• Overview
Common Admission Test (CAT) is the most popular entrance exam for MBA admissions. It is an all-India test conducted by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) as an entrance exam for the admission to the Post-graduate and Fellow Programs in management courses of several management institutes in India including the IIMs. More than 100 B-Schools accept CAT score.
On the basis of CAT percentile score, eligible candidates are short listed and called for a Written Aptitude Test (WAT), Group Discussion (GD) and Personal Interview (PI).
• CAT Eligibility
You must hold a Bachelor’s Degree, with at least 50% marks or equivalent CGPA (45% in case of the candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Differently abled (DA) categories).
If you are appearing for the final year of bachelor’s degree /equivalent qualification examination & those who have completed degree requirements and are awaiting results can also apply.
• CAT Exam New Pattern
From the year 2009, the mode of CAT has changed from paper-pencil based test to computer based test. CAT has two sections:
1. Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation
2. Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning
Each section has 50 objective type questions, making total of 100 questions in the paper.
The duration of the test in 2014 has been increased to 170 minutes (2 hours and 50 minutes). Earlier it was 140 minutes. There are no sectional time limits. There is also negative marking in the paper.
• How to Apply?
You have to first buy the CAT voucher. Registration is done online at www.iimcat.ac.in . You must have a valid email id as IIMs will do all the communications by that email id only.
Application Fees
The fee is Rs.1600/- for general and NC-OBC candidates. For SC/ST/PWD (DA) category the applicable fee is Rs.800/.
Exam Date- 16th and 22nd November 2014