Old test papers hold the key

It’s only natural that candidates appearing for any examination end up spending quite a lot of time in guessing how the question papers would turn out to be. This is true also for B-school aspirants preparing to sit for the forthcoming Common Admission Test (CAT) 2010.

Experts feel that the question pattern for CAT-2010 will be almost similar to that of 2009. Moreover, they suggest candidates to practise as many mock papers as possible and analyse them simultaneously.

The test is scheduled to be held between October 27 and November 24.

“Last year’s CAT question paper was similar to previous years’ question papers. The question paper of 2009 was a mix of CAT and Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT). I feel this year the pattern won’t change much,” says Shiv Kumar, director, academics, Career Launcher, a leading coaching institute, which prepares students for various competitive tests.

On the kind of questions, experts are of the opinion that students can expect simple basic concepts in Quant (quantitative evaluation, consisting of basic mathematics), with a bit of application.

Experts say that the quantitative questions are likely to be based on logic and will be simple to solve without call for the application of any complicated theory. Students can also expect good amount of DS (data sufficiency) and analytical sets in DI (data interpretation) coupled with a few questions calling for calculations.

Verbal will be a mix of 40-50% RC (reading comprehension: about 400 to 500 word passages which are more like those in GMAT/GRE) and about 15% Vocab (like fill in the blanks, appropriate usage),  with the rest being the standard variants of verbal logic questions.

“Questions in English section are more likely to be of the kind that appeared previous years’ tests. The reading comprehension might follow GMAT format which will be short and conducive for a computer-based exam. Passages too are also not likely to be lengthy,” Kumar says.

For Quant, experts say the pattern will be more or less like last year’s.

In data interpretation, students are likely to get lot of questions on data sufficiency with tables and charts to handle. Again, the questions will be of mixed pattern of CAT and GMAT of previous years.

Experts say that candidates must go through the past years’ CAT questions. Questions till CAT 2008 are in the public domain. Previous years’ questions were earlier published in the CAT brochures.

“Whether CAT repeats what it did last year or not, of including past CAT questions in the papers, solving the past CAT questions gives a fairly good idea of the paper,” said Srinivas Belvi, a teacher, who has been coaching CAT aspirants in Bangalore for long.