CAT DATE....STOP WORRYING

As the CAT exam is approaching students are getting worried with many misconceptions.In this article we try to give a clear idea ,so that the students can stop worrying about the problems that don’t exist in reality.

This year CAT 2013 nearly has 10000 students taking the xams on October 16 in two slots. In this article, we try to clear  few most common assumptions around CAT dates & Slots and Choosing 1st Dates.

people who suggest you that there is an advantage on choosing a particular date have not got their facts right as Prometric, the agency that conducts CAT exam provides each candidate a different question paper than other candidates sitting in the same hall. 

Common questions that arise in aspirants minds is that the first couple of days are very difficult: It is not true. This assumption is probably circulated by students who must have faced difficult questions during their CAT exam. But the difficulty level of exam varies from student to students and also depends on ones preparation level.

CAT has a very large question bank and the difficulty level in CAT exam is standardized throughout the exam window and every student in each slot gets a share of difficult and some easy questions.If our preparation is full then the slots given don’t matter.

IIMs have mentioned on their official CAT 2013 website that, “Post-administration analysis will be conducted by credentialed psychometricians to confirm the validity of the examination scores and to ensure that every candidate was provided a fair and equal opportunity to display their knowledge.”

The next question is maybe Choosing a later date would  gives an advantage of learning about others experiences before the exam

Opinions differ.This is more of a disadvantage than an advantage. CAT exam has a very large question bank and hence knowing of others exam experiences will not give you an advantage in anyway. The large question bank and unique paper for each CAT aspirant makes it virtually impossible for anyone to memorize his/her question paper to help someone else.

Since, the CAT paper will never have the same question similar to earlier slots hence reading too many articles about other CAT aspirant’s experiences and the type of questions they received would further confuse you. All this wouldl have an effect on your mind and you too will start expecting the similar patterns in your paper. This will definitely hamper your preparation schedule in the last crucial days to CAT exam.  One should be calm and focused on the exam day to think well and any rumor will give invitation to surprises and fears which will hamper your performance in those crucial 2 hours of exam.

Another question will be Percentiles are calculated by slot and days and hence it’s better to give exam after most of the good candidates have done their exams

it is irrelevant who is writing the exam with you on the same date or slot. Your percentile depends on your ability to give correct answers to the questions with good accuracy level.

 Another popular belief is that CAT percentiles are calculated by slot and days and thus one must choose a slot/day where the numbers of CAT takers are low or when good students are in a less number.

 you will never know who a good candidate is and secondly, you will be able to know the number of test takers only after the end of the day. As we said in the earlier myths, that each aspirant gets a unique question paper even within the same slot and same exam centre.

IIMs or Prometric have said that CAT percentiles are calculated on the basis of normalization process. Aspirants will be benchmarked against all 2Lakh candidates who appear for CAT exam across the 20 day window as a whole and not against a few thousands that appear with you on the same day or slots.

 Another misconception is that last few days are relatively easy

But Difficulty level can be subjective and depends on person to person.

Another reason for this rumor is the fact that aspirants sitting during later half of the CAT slots read so many unnecessary articles on difficulty levels and hard questions that form a wrong perception in their mind for their own CAT question paper and are hence are disappointed when they don’t receive the same level of difficult question paper.

So, forget about any rumors that you hear about CAT days and slot preferences and approach the test as you would any other exam.