Well I guess we could safely say that keeping 2 things in mind-
1) Online format CAT is not serving the real purpose of an entrance exam.
2) SSC is already conducting pen paper exam for a million candidates in a time frame of 6 months and CAT is taking 3 months for 2 lac despite being online. Surely the logic is wrong somewhere.
i doubt all those praising GMAT here have ever given the exam. GMAT is also faulty, it is also not the best way to evaluate the candidates. this is why GMAT/CAT should only be used as a way to maintain a certain hygiene for the PIs which imo are a great way to judge a candidate.
and so i find the criteria of IIMC to be very wrong which focuses on just one day brilliance of a person for the final admit(a great CAT score just needs a decent PI to get in). i have heard stories of a IIMC gold medalist from TIME Director about how he had to look for a job off-campus, as he wasnt 'smart' enough for the top jobs.
one more difference between the GMAT and CAT is that the schools overseas are trying a lot to get the best students, they compete for students.They already have the system in place. in India there is no such fight for students, there are loads of brilliant chaps out there with very few colleges to choose from. In india they focus on R&D;, faculty and placements. Think from the perspective of the schools - what are the areas that i need to focus on to better my college?
and it is only the students who give undue importance to CAT. I have a few IIMB guys in my team and i can definitely say that it wont be a life changer as perceived on these forums.
yes it can change your life ... but if you have the guts you should be able to manage without IIM as well.
my opinion only ... bas koi bhadak mat jana ispe :)
@smashed iim c gives gold medal on cat score or performance at iim c. Story of gold medalist need to look out for offcampus jobs are just stories .. Gold medal yui nai de denge IIM c wale kisi ko be. U have to be the best at IIM C for 2 years to get a gold medal
@nits2811 Arey wo ek error ho gaya tha jab maine %ile post kiya tha. I had attempted 18 in QA, not 15 (I realised when I checked with my CAT experience post). My guess is I made an error or two, hence 95%ile. 18A 18C should have fetched ~97%ile in my quant paper. But yeah, the overall point stands: I attempted 40 overall, and thanks to accuracy in a difficult paper I could scrape a 99.48%ile OA. Two more correct attempts would have probably seen me to 99.6.
Having said that, I don't agree with the possibility of purposefully throwing in incorrect questions to some candidates to test their ability. That would have made sense in a paper and pen format where everyone was giving the same paper. Many folks could attempt 30 in their paper (hanush got 99.94 in QA). These people would have got tough questions of course, but had they got "impossible" questions ie incorrect ones, then anything could have happened in a time pressure situation. In any case, IIMs have claimed that incorrect questions have been compensated. So it was definitely not an intentional part of their paper setting, if they had to depend on candidate feedback to discover incorrect questions. Whether they actually did anything with the feedback is another matter entirely, nobody trusts the IIM processes much.
@bhargav.nitc, honestly the pressure got to you in a bad way. My QA attempt was pretty shoddy because I got stuck in a DI set and wasted 10 mins for 2 attempts out of 4 questions. Everything afterwards was nerve-wracking and I ended up spending the last 1 minute just counting my attempts in the review section: just 18 (even lesser than you, and got 95.48%ile finally). I spent the break thinking how 22A would have been the benchmark in my QA paper and how I totally screwed up. And then VA started, which had always been my strength till then. Couldn't understand the FIB, couldn't understand 2 RCs, couldn't understand one para jumble. 1 RC was easy to understand, but couldn't understand all the questions. Lost all risk appetite by then and went in the OPPOSITE direction compared to you. I did only the sure-shot questions and maybe 1/2 risky ones. Did all LR questions, which were thankfully very easy. But 22 VA attempts in the end, which is not a safe number as per our so-called "mock" tests. Got 99.77%ile in VA finally. My inference: NEVER go Rambo in VA...
Note: In the end, I won't be getting a call to Joka either with 99.48%ile; I think I am gonna fall short of "Joka level" by ~1/2 more correct attempts. But I hope you get my point about focusing on accuracy in a tough paper. Incorrect questions are a travesty nevertheless, I agree with you. There seems to be a huge luck factor involved in belling the CAT. :/
@smashediim c gives gold medal on cat score or performance at iim c. Story of gold medalist need to look out for offcampus jobs are just stories ..Gold medal yui nai de denge IIM c wale kisi ko be.U have to be the best at IIM C for 2 years to get a gold medal
it is not to say that he was left without any job from the campus... what sir had told me was that he came to him for job search, may be he was not satisfied with his job. the end story is that he was looking for jobs off-campus.
@smashed bhai dukh bada hota hai jab badiya scopre ke bad call nain ati. Mere bro ko 99.71 ke bad bhi call nai aai A and B se. Lekin ummed hai C and L and FMS se aa jayegi. Bas ho jae kisi ek me , all these are top colleges. Hope for the best
The GMAT model and Admission to the Foreign B school take several criteria into account . You score 730+ which is around 96 percentile but still you can make it to top colleges around if you have profile and write decent essays .
On the other hand , Cat rejects a person who has scored
As you said , Both Exams have several flaws in it .. But one thing which stands out in GMAT route is the weightage given to written exam score for admission . Its quite negligible or at max 20-30% . So system gets neutralised when they filter people under rest 70% factors ..
Sadly , CAT doesn't have such screening .. Not that I say they should have .. But the weightage given for that flawed exam is huge which doesn't makes student community happy .. At the same time , Students should also realise that all the exams have flaws and don't corner CAT for normalisation method. Its evolving thing . After all nothing in this world is 100% perfect :)
Reg last para , Its quite hypothetical .. There is an element of Personal thought in it which can vary from person to person
ps : Sorry to spam . That too on sunday morning :P
i doubt all those praising GMAT here have ever given the exam. GMAT is also faulty, it is also not the best way to evaluate the candidates. this is why GMAT/CAT should only be used as a way to maintain a certain hygiene for the PIs which imo are a great way to judge a candidate.
@naga25french I am not sure PI is also a great way alone to judge a candidate. It also differs from panel to panel and interviewer to interview. There is luck factor in it also.
@naga25frenchI am not sure PI is also a great way alone to judge a candidate. It also differs from panel to panel and interviewer to interview. There is luck factor in it also.
Yaar ab PI ka to sahi mein kuch nahi kar sakte. What you are claiming to be a problem, is a feature of PIs universally for jobs, internships, and universities worldwide. Random panel hoga, and they can ask anything they want. Often they will have a look at a profile beforehand and form a first impression that will lead to a tough/easy interview later on. In the end, one has to accept that at the PI stage the institute and its faculty have the right to figure whether a candidate is a good fit for their college. Therefore, they do have the right to ask whatever they feel like. :/ Asking everyone the same questions and from the same areas is not a feasible PI scenario.
@RoadKillbhai CFA l1 clear ka kuch fayeda ho sakta hai kya for my bro in these interviews ?
Agar funda pura yaad ho, aur interview waale pooche finance pe, to hi faayeda hoga. Your brother should be prepared to steer the interview towards finance questions to extract any faayeda. CFA level 1 maine bhi clear kar rakha hai, but 3 saal ho gaye aur ab kuch yaad nahi. :/ I am in no situation to handle those questions right now.
@nits2811 Arey wo ek error ho gaya tha jab maine %ile post kiya tha. I had attempted 18 in QA, not 15 (I realised when I checked with my CAT experience post). My guess is I made an error or two, hence 95%ile. 18A 18C should have fetched ~97%ile in my quant paper. But yeah, the overall point stands: I attempted 40 overall, and thanks to accuracy in a difficult paper I could scrape a 99.48%ile OA. Two more correct attempts would have probably seen me to 99.6.Having said that, I don't agree with the possibility of purposefully throwing in incorrect questions to some candidates to test their ability. That would have made sense in a paper and pen format where everyone was giving the same paper. Many folks could attempt 30 in their paper (hanush got 99.94 in QA). These people would have got tough questions of course, but had they got "impossible" questions ie incorrect ones, then anything could have happened in a time pressure situation. In any case, IIMs have claimed that incorrect questions have been compensated. So it was definitely not an intentional part of their paper setting, if they had to depend on candidate feedback to discover incorrect questions. Whether they actually did anything with the feedback is another matter entirely, nobody trusts the IIM processes much.@bhargav.nitc, honestly the pressure got to you in a bad way. My QA attempt was pretty shoddy because I got stuck in a DI set and wasted 10 mins for 2 attempts out of 4 questions. Everything afterwards was nerve-wracking and I ended up spending the last 1 minute just counting my attempts in the review section: just 18 (even lesser than you, and got 95.48%ile finally). I spent the break thinking how 22A would have been the benchmark in my QA paper and how I totally screwed up. And then VA started, which had always been my strength till then. Couldn't understand the FIB, couldn't understand 2 RCs, couldn't understand one para jumble. 1 RC was easy to understand, but couldn't understand all the questions. Lost all risk appetite by then and went in the OPPOSITE direction compared to you. I did only the sure-shot questions and maybe 1/2 risky ones. Did all LR questions, which were thankfully very easy. But 22 VA attempts in the end, which is not a safe number as per our so-called "mock" tests. Got 99.77%ile in VA finally. My inference: NEVER go Rambo in VA...Note: In the end, I won't be getting a call to Joka either with 99.48%ile; I think I am gonna fall short of "Joka level" by ~1/2 more correct attempts. But I hope you get my point about focusing on accuracy in a tough paper. Incorrect questions are a travesty nevertheless, I agree with you. There seems to be a huge luck factor involved in belling the CAT. :/
I agree with your point that never go Rambo with VA.. But also tell me can any one be 100% sure of VA questions except vocab,grammar & few pjs :O
I thought Qa has many doable questions except for those wrong ones but I did not get time to see two complete DI sets.. 😞
VA.. Yeah I screwed CAT'11 by attempting all 30.. Put in lot of efforts this year & hence thought of attempting around 22-23 only. But the dream of Joka & Qa performance made me re-think & attempt more in VA.. But it doesn't mean I've just attempted for the sake of attempting r by going inky-pinky-ponky.. Cat Rcs are always ambiguous .. Even all these coaching institutes have different key for VA in Xat.. & its just not my day :-(:-(
I know I should not be posting here as I am not a part of the team, but I am going to indulge myself and request that you humour me without being offended.
I believe the difference lies in what the exams are designed to do. CAT is an exam designed to eliminate candidates so that a shortlist of deserving candidates (based on various factors determined by the institutes) can be made. It is NOT a process of SELECTION but of ELIMINATION. And that, I believe, is the issue.
I do think that a lot of the people who get great percentiles do deserve them. Unfortunately some people who deserve great percentiles dont. But from the institute's standpoint that's a statistical anomaly/measurement error in the system and thus should not affect the final conclusion drawn, i.e that CAT is serving its purpose.
Frankly, I dont blame them. I am not that ego-maniacal that I believe that I deserve a shot more than anyone else. And if I got unlucky or cracked under pressure or was abducted by aliens before the night of the paper, then that is that. Life is unfair... Get used to it.
I do not believe that a tag or a brand defines me. Yes it does open a lot of doors but what I do from there is entirely upto me. Get a quality education, develop your skills and believe in yourself and that, I think, is what will endure eventually. (I hope people do believe that quality education is not restricted to IIMs)
Congratulations to all the CAT crackers and I hope you get what you deserve. And to all the people who the CAT has been unkind to (I think I am entitled to call myself one of you), I hope you get what you deserve too.
Pankhon mein hai jaan, udaan abhi baaki hai... Abhi toh hai aaghaaz, kayi imtehaan abhi baaki hai...
Chale hain kucch kadam hi abhi tak,
Aage toh saara asmaan abhi baaki hai...
P.S: @Omkarp Yeh waali bhi khud hi likhi hai... :)
another thing adding bhai.....what's the fuss about the anchor questions...what i had heard that suppose there are 5 anchor questions each in both sections and if someone did all 5 correct it will add a very high weightage and if these 5 went wrong...it will adversely affect the sectional percentile....."anchor questions are those which are common in maximum number of slots"....understanding the CAT is beyond me from my last 2 attempts.....everytime i came to know something new about this normalisation saga or LOFT......and now anchor questions
& what if some guy is poor in just 1 r 2 topics & brilliant in the rest & 2 of these so called anchor questions come from those 2 weaker topics 😲 does he Need to pray such a heavy price >_
Guys let it go man....this discussion can go on for hours and still not change anything..you cant fight the system so the best thing would be adapt to it / accept it..we can discuss it over and over ..cry for it ..fight for it..and it still will not change anything...
@bhargav.nitc : If you can crack it ones m sure you can do it again..trust yourself and do not waste time in these futile discussions as it will not help you in any which way..Am sure you are a talented lad ..and will do well in life...CAT is just a medium to reach your ultimate goal ...and the end of the day what matters is whether you are able to achieve what you set out for...and trust me there are many different ways to achieve your goal..CAT happens to be just one of it...if you do not like the online format you have a P&P; format as well..two of the most reputed college still follow the old system i.e. XAT and IIFT...crack them ..
And bro let me tell you life is really hard and at times unfair beyond imagination...but mark my words "Talent never dies"...if you have it you will eventually do well...trust yourself and have faith and hope...Your duty as an aspirant is to strive for excellence, perfection and success will be yours...
I have seen it happen so many times ...but what I have also seen is that fate and luck could not eventually win over those people who were determined , bright and hard working..
My advice : If this season is over for you take some times off..do not think of what happened coz its not under your control anymore rather thin over the things that are...
Start again and bounce back..do not pressurize yourself with the number of questions to attempt etc...in CAT accuracy matters..it really does..
Rest is upto you bro..you can complaint all you want but it still wont change the process or your CAT score, however you can work hard and prove it to yourself that you can perform even in situations that are unfriendly to you..
