Tips for an average student to crack CAT

“Is CAT really tough?”  “What preparation strategy should I follow?” These are common and simple queries hovering the minds of students who think that CAT is very tough. They give up their CAT preparation journey without getting the facts about CAT exam difficulty level and how to prepare to crack it with right strategy.

The best way to crack CAT with high percentile is to avoid postponing your preparation and you will be able to score high. Many students who could not score 60-70 percentile in their first attempt, got the nerve of this exam and cracked it with 90 percentile in next attempt. So, in fact CAT is not as tough as it appears.

50000+ MBA seats are offered for admission through CAT and out of them 6000 seats are available only in IIMs. No doubt, with around 2.25 lakh candidates appearing in CAT exam, the competition is high, but unlike Civil Services exams conducted by UPSC for 700-800 posts and 3-4 lakh candidates appearing in it, the competition can be considered moderate. As about 10-20% candidates can get top MBA colleges like IIMs and other top B-schools. Although the CAT exam is not so easy, but CAT is also not the toughest exam.

Read this article to get answers to understand whether CAT exam is tough or easy, what is the pattern. Identify the difficult areas in CAT exam and what is the right preparation strategy to crack CAT.

Table of Contents

1. Is CAT Exam Tough? Different Versions
2. CAT Exam Pattern Vs Other Exams: Check Difficulty Level
3. CAT Scoring Pattern: High Percentile at Moderate Score
4. Moderate CAT Cut Offs at IIMs and Other B-Schools
5. Learn Why CAT Exam is Considered Tough
6. CAT Syllabus: Must Go Through – Not Difficult to Cover
7. CAT Preparation: Check Your Plan & Strategy

1. Is CAT Exam Tough? Different Versions

You may find different versions whether CAT is difficult or easy from those who have cracked CAT with their right preparation strategy and from those who could not score well in it. Here we have cross checked with many CAT takers from different academic back grounds whether they found CAT Exam Tough and in their view what are the difficult areas of CAT Exam:

• Engineers who cracked CAT:

While preparing for CAT exam, most of the candidates from Engineering back ground found Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension section in CAT more difficult than DILR and Quant. They overcame their weakness with devoting more time to VARC and cracked CAT.

• Arts Students who cracked CAT:

These CAT takers found Quant and DI section more difficult but found VARC their strong domain. Devoting more time to clear their concepts and more practice, they scored well in these sections in CAT exam.

• Commerce Graduates:

For these students VARC, DILR posed more problem. They referred books by Arun Sharma, got clarity on basics, read specific articles and editorials in news papers for VARC, while for DILR they did more and more practice on variety of questions. This resulted in scoring high in both these sections

• Science Graduates:

Again, VARC was found a more difficult. But with determination and practice and by taking 30-40 Mocks, the weakness was won. These CAT takers not only cleared cut offs but many of them scored more in VARC section.

So, is CAT exam easy or tough depends upon how you look at it, prepare for it and finally perform in it. But you can’t ignore one thing that number of CAT aspirants are consistently increasing and last year CAT broke all earlier records with 2.55 lakh candidates applying for the exam, which further enhanced its reputation as largest and most popular exam. Leading to Admissions in top B-schools, CAT, in view of experts and toppers should have some difficulty level although it is not very difficult.

2. CAT Scoring Pattern: High Percentile at Moderate Score
At a score of 90 to 100 in CAT exam, a candidate can get 95-99 percentile. This is not very tough to achieve. You need to plan to attempt 16 to 20 questions with 85 to 90 percent accuracy to score high in each section so that after allowing 10 to 20 percent of mistakes, you can score well and crack CAT with 90+ percentile. In previous years, the CAT score required for 90-99 percentile is shared below:

3. Moderate CAT Cut Offs at IIMs and Other B-Schools

During the past few years, top IIMs like IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Indore have reduced their CAT cut off to 85-90 percentile. Now you can expect to be shortlisted by IIMs at a moderate CAT percentile. Below are shared the CAT percentile range and top B-schools cut off range

4. Learn Why CAT Exam is Considered Tough

When you try to learn why CAT exam is tough, it should be noted that IIMs do not need a professor or top expert in English, Maths or Reasoning in their class rooms but of course they need the students who have good communication skills, can think logically and can make right approach to the given problem. As such, the CAT exam difficulty level is designed accordingly.

A CAT aspirant sure needs to think how difficult should be CAT exam when he or she is looking for MBA admission in top IIMs like IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Indore and other highly ranked top B-schools like FMS, SPJIMR, MDI and recent entrant IIFT Delhi and Kolkata. As such CAT cannot be a cake walk in terms of its difficulty level. However, experts and CAT toppers also find that CAT is not the toughest exam as compared to other exams like XAT, erstwhile IIFT entrance exam which has been discontinued from 2023 and even GMAT which goes on increasing its difficulty level after answering each question. To clear CAT, you need to read and download CAT syllabus and follow right preparation strategy.

5. CAT Syllabus: Must Go Through – Not Difficult to Cover

When you raise the query – Is CAT Exam Tough? What are the difficult areas of CAT Exam, you should first go through the CAT syllabus and with the opportunity available, you should download it. Once you go through the Syllabus with the key topics for all the sections of CAT, it will be easy for you to understand which are the easy and difficult areas of CAT exam and where you need to strengthen them.

 Conclusion

Is CAT Exam difficult/very tough or it is easy? The answer to your query depends upon how good are your basics, conceptual clarity and what preparation strategy you are following. There are CAT toppers who were working professionals and self-prepared for CAT and overcame their weakness. Then there are freshers who self prepared and also took help from online or offline CAT coaching and many candidates who self prepared with CAT books and study material, enrolled for CAT mock tests to assess their weak areas. Many of these candidates completed their preparation in a few months while a few of them prepared for a year or so. But what is common in them, is their consistency in preparation and practice on variety of questions without distraction.