CAT 2020 leaves many students baffled

Common Admission Test 2020 held at 156 centres across the country on Sunday threw up major surprises. As many as 2,27,835 candidates registered for the test.

Analysing the morning slot, Philip Thomas, Product Head, T.I.M.E. Bengaluru said, "With the change in the number of slots and the reduction in the duration of the exam, the expectation would have been a change in the pattern of the exam. It should come as no surprise that the number of questions in the exam were reduced, although not exactly in proportion to the reduced duration of the test. The number of questions was reduced from 100 to 76."

Explaining the VARC (Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension) section Vijitha Kamath - Product Head - Verbal Ability, Endeavor Careers said,"With 18 questions spread across four RCs' (Reading Comprehension), this section provided some challenge to the candidates. The RCs were around 450 to 550 words in length, with two RCs carrying five questions each and two carrying four questions each. The density of language and the closeness of options required students to spend more time reading them and regressing to get the answers. The RC topics were science – the evolution of elephants and seals to an improved biological state, political science – a discussion of anarchism with reference to European anarchism versus American anarchism, language – language, grammar and communication, and economics – textile as currency."

The questions ranged from inferences, main idea questions, except questions, strengthen to parallel reasoning.

The VA section had 8 questions, 3 summary of around 100 words each, 3 parajumbles with 4 sentences each, and 2 Out of Context with 5 sentences. This subsection was easier in comparison and had 5 non negative key-in questions.

Thomas stated that the DILR section was of a higher difficulty level compared to that of CAT 2019. "While there were at least two easy-moderate sets last year, this year provided only one such set. All the other sets were challenging and there were no low hanging fruits among these sets. The variation in the number of questions across sets also posed a challenge to the students. With two sets having 6 questions each and two sets having 4 questions each, the distribution of time across sets becomes all the more important."

"The set on 'Musicians' was an LR set on Distributions, and was relatively the easiest of the sets in this section. The set on 'Medicines' (4Qs) was doable, despite the fact that it was a 4 set-venn diagram question. However, the lack of options , as all the 4 questions were non-MCQs, pushed the difficulty level of this set upwards, to 'moderate'. The set on 'Cabs and Drivers' involves concepts of Maxima/Minima and was a little challenging to understand all the conditions involved. Each question in this set has to be solved independently. This makes the set a little lengthy and more on the moderate side than on the difficult side." he explained.

Srinivas Belvi, Academic Head - South, Endeavor Careers stated that though Slot 2 was quite similar to slot 1 both with respect to difficulty level and distribution of questions. "However it was notch difficult when compared with slot-1 primarily because of scaling up the difficulty level of reading comprehension and DILR."