Is Cat Exam Tough | Is It Really Hard to Crack Cat 2022? – Seekex

Is Cat Exam Tough | Is It Really Hard to Crack Cat 2022? – Seekex

CAT exam is one of the most popular and toughest exams in India. Every year it is conducted to allow aspirants to get into top Indian B-schools. Cracking CAT is not a cakewalk. It involves lots of preparation and strategies for qualifying. Is CAT exam really tough or is it just a myth? This blog will take you through all the aspects of CAT and help you to determine whether it’s really tough to crack CAT. 

Experts say that CAT is one of the toughest competitive exams in India. The irony is that every year it is getting tougher for the aspirants. If you desire to appear for CAT, then approach toppers of CAT on the SeekEx app and avail their precious consultation. They will provide all information regarding the CAT examination and also guide you with relevant preparation strategies to crack it easily.

What is CAT exam?  

Common Admission Test (CAT) is an online entrance exam that is held to offer admissions to IIMs and other top-rated B-schools across the country. Usually, it is conducted in the month of November or in the 1st week of December every year. So, you have only one chance to crack CAT as it is held only once a year. 

Before finding Is CAT exam tough, it’s essential to know about its exam pattern first. In the CAT examinations, a total of 100 questions are asked that are divided into three sections: Quantitative Ability, Verbal ability & reading comprehension, and logical reasoning & data interpretation. Out of the 100 questions asked in CAT, each section consists of 34 questions.

The marks allotted for each correct answer are 3 marks. However, 1 mark is detected for every incorrect answer. The negative marking is applicable only for multiple-choice questions not for the descriptive type of questions. The duration of CAT is 3 hours, so each section gets 1 hour. 

Is CAT exam tough? What do experts say?

Manjot is an expert on SeekEx who scored 99.90 percentile in CAT. He believes that the CAT exam is not at all a tough exam if you prepare well for it. According to Manjot, even a 10th student score well in a CAT exam. It’s completely about your accuracy, speed, and logical sense so if anyone prepares by using proper strategies they can score well in CAT exam. The CAT exam becomes tough only because the competition is quite high. 

While answering ‘Is CAT exam tough’, our experts explain that different people have different levels of knowledge. That’s the reason everybody needs a different CAT preparation strategy after identifying their levels and capabilities. Further, he suggests that if a CAT aspirant is confident that they have the required knowledge then simply practicing through mock tests is enough for preparing for CAT. However, if a student is not confident about CAT exam patterns then they can opt for offline coaching classes.

Video Credit: SeekEx 

Manjot, a top scorer in CAT, an expert in SeekEx says that if a person remains focused then they can easily crack CAT. But if even after giving their best if a student fails to crack CAT, then they should not lose hope as there are many other MBA exams that they can opt for and get admission to good B-schools.

How to prepare for CAT?

For preparing for CAT, one needs a smart preparation strategy to avoid unnecessary effort. Preparing smartly will not only consume less time but also help you to crack CAT easily. The tips provided by experts are applicable for beginners as well as those who are appearing for CAT 2nd or 3rd time. To understand ‘Is the CAT exam tough’ it’s important to first analyze the CAT exam modules and patterns deeply. 

Basically, the CAT exam is designed in such a way that it measures the aptitude, analytical and communication skills of the aspirants. Besides that, it also evaluates you on the basis of areas of English language and usage, analysis of a situation with data, and approach to take a particular decision using basic mathematical and reasoning skills. 

3 ways of CAT entrance exam preparation

Experts suggest different strategies to crack CAT exam with ease and score high. Usually, they suggest these three CAT preparation strategies:

• Self-study with the right CAT material: One can easily prepare for CAT examination by self-study. If you have a strong foundation and you are well aware of the topics asked in CAT then the self-study would be enough for preparing for CAT examination. 
• Join CAT coaching: If you don’t have an idea about CAT entrance exam or CAT exam subjects then it’s essential for you to join a coaching institute. It will help you to gain insights about the CAT exam and thus you can prepare accordingly. 
• Blend of both self-study and coaching: Most of the toppers of CAT examination prefer to use a blend of both self-study and coaching. This enables the aspirants to prepare by themselves and also take the guidance of the coaching whenever required. 

5 Step Preparation Strategy for CAT examination

Whether you get into a coaching institute for preparing or you prefer to do self-study and prepare, these 5 step preparation strategy for CAT is applicable for both types of aspirants. For finding, ‘Is CAT exam tough’, you must first check out the steps for preparing for CAT: 

1. Check the CAT exam Pattern and Syllabus: Understanding the exam pattern and syllabus will help you analyze your level and prepare accordingly. Moreover, it will also help you plan your preparation strategies effectively. 
2. Choose self-study or coaching: First, you need to determine how hard is CAT and then choose whether you can prepare with self-study or you need to take coaching for preparing for CAT entrance examination. 
3. Know the best books: While preparing for CAT, taking help from the right books enable the students to prepare easily in the right direction. So, you should also find the details about the best books for CAT preparation and then prepare a section-wise strategy. Only after understanding the topics of the subjects a student can analyze ‘Is CAT exam tough?’
4. Take Mock Tests: After an aspirant prepare using a strategy related to the study materials and CAT preparation books, they can take mock tests. It will provide a clear view of the current level of examination and also prepares you well for the upcoming exams. 
5. Consult CAT toppers: Beyond all the preparations, you can also consult CAT toppers on SeekEx. They are available as career experts on the SeekEx app to share their experience regarding CAT examination and the techniques you can follow to prepare well for the examination. 

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Important section of CAT | CAT preparation strategy | CAT exam subjects

CAT is among the toughest exams in India and is divided into three major sections. These sections are verbal ability, Data Interpretation and reasoning, and Quantitative Aptitude. Both the verbal ability and quantitative aptitude section has around 34 questions each. Whereas the DILR section consists of 32 questions. To find out ‘Is CAT exam tough?’, you need to understand the details about each section individually. Here are sections that are available for CAT examination:

1. Verbal Ability

If the difficulty level of VARC is considered then it will come under moderate to high. Over the years, the competition in the CAT examination has increased manifold and so the difficulty level is also increasing. This is making the CAT difficult, especially for those who are planning to start their preparation from scratch. Before starting preparation, you must know how difficult is CAT and then proceed with the preparation strategies. The types of questions included in this section are reading comprehension, para summary, sentence completion, and correction, word usage, fill in the blanks, and old sentences.

2. Data Interpretation and logical reasoning

It is one of the main sections of CAT examination so if you want to know ‘Is CAT exam tough or not?’ you must know about the topics that are included in this section. The difficulty level of this exam is also moderate to high. The main topics included in this section are Seating arrangement and data arrangement, tables and caselets, Blood relations, data sufficiency, assumption and binary puzzles, Syllogisms, Venn diagrams, and graphs related.

Some aspirants find DI and LR sections most tricky because the questions are lengthy and time-consuming and most importantly complicated. Although it is one of the scoring sections for those who are weak in qualitative Aptitude and verbal ability. 

3. Quantitative Ability

The Quantitative ability section is a moderately difficult section considering CAT’s difficulty level. Although it’s tough to determine the exact difficulty level of quantitative ability because a mixture of different difficulty levels are asked in this section. Besides that, it also includes a variety of topics like Time and Work, algebra, number system, basic arithmetic, speed, distance and time, simple and compound Interest, Trigonometry, logarithms and sets, and profitability, profit, loss, and discounts. 

These are the three major sections included in the CAT examination. Those who want to find Is CAT exam tough or not should practice questions from all these topics regularly. It will not only help in improving the concepts but also helps in improving the speed to attempt the sections. You should always start preparing for the topics from the basic questions and then move to the advanced level questions. With proper practice, you can make small variations in marks and that will affect your sectional percentile as well. 

CAT Preparation Strategy

Now, you are well aware of all the sections in CAT, and hopefully, you have also found Is CAT difficult, so it’s time to decide on the CAT preparation strategy. The most important phase of the CAT examination is to determine the plan that you will follow to prepare for the exam.

You should decide the strategy and stick to it. Before deciding on the preparation strategy you should take a mock test and analyze your strong and weak topics and accordingly you can determine which topics you need to work upon. Here are some of the tips provided by experts to make a strong CAT preparation strategy:

•  Experts suggest that you should complete all the topics included in the syllabus. Once you complete all the topics you should start taking mock tests and revising the topics that you find difficult in the mock tests. 
• Considering all these factors you should create a schedule of studying. You should try to practice lots of questions, especially from those sections that you find difficult. 
• You should try to practice different variations of questions that enable you to develop problem-solving skills and provide you the ability to tackle any type of question asked in the CAT exam more efficiently and accurately. 
• Apart from taking mock tests, it’s essential to solve several sample papers and question papers. It will enable you to understand the exam pattern in a better way. 
• After taking mock tests and sample papers you should analyze them properly. Only with the proper analysis you can make changes in the current preparation strategy and develop personal time management techniques. 

Important things to remember while Giving CAT exam

If you are one who wants to know, ‘Is CAT exam tough?’ must understand that in comparison to other types of examinations, CAT has a higher difficulty level. Although with an effective strategy and positive approach you can easily crack CAT. Here are some important things that you need to remember while appearing for CAT exam: 

• Number of questions to attempt: Usually, the aspirants have a common problem that is they are unable to attempt all the questions as the time is limited. You must know that the CAT exam is not designed in such a way that you can attempt all the questions. The purpose of the questions of CAT is to test your aptitude ability and how well you can identify the type of questions you can answer. There will be some questions that will be beyond your capabilities. That’s the point, you should identify those questions and identify the ones that you can solve easily. Although if you want to maximize your percentile you should try to optimize your attempts for difficult questions. 
• Speed: While discussing Is CAT exam tough or not, we have already discussed that speed is what makes the difference. If you can maintain your speed in the examination then you can easily identify the right questions to solve and also use your time efficiently to maintain the overall attempt rate for each section. You can easily improve your speed by practicing lots of mock tests from each section. It’s essential to practice once every two days to improve your speed significantly. 
• Accuracy: While attempting the questions you have to remain absolutely sure about your attempts. As there is negative marking so you will not want to attempt any such question that you are doubtful about. In fact, if you attempt absolutely correct questions but few in number then also you can score high in CAT exam. So, you should carefully select the questions that you chose to answer.  

How SeekEx can help?

CAT entrance exam is a type of competitive exam that one can crack with a few simple strategies. If you want to determine the right strategies to prepare for CAT successfully, then take the help of career experts. SeekEx is a platform that provides access to experts who have scored more than 90 percentile in CAT. They can explain to you the difficulties that you may face while preparing for CAT and also provide tips that will enable you to score a high percentile.

If you are one who wants to know ‘Is CAT exam tough’ then you should consult career experts to get the right insights about CAT and also make a schedule that is appropriate for your preparation. 

Conclusion

Is CAT exam tough? Yes, indeed it is tough depending on your level of aptitude. Overall, it can be considered a moderately tough exam which can be turned into easy if you start your preparation early and practice all three sections with an effective plan. While preparing for CAT, you should put your efforts to learn the concepts and basics and remain calm while giving the exam.

However, taking help from career experts will be an added advantage as they will provide you with an effective preparation strategy. The experts on SeekEx app are toppers so they can guide you in the best possible way to crack CAT. 

Be confident, discover your skills, take guidance from experts on SeekEx and crack CAT with ease!

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is GMAT easier than CAT?

As GMAT has a well-defined set of questions and syllabus so it can be considered easier than CAT.

2. Is the CAT necessary for an MBA?

No, CAT is not necessary for MBA. There are many other MBA entrance exams other than CAT like GMAT, XAT, etc. CAT is only necessary if you want to get into IIMs.

3. How many attempts for CAT?

There is no limit to attempting CAT.

4. How to prepare for CAT without coaching?

If you have clear concepts then by practicing mock tests you can easily prepare for CAT without coaching?

5. How many hours of preparation are needed for CAT?

3 to 4 hours of self-study would be enough to prepare for CAT.