With the change in the number of slots and the reduction in the duration of the exam in CAT 2020, most of you would have expected a change in the pattern of the exam.  The takers of the afternoon slot would have gone in with the slight advantage of having received some information from the morning slot about the number of questions in the test, which was the big unknown for those in the morning slot.

On expected lines, having known about the morning slot, the number of questions in the exam were reduced, to 76, from 100 in the previous years' papers.

The split of questions across the three sections are:

Section	Total No. of Questions	Area	No. of Questions	No. of Non-MCQs	Pattern
VARC	26	RC	18	0	2 passages of 5 questions each 2 passages of 4 questions each
		VA	8	5	3 Para Formations 2 Odd One Out 3 Para Summary
DILR	24	DILR	24	6	2 Sets of 6 questions each 3 Sets of 4 questions each
QA	26	QA	26	8	26 Individual Questions
Total	76			19

 

Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension

The VARC section in the afternoon slot was slightly more difficult than that of the morning slot. However, since the students have an idea of the pattern, they would have a small advantage compared to the students in the morning slot.

The passages in the RC section dealt with the topics of Artists' Evaluation, Viability of Renewable Energy, Pirates of the Sea and Analysis of Aggression.

Passage	Number of Questions	Readability	Overall Difficulty Level
Visual Arts	4	Very Difficult	Very Difficult
Viability of Renewable Energy	5	Moderate	Moderate
Pirates of the Sea	5	Easy	Moderate - Difficult
Analysis of Aggression	4	Moderate	Difficult

 

Of these four passages, the passage on Visual Arts was the toughest, both to read and understand the passage, and also in terms of answering the questions. Surprisingly, a vocabulary question appeared in this passage. Many students would have struggled to understand the passage and is a passage that must have been attempted last.

The passage on Viability of Renewable energy was probably the easiest passage in the paper. It was readable and the questions did not throw too many curveballs. The straightforward passage and questions make this a Moderate passage.

The passage on Pirates of the Sea draws in the students because it is easy to read. However, the questions forced the students to revisit the passage multiple times to answer the questions. Combined with this, the confusing options also may eat up time in answering questions from this passage. This makes it a Moderate to Difficult passage.

The passage on Analysis of Aggression, even though was not tough to read, had questions which were a little involved. So, this passage can be called a difficult passage.

Across all the passages, the options were confusing making rereading a must to be sure of the answer.

In the Verbal Ability, the Para Formation questions were not very challenging, with some questions having connectors and hints to find the correct order of the sentences. Students who do a lot of reading would have been able to notice the stylistic elements in the sentences and solve these questions quicker.

The Odd One Out questions, unlike in the morning slot, were a little tougher than the Para Formation questions.

Two of the three Para Summary questions were doable with the other one being on the tougher side. Also, most of the choices did not completely capture the essence given in the passage.

Verbal Ability
Question Type	Number of Questions	Difficulty Level
Para Formation Questions	3	Difficult
Odd One Out	2	Difficult
Para Summary	3	Moderate

 

Overall, the section was similar to that of the morning slot

A net score of 21-23 would be a decent score for a test-taker to be able to get 85 percentile (sectional cut-off).

Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning

The DILR section was of a higher difficulty level compared to that of CAT 2019, similar to what we have seen in the morning slot. Unlike in the morning slot, every set would have posed some challenge to the students. The sets which appeared doable at first glance had some additional information in the questions, which made them difficult to solve in its entirety.

While there was one doable set in the morning slot,  down from at least two easy-moderate sets last year, it can be said that there was no such set in the afternoon slot for LRDI. The remaining sets were challenging and there were no low hanging fruits among these sets.

The variation in the number of questions across sets also posed a challenge to the students, as was the case in the morning slot. With two sets having 6 questions each and two sets having 4 questions each, the distribution of time across sets would play a key role in determining the eventual score.

The set on Elections and Voters presented a lot of data and comprehending the data will take a lot of time. In addition to this, the number of criteria and dimensions to the set makes it even more difficult. On top of this, the data was not presented completely and required some reasoning on part of students to arrive at the solution. However, this set need not be solved completely to answer all the questions. In fact, a couple of questions can be answered without filling the table completely, which not many would have found. This is a very difficult set. Attempting this set would have taken a lot of time and students should have left this set for last.

The set on Presentations was LR set based on Distributions. The number of dimensions in the set makes this a little challenging. The number of conditions in the set also makes this difficult. The first three questions may be solved a little directly but the next three questions need further analysis since these questions involve additional information.

The set on Beads, on first glance, looked similar to a Sudoku puzzle with a 5 x 5 grid. The questions involved counting the number of possibilities given certain additional conditions. Solving the questions, students might be confused whether they were solving a DILR set or a P&C question. Since each question must be solved independently, this is a Very Difficult set. Given that this is only a 4 question set and is very difficult, students should not have attempted this set, unless they have finished solving all the other sets.

The set on Sales at a store is a DI set based on Quant concepts. This set involved a little reasoning and as has been the case with other sets, the questions have to be solved independently. The set was on the difficult side.

The set on Parking Slots had so much information that the students needed to process, which pushed the difficulty level up.

Unlike in the morning slot, where the 6 question sets were tougher and the 4 question sets were doable, in this slot, the 6 question sets were a little less tricky than the 4 question sets.

The details of the sets in the section are given below:

Set	Area	Topic	No. of Questions	No. of Non-MCQs	Difficulty Level
Parking Slots	LR	Arrangements	4	0	Moderate-Difficult
Sales at a Store	DI	Table	4	0	Difficult
Beads	DI	Quant based Reasoning	4	4	Difficult
Elections	LRDI	Quant based Reasoning	6	0	Moderate-Difficult
Presentations	LRDI	Distributions	6	2	Difficult

A net score of 17-19 would be a decent score for a test-taker to be able to get 85 percentile (sectional cut-off).

 

Quantitative Ability

The QA section continued to be a heavy section in the afternoon slot also, particularly as it comes after a heavy VARC and a tough LRDI section.  This slot also continued its unusually higher distribution of questions from Algebra. The topic-wise split of the questions is as below

Topic	No. of Questions	Difficulty Level
ERPV	3	Moderate
Percentages, Profit & Loss	2	Moderate
SI-CI	1	Easy
Time & Distance	4	Easy-Moderate
Time & Work	1	Moderate-Difficult
Numbers	1	Difficult
Mensuration	1	Difficult
Geometry	2	Easy-Moderate
Progressions	1	Moderate
Logarithms	1	Moderate-Difficult
Functions & Graphs	1	Moderate-Difficult
Quadratic Equations	2	Difficult
Special Equations	2	Difficult
Inequalities & Modulus	2	Difficult
Statistics	1	Difficult
Venn Diagrams	1	Moderate

 

A net score of 19-21 would be a decent score for a test-taker to be able to get 85 percentile (sectional cut-off).

 

Cutoffs:

Based on our expert analysis of the inputs received from students about the exam, the sectional cut-offs are expected to be as below

Sectional

	Percentile
	85	95	99
VARC	22	29	37
DILR	18	25	33
QA	20	31	43

Overall

	Percentile
	90	95	97.5	99
Overall	63	77	88	102