CAT 2012 Analysis

1. CAT 2012 came to an end on November 6, 2012. This year it started on October 11 and went on for 20
days across 61 test centres in 36 cities. More than 2 lakh candidates registered for this year’s CAT which
is 4.5% higher than last year. The number of female candidates also increased this time.
One of the notable trends this year is that the number of candidates taking the exam on the first slots
was much less than the number of candidates taking on later days. It seems that most of them wanted
others to taste the water first.
Prometric, the testing partner of IIMs for CAT, overall conducted the test smoothly excepting a few
mishaps in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata. Among them a major crisis occurred in Delhi on 20th
October, the 8th day of test. There was a major power failure in Delhi’s Asia Pacific Institute of
Management, Jasola vihar and Panacea Testing centre in Mayapuri. The candidates had to wait for a few
hours but as the problem could not be solved till then, they had to be moved to other centres from
where they took the exam.
It was unfortunate that in spite of taking so much care CAT 2012 could not be made 100% glitch free.
However, Prometric did take the required steps to help the affected candidates. They mainly blamed the
CBSE authority for this incident.
The pattern of the exam was same as earlier. The question paper was consisted of two sections-
Quantitative ability & Data interpretation and Verbal ability & Logical reasoning each containing 30
questions. There is a mixed opinion about the difficulty level of the questions. While some found the
paper to be of moderate to easy level others found it tough.
According to Ajay Antony of T.I.M.E. the papers this year were a “notch” easier than last few years.
Sriganesh of Dreamchasers found Quant section tougher than last few years. Basically the difficulty level
of the two sections was balanced. In the first slots the QA & DI section was tougher than VA & LR. But
later on this scenario changed as the VA got more difficult and LR seemed trickier.
Prof. Kumar has announced that they will look for more students from arts and commerce backgrounds
this year instead of students from engineering background. This announcement has disappointed some
as they feel it gives unfair advantage to some candidates.
Overall CAT 2012 went off pretty well. Some good aspects of this year’s CAT are- the increase in the
number of applicants, increase in the number of female candidates, easy to moderate level question
paper, emphasis on diversity. The result for CAT 2012 is likely to be announced on 9th January 2013.