Ability (QA):
Out of all the three sections, QA was easy as about 16-17 questions were formula and concept application based. See break-up of the section below:
| Geometry | 4 to 5 questions |
| Arithmetic | 12 to 14 questions |
| Number System | 1 to 2 questions |
| Functions and Graphs | 2 to 3 questions |
| Progressions | 1 to 2 questions |
| Permutation and Combination | 2 to 3 questions |
Overall Difficulty: Easy to Moderate
Good Attempts: 20-25
What’s New in CAT 2018?
- 7 new exam cities have been added to the list of 140 cities of last year. CAT 2018 will be conducted in 147 cities this year (2 new states added – Mizoram and Nagaland).
- The application fee has also been increased to Rs. 1900 for General/ NC-OBC candidates and Rs. 950 for SC, ST & PWD candidates. Earlier the CAT registration fee was Rs. 1800 and Rs. 900 respectively.
- Addition in Modes of Payment- The new CAT 2018 payment partners are BillDesk, PayU and Paytm.
- From this year onwards, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, will also accept the CAT score for admission to its MBA programme offered by the School of Management and Entrepreneurship.
Overview of CAT 2018
| Events | Overview |
| Name of Test | Common Admission Test (CAT) |
| Purpose of test | Qualifying test for admission to post-graduate management programs |
| Conducted by | IIM Calcutta |
| Exam type | National level |
| Periodicity | Once in a year |
| Score or Grade Validity | One Year |
| Annual Number of Test Takers | 1,99,632 in 2017 |
| Pattern of Test | MCQs and Non-MCQs |
| Number of Questions | 100 |
| Test Duration | 3 hours |
| Negative Marking | +3 for every correct answer
-1 for each wrong answer in MCQs No negative marking for Non-MCQs or TITA |
| Syllabus | Questions from VARC, QA and DI & LR |
| Mode of Conduct | Computer-based test |
| CAT 2018 Convener | Prof. Sumanta Basu |
| Reservation of seats in IIMs and B-schools | As per the Government of India regulations |
| CAT 2018 Official Website | iimcat.ac.in |
| CAT 2018 Helpdesk number | 18002090830 |
| Score or Grade Used by | IIMs and various B-schools in India |
Please feel free to solve all your assumptions and queries in 9742479101 Ankit Mishra/ 9742886036 Anis/ 9035556036 Mayur Gautam or get in touch through contact@trump.net.in