Bangalore: This year, numerous changes have been made in the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2011 format.CAT is a common entrance test for admission into the 13 IIMs and other premier B-Schools in the country.
According to the sources, CAT 2011 will have the same number of questions, however, the exam will have two sections instead of three and extra five minutes will be allotted to students in order to attempt the test.
As per an official statement issued by Prometric, the testing agency and IIMs, CAT 2011 will have only two sections. The first section will mainly assess candidate’s quantitative ability and data interpretation, while the other will emphasize on verbal ability and logical reasoning.
Furthermore, the statement informed that the two sections will be applied in order of separate time limits. The exam duration will be 140 minutes and candidates will get 70 minutes to answer 30 questions within each section. Once the time limit ends for the first section, candidates will have to move to the second and will no longer be able to go back, concluded the statement.
In support of the changes made, Prof Janakiraman Moorthy, Convenor, CAT 2011 said that this is a move, which will make the exam more student-friendly. As there are many students who lose out on a seat as they would have failed to perform in one of the sections, he added.
An additional five minutes have also been added to the existing two-and half hours of the exam duration, which includes a 15-minute tutorial that will guide students through the process. Bhilai, Jammu and Dehradun have also been added to the existing 33 test locations of CAT Exam.
This year the CAT 2011 will be conducted between October 22 and November 18, 2011, which implies that there is no change in the number of testing days. Therefore, the number of days remains the same to be 20. However, check-in time for the exam has been reduced by half-an-hour from the previous two hours, which will help in starting the afternoon sessions at 3.15 pm.
