Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) started the Common Admission Test (CAT) in the year 1977. From a handful of IIMs back then, the CAT now serves as a full-fledged entrance test not just for the IIMs but for over a hundred B-schools across India. It is not an exaggeration to call it the mother of all MBA entrance exams in the country.
From what was a paper-pencil test with over 150 questions in the early 2000s the CAT has now evolved into a leaner and meaner online test since 2009. Keeping with the times, for the last three years, it has had just 66 questions.
In its paper-pencil days, the CAT was notorious for the kind of surprises it would throw at its test takers — from the duration of the exam to the overall number of questions, from section sequence to the number of questions per section, from marking scheme to the timing of the sections, from the types of questions to the topics these questions could come from — everything was known to the students only after they sat for the test and opened the paper.
From those astronomical levels of lack of information, CAT now discloses the sections and their sequence along with the overall time for the exam and if the sections are timed individually, along with the marking scheme. It, however, does not disclose the number of questions and their topics beforehand.
(Ramnath Kanakadandi is the Senior Course Director at T.I.M.E. Views expressed are his own)
