IIM Lucknow is to conduct this year’s Common Admission Test (CAT), a mandatory exam for admission to flagship post graduate management programme in the 20 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and other top rated B schools. Each of the IIMs takes up the responsibility of conducting the exam on a rotational basis.
While the official announcement is expected on the last Sunday of July, as per the schedule followed in the past years, IIM Lucknow has issued the tender notification for advertisement services on June 21 to set the process rolling. The name of the Convenor, exam pattern and timeline is expected to be announced by the second week of July.
The number of applicants for CAT 2016 had also touched a record 7-year high with 2,32,434 applications received till the deadline on September 27, 2016. In 2015, the number of registered candidates was 2,18,664.
Applications for CAT 2017 are expected to be accepted from the first week of August and the last date for submission of completed application forms would be the last week of September. The Admit cards will be issued in the third week of October. The exam is likely to be scheduled in the first week of December and results may be announced in the first week of January 2018.
IIM-L had previously convened the CAT in the year 2010. Last year, IIM Bangalore had organised the computer based online test that saw the largest number of applicants. CAT 2016 held in 138 across India on December 4 saw as many as 1.95 lakh candidates appearing for the test. Exam convenor Professor Rajendra S Bandi said while 82 % of the applicants took the test in 2015, it went up to 83.6 % in 2016.
The number of applicants for CAT 2016 had also touched a record 7-year high with 2,32,434 applications received till the deadline on September 27, 2016. In 2015, the number of registered candidates was 2,18,664.
Despite speculation on changes in the exam pattern, it remained unchanged in 2016. The first slot comprised three sections–Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC) with 34 questions, Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DILR) with 32 questions and Quantitative Ability (QA) with 34 questions. The sectional time limit was 60 minutes.
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This time around, IIM Lucknow will introduce some changes in the structure of CAT 2017 as well as in the level of difficulty. There might be a change in the number of questions in each section. The conducting body will try to bring down the difficulty level of Quantitative Aptitude to provide some favour to non-engineering aspirants. The new exam pattern is supposed to be quite student-friendly and will help aspirants to score better.
As in previous years, CAT 2017 will be held in two sessions to ensure fairness in comparison of performances of aspirants. The online test will be of 170 minutes duration. The multiple choice questions are of three marks each with d negative marks for incorrect answers.
Candidates shortlisted for the second stage of selection to IIMs may have to undergo Written Ability Test (WAT), Group Discussion (GD) and Personal Interviews (PI) though the basis of selection varies from IIM to IIM. The process of Normalisation is used in evaluating mark sheets. Also adopted by Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE), it helps in comparing aspirant scores across multiple forms.
Apart from the 20 IIMs, more than 100 B-schools across India will accept CAT 2017 scores for the two-year full-time management programmes for the academic year 2018-19.(Image Source:wikipedia.org)
