The 2 hour CAT came loaded with surprises, which was not a surprise, given CATs notoriety with them. The takers of the evening slot would have gone in with the slight advantage of having received some information from the morning and afternoon slot about the number of questions in the test. Further, the test takers in the evening slot would also have been able to have a look at the analysis of the sections in the morning slot.

On expected lines, as they were in the morning and afternoon slots, 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 evening slot was of moderate level difficulty overall (thanks to a couple of RC passages and questions associated with them) though the VA part was slightly on the difficult side. 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 Human Kind/Civilization, Mode of Transport Influencing Travel (men vs women), Screen Time influencing social contact, Financial Crisis of 2008

Passage	Number of Questions	Readability	Overall Difficulty Level
Human Kind	4	Difficult	Difficult
Mode of Transport	5	Moderate	Moderate
Financial Crisis	5	Moderate	Difficult
Screen Time	4	Easy	Moderate

 Of these four passages, the passage on Human Kind was the toughest, both to read and understand the passage, and also in terms of answering the questions. Many students would have struggled to understand the passage and is a passage that must have been attempted last.

The passage on Financial Crisis was probably the easiest passage, relatively, in the paper. It was readable but the questions did throw some curveballs. Two questions pin-pointed students' attention to parts of the passage.

The passage on Screen Time draws in the students because it is easy to read. However, a couple of questions forced the students to revisit the passage multiple times to answer the questions as the answer options were confusing. This makes it a Moderate passage.

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

Across all the passages, there weren't the typical "critical reasoning" questions of 'strengthen or weaken' types, though there were many 'inference' based questions tested. Noteworthy questions were a couple that were framed as 'None of the below support the author EXCEPT' and 'Which of the following, if false, can be inferred...'. The manner in which the questions were framed would stump many students.

In the Verbal Ability, the Para Formation questions were challenging with the sentences in a couple of questions being lengthy and identifying 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. The choices were close in the word choice which made elimination tricky.

 

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 22-24 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 and afternoon slots. WIth only one doable set, the section retained the overall flavour that was present in the first two slots. The sets which appeared doable at first glance had some twists in the questions, which made them difficult to solve in its entirety.

The difficult sets in the evening slots were more challenging than the difficult sets in the other slots. This is expected to push the attemptable questions down significantly.

The variation in the number of questions across sets also posed a challenge to the students, as was the case in the morning and afternoon 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 Bidding (6Qs) is difficult to solve completely. Two questions (based on the first two rounds) can be solved but the remaining questions will be challenging for the students to attempt. This is the most difficult set in the section and must be attempted last.

The set on Land Plots (6Qs) was a reasoning based DI set and involved multiple dimensions. Finding the exact arrangement from the given seven or eight conditions was challenging. Two questions can be doable but the data in the set makes answering even these questions challenging.

In the set on Vials (4Qs), only two questions were doable in this set, based on simple elimination. The other two questions were difficult and took time to solve. The data looks a little intimidating and needs courage to pick up.

The set on School Survey (4Qs) was the only surely doable set in the section. The data given was clear and straightforward and those who go the diagram correct would crack it with not much effort. If the student spends time on this set, it could have been solved without any major setbacks.

The set on Grocery Delivery (4Qs) presented data which was not straightforward. Two questions were solvable while the other two were difficult.

Like in the morning slot, the 6 question sets were tougher. However, even among the 4 question sets, there were quite a few difficult questions. The slight difference in this slot was that the 6-Question sets, while being tough overall, had a couple of doable questions each in them

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

Set	Area	Topic	No. of Questions	No. of Non-MCQs	Difficulty Level
Testing Vials	LR	Puzzle	4	0	Moderate-Difficult
Grocery Delivery	DI	Caselet	4	0	Moderate-Difficult
School Survey	DI	Venn	4	2	Moderate
Land Plots	LRDI	Reasoning Based DI	6	0	Difficult
Bidding	DI	Games & Tournaments	6	4	Very Difficult

A net score of 16-18 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 bit of a relief in the evening slot as well. coming 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	2	Moderate
Percentages, Profit & Loss	2	Moderate
SI-CI	1	Easy
Time & Distance	3	Easy-Moderate
Time & Work	1	Moderate-Difficult
Numbers	3	Difficult
Geometry	2	Easy-Moderate
Progressions	1	Moderate
Logarithms and Indices	3	Moderate-Difficult
Functions & Graphs	2	Moderate-Difficult
Quadratic Equations	1	Difficult
Inequalities & Modulus	2	Difficult
AMA	2	Moderate
Co-Geo	1	Easy

A net score of 23-25 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	23	30	38
DILR	17	24	32
QA	24	35	47

Overall

	Percentile
	90	95	97.5	99
Overall	68	81	92	105