[buck_was]

Date: 18-Nov-07
Time: 10:30 am IST
Venue: 100s of educational institutions across India
Occasion: Aw, come on.. dontcha know it?!

A silent prayer on most pairs of lips wud greet the CAT '07 paper.. even the most atheist-est of us wud betray signs of temporary bhakt jano-ness

Lets try and eradicate the tricky part out of CAT.. lets out-think the monster and collectively tame it.. let our creativity (backed by logic) unearth the possible format of the paper.. though a fun exercise, I m sure some of the formats suggested wud make us think.. and reach for a suitable strategy if indeed such a format is encountered..

Its always better to have visualised a format than directly on the D-Day.. basically this thread aims to bridge the gap between mocks and CAT.. by suggesting formats not encountered in mocks either..

Your posts will be understood better and quickly if they are in a specific pro froma.. so I m proposing one, obviously open to changes..

The pro-forma
No. of Ques: (self-explanatory)
Marking Scheme: (both +ve and -ve)
The X Factor: (wot can be the element of surprise)
and these can be different for different sections

E.g. if we were to put CAT 2006 in the pro-forma, it wud read as
No. of Ques: 25 per section
Marking Scheme: +4/-1, uniform +ve and -ve marking
The X Factor: 5 options, return of FIJs, increased emphasis on CR/LR
So let the brain-storming and the fun n games begin

[deep_agrawal]

Well, My prediction:

No. of questions: 200

No. of sections: 5 - QA, DI, VA, RC, LR

No. of marks per question: 1

No. of marks per negative question: 1/4.

Now my logic: Since most of us have got used to the lesser no. of questions in the Mocks, i believe IIMs will love to surprise us with a huge number of questions. This way, it'll go back to the 95-99 pattern of huge no. of questions of lesser difficulty level (obvious right ).

Also, we might see sectional time limits for group of sections viz. 1 hr for VA, RC and 1.5 hr for QA, DI and LR.

X-Factor: All types of questions appearing helping people who have gone through the older papers indirectly .

And yeah by DI i mean calculation intensive sets .

[krsh.vik]

I feel they are gonna test accuracy this time

VA : 30 QS
QA : 30 QS
DI : 30 QS

+4 with PNM

On a serious note, Never try to predict the pattern ... Go with an open mindset and give ur best shot

[Shantanu's Cat]

Total 4 sections: QA, VA, DI & LR
No. of Ques: 20 per section
Marking Scheme: +4/-1, progressive -ve marking
The X Factor: Attempting all questions compulsory. negitive marking for un-attempted questions (-0.5 for first 5 un-attempted ques, and -0.25 for the next 5).

[made_for_iims]

69 questions

123(6) --> 90(9) --> 75(12) ---
now it has to be 15.... which only 69 satisfies


Sections: QA,DI,EU
Questions: 23,23,23
Options: 5
Negative marking: +4,-1 & some question 6,-2
Max marks: 300
X factor:
1. VA (Tough): CR questions, conversation questions , 2 RC's
2. DI (Moderate): more DI than LR this time
3. QA (Tough) : Loads of tricky questions... full of traps...with few sitters enough to cross 20-25 marks....

Overall A very low scoring paper.... A score of 90 will fetch a 99+...
100%tilers will be in a range of 150

[buck_was]

My turn to let the CAT among the pigeons

Could be a mix-n-match of one or more of following..
No. of Sections: 4 or 5 (maybe including GK) - remember, some instts have mentioned sectional cut-offs for 3, doesn't mean there cant be more, which wud mean tht such additional sections need not be cleared, but performance at these can have an impact on the overall performance/cut-off
No. of Ques: 20-25 per section (variable across sections), 5-optioners..
Marking Scheme: differential marking, but constant -ve
The X Factor: evident above

More formats to be contributed by me on subsequent pages..

[chop suey]

my take

No. of section-------------------: QA, VA/RC n DI/LR (3 sections)
Total no. of question-------------: 60 (20 per section)
No. of options--------------------: 5
Marking-------------------------: 4 marks/Q
-ve marking 4 getting a Q wrong-: 1/4 of the marks 4 the Q
-ve marking 4 not attempting-----: 1/2 of the marks 4 the Q
X factor-----------------------------: No FIJ Qs

[ARUN86LEO]

total sections - 3

no of ques - 20-25 per section

marking- - +5/-2(or maybe -2.5),thus focussing on accuracy

surprise element - increase in length of questions in quant,or maybe
cluster based questions here,a tougher di this time
wid more focus on reasoning & like last year,the info
will be in paragraphs in most of d questions,thus
calling 4a gr8 level of concentration here,finally,
expecting an avg eng level dis tym,wid rc`s,sentenc
completion & udli-shudli.........

p.s. rgt nw i hv dis idea,will add few more,atb ........

[exile]

Here is my take..

No of sections : guess everyone knows....
no of questions: 40 in each section
Marks : Differential markings.... as in cat 2004..
Negative marks: one-fourth of the mark
Surprise element : D.S questions may make a comeback.
Rumour has it that IIMc has set this year's question paper. If that's true I won't be surprised if quants scares the hell out of even the veterans. :(

[justlikethat]

Nice thread

Sections: QA,DI,EU
Questions: 27,27,27
Options: 5
Negative marking: +3,-1
Max marks: 243
X factor:
1. VA : CR questions.....2/4 RCs, def not 3
2. DI: some sets involving too much calculations
3. QA: Get ready for a tough QA section

Baaki I'll add soon....

Cheers!!!