CAT 2006: The detailed analysis

This year, we saw an extremely malnourished Common Admission Test (just 75 questions as against 90 last year). The Verbal Ability section seemed to have been imported straight from Her Majesty's palace!

And the biggest surprise: Perennial villain 'Quant' turned saviour.

As expected, CAT 2006 threw up surprises. These were the prominent ones:

1. There were five options instead of the customary four, making it similar to GRE/ GMAT.

2. Every single question in VA was inferential, with the options being extremely close. One felt the necessity of an electron microscope to discriminate amongst them.

3. Grammar, the eternal favourite, was nowhere in sight. Para jumbles, where art thou?

4. Quant, surprisingly, failed to intimidate. It was like vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate and nuts on top. Need we say more?

5. DI/ Reasoning had no surprises. It was similar to the mock tests you have been writing in the past three months (in fact, easier).

Here's an overview of how you should have attempted this paper:

CAT 2006
Section	Topic	No of Qs	Total marks	Suggested time (min)	Possible attempts	Possible scores	Expected cut-offs
I	Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation	25	75	40	15	40 +	30-33
II	Verbal Ability	25	75	55	16	35 +	28-32
III	Quantitative Ability	25	75	55	15	40 +	38-42
Total		75	300	150	46	135 +	105-110

Disclaimer: These cut-offs are decided by our expert faculty who have attempted the CAT 2006 paper. They may not be the actual IIM cut-offs. These calculations are based on our experience and expertise.

Expected Cutoffs for different institutes

Any one IIM call: 110

MDI, SP Jain: 100-105

NITIE, MDI-HR, MICA: 90

IMT, TAPMI, IMI: 85

KJ Somaiya, BIM, UBS Welingkar: 75

FORE, ITM, LBS: 75

CAT 2006 vs CAT 2005, CAT 2004

Parameter	CAT 2006	CAT 2005	CAT 2004
Number of sections	3	3 x 2	3 x 2
Number of questions	75	90	123
Difficulty level (Overall)	Moderate	Difficult	Difficult
Difficulty level (Quant)	Easy	Average	Average
Difficulty level (EU + RC)	Difficult	Average	Average
Difficulty level (DI + DS + AR)	Moderate	Difficult	Difficult
Expected cut-off (Overall)	105-110	47-49	55
Expected cut-off (Quant)	38-42	12-13	16
Expected cut-off (EU + RC)	28-32	17-18	21
Expected cut-off (DI + DS + LR)	30-33	10-11	14

Section-wise analysis

~Section I: Quantitative Ability

Topic	CAT 2006	CAT 2005	CAT 2004
Overall	25	30	35
Arithmetic	10	9	13
Number system	7	5	6
Percentage, SI-CI, PLD	1	0	0
Ratio proportion	1	0	4
Speed Time Distance, Work	1	4	3
Algebra	9	8	9
Equations & inequalities	4	2	2
Functions & graphs	1	2	4
Maxima minima	2	2	0
Series, sequences & progressions, logs	2	2	3
Geometry	4	10	10
Plane geometry	4	6	9
Mensuration	0	3	1
Co-ordinate geometry + trigonometry	0	1	0
Modern math	2	3	3
Miscellaneous math	0	0	0

~Section II: English usage & Reading comprehension

(Topic-wise breakup )

Topic	CAT 2006	CAT 2005	CAT 2004
Overall	25	30	50
English usage	0	18	29
Usage dictionary	0	3	10
Vocabulary: Contextual meaning	0	0	3
Para jumbles	0	3	8
Sentence completion	5	4	3
Sentence correction	0	4	3
Replacement of words	0	4	0
Critical reasoning	5	0	2
Reading Comprehension	15	12	5 passages (21 Q)
Politics and social	1	4 Q (2 marker)	2 Passages (8 Q)
History and mythology	0	0	1 Passages (5 Q)
Science, technology	0	0	1 Passage (4 Q)
Business & economics	0	0	1 Passage (4 Q)
Fiction, philosophy, law	2	4 Q (2 marker)	0
Psychology & management	0	4 Q (2 marker)	0

~Section III: Data interpretation/Data sufficiency/Logical reasoning

Topic-wise breakup

Topic	CAT 2006	CAT 2005	CAT 2004
Overall	25	30	38
Data Interpretation	0	10	5 sets (20 Q)
Table	1	6	3 sets (12 Q)
Line graph	0	0	1 set (4 Q)
Pie chart	0	0	0
Bar graph	0	4	1 set (4 Q)
Mixed data set	0	0	0
Caselet	3	0	0
Data sufficiency	0	0	6
Analytical reasoning	1	20	3 sets (12 Q)

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