CAT 2014 – Paper Analysis

Overview

  • The CAT 2014 exam pattern was changed this year with both Verbal and Quant section carrying 50 questions each. Earlier, both the section was of 30 questions each.
  • The time duration for the test was also increased to 170 minute as compared to 140 minutes last year.
  • The CAT takers could also switch between the two sections without any restriction during the entire testing period.
  • As expected, non-MCQ questions did not carry any negative marks while the MCQ questions carried -0.33 mark negative for a wrong answer and +1 for a correct answer as displayed in actual test and +3 and -1 as shared in the instructions sheet before the start of the exam.

The new exam pattern of CAT has been launched this year under which there have been three major changes:

  1. The number of questions have increased from 60 to 100
  2. The duration of CAT has increased by 30 minutes and;
  3. There is no sectional boundary unlike the previous years.
CAT 2014 paper analysisCAT 2014 Paper

Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning

  • The passages were easy to understand and no passage had very abstract or dense subject matter
  • There were total 5 passages – three passages (450-650 words in length) and two passages (300 words each). The three passages had 6 questions each and the other two had 3 questions each.
  • Two parajumble questions were difficult and two were easy.
  • There were no vocabulary-based questions as well.
  • The questions in Verbal ability were dominated by Verbal Logic and did not carry any negative marking, though they needed prior practice to aim for a high percentile.
cat 2014 varc tablecat 2014 varc

Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation

  • There were 34 questions of QA and 16 questions of DI in the slot.
  • The difficulty level was low and the questions were designed to test the grasp of fundamentals.
  • There were questions from regular topics like Number System, Algebra, Geometry, Modern Math and Geometry.
  • There were two questions from trigonometry as well. Questions in Data Interpretation area did not involve convoluted calculations; however, they continued to be tricky.
  • As has been the norm this year Logic-based DI was visible again. All the questions in DI came in sets of
cat 2014 qa tablecat 2014 qa

Verdict

CAT 2014 was the second time that the paper pattern of CAT changed after it went online. However, this year’s CAT was much more flexible compared to the rigid sectional-timing based test encountered over the last couple of seasons.