Though the intake capacity of the 20 IIMs is close to only 4,000 yet more than two lakh candidates appear for CAT every year conducted by IIMs on a rotational basis. Several terms and conditions along with CAT exam patterns usually don’t change every year hence any major shift from previous years should not be expected in 2018 also. However, certain changes are visible every year for example, for the first time in CAT 2017, IIMs released the official CAT Question Paper and Answer Key to ensure transparency. IIM Lucknow, the conducting institution also permitted students to challenge wrong answers or questions, none of which were found valid. Last year, the Singapore Management University also declared that it will accept CAT scores for admission into their management courses, making it the first international B-school to accept CAT scores. There will be separate notifications from IIM Ahmedabad, PGPEM & PGPPM Programmes of IIM Bangalore, EPGP of IIM Indore, EFPM & EPGPM of IIM Kashipur, PGP-ABM & PGP-SM of IIM Lucknow, PGPWE of IIM Raipur, PGDHRM of IIM Ranchi, EPGP of IIM Rohtak, PGPEX of RGIIM Shillong and PGPBM of IIM Tiruchirappalli for their management courses such as PGP-FABM & ePGP.
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Things that remained unchanged in CAT 2018
• The paper pattern will be similar to last year.
• The duration of the test will be 180 minutes.
• The paper will comprise three sections Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC), Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR), and Quantitative Aptitude (QA) in that order.
• Each of the three sections will be of 60 minutes.
• Movement across sections will not be permitted and use of basic on screen calculator will be allowed.
• The paper will comprise of MCQ questions and some TITA, Type in The Answer, type questions.
• The marking scheme for MCQ type questions will be +3 for every correct attempt and -1 for every incorrect attempt.
• There will be no negative marking for TITA type questions.
Test Fees
The test fee for the exam is Rs 1900 for General Category students and Rs 950 for Reserved Category students. The test will be conducted across 147 cities in two slots. Candidates can select any 4 cities in order of their preference.
Mode of Payment
The application form can be filled in online mode only. The application fee can be submitted using any of the payment modes, including Credit/Debit Card, and Net Banking.
CAT 2018 Registration Process
CAT 2018 registration is expected to begin from the 2nd week of August 2018, a fortnight after the official CAT notification is released. The CAT 2018 registration process will be completely online. All aspirants will have to visit the official website of CAT and click on the ‘Registration’ tab to apply online. After completing the CAT 2018 registration form with your profile details like name, email address and mobile number, you’d get a unique CAT 2018 User ID and password via email and SMS.
Once you have received the CAT 2018 User ID and Password, you can complete the CAT registration process by filling up the CAT 2018 Application form on the official CAT website.
CAT 2018 Online Application
The CAT 2018 online application form is usually divided into the following sections:
• Personal Details
• Contact Details
• Academic Details
• Work Experience
• Choosing IIMs you want to apply for
• Choose Test Centre and Interview City
Once you have filled up all the required information in a section, you should click on the ‘Save & Next’ option. As the next step, you will be required to upload your photograph and signature in the respective sections. The last step of the CAT 2018 registration process is the payment of the application fee via Credit/Debit Card or Net Banking.
CAT 2018 Cutoff
The official cutoff of CAT indicates the minimum percentile required by a candidate to get shortlisted by the participating institutes. While top B-schools have the higher range of CAT cutoff, it varies from institute to institute.
CAT cutoff is generally dependent on certain factors like difficulty level of the exam, number of test-takers, number of seats among others.
Normalization of CAT scores in 2017:
The exam will go through two sessions. Two different test forms shall be given in two test sessions. The scores shall be based on the process of Normalization that will adjust for location and scale differences of score distributions across different forms. Later on, the scores shall be further normalized across different sections. Check out the official website of IIM CAT for further details.
Admission process:
Admission to the IIMs is followed by Written Ability Test (WAT), Group Discussion (GD) and Personal Interviews (PI). The candidates’ previous academic scores, work experiences may be taken into consideration for short-listing.