CAT 2018: Know These Four Things That Left Students Bewildered

<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Common Aptitude Test or CAT is an exam well known for its unpredictability&period;Since its commencement&comma; every year the exam throws surprises at the aspirants leaving them flummoxed and CAT 2018 followed the same age old tradition&period; <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;iimcat2018&period;in&sol;" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">CAT<&sol;a> was conducted on 25th November&comma; 2018 and left the candidates bewildered over the changes that Indian Institute of Management Calcutta&comma; the paper setter&comma; brought in it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">The exam has 3 sections namely the Verbal Ability &amp&semi; Reading Comprehension&comma; Logical Reasoning &amp&semi; Data Interpretation and Quantitative Aptitude and 1 hour is allotted for each section&period; Each question in the section is of 3 marks and 1 mark is deducted for each wrong answer as a part of its 1&sol;3 negative marking scheme&period; However for the &&num;8216&semi;Type in the Text&&num;8217&semi; type questions&comma; there is no negative marking&period; The four star highlights of CAT 2018 are as under&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2>1&period; HIGHER DIFFICULTY LEVEL OF QUANTITATIVE APTITUDE SECTION<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Since the past few years&comma; the Quantitative Aptitude section of CAT was a sigh of relief for the aspirants especially for the non-engineers owing to its easy-moderate difficulty level&period; This helped even the non-engineers to score well in this section and fetch a handsome percentile&period; CAT 2018 threw a googly towards the aspirants with its difficulty level being a notch or two higher than the past few years&period; Looking at the scenario&comma; it is expected that the QA percentiles this year will drop&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2>2&period; THE &OpenCurlyQuote;CAT 2018 IIM CALCUTTA’ WATERMARK<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">One new thing incorporated this year was the CAT 2018 watermark put up by the test maker- IIM Calcutta&period; While the watermark posed a little irritation and difficulty for some time in the VARC section of some students&comma; they got accustomed to it later on&period; However&comma; the other sections namely LRDI and QA did not have any watermark as such&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2>3&period; VARC AND LRDI DIDN’T LET BREATHE EITHER<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">While QA section was the toughest&comma; Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation &lpar;LRDI&rpar; and the Verbal Ability section continued to be of the moderate level&period; While the Reading Comprehensions were lengthy and time consuming in VARC section&comma; the puzzles and data sets of LRDI were mind boggling to an extent&period; The summary type questions of Verbal Ability section were also reportedly a tough nut to crack&period; Thus overall CAT 2018 was a tad bit difficult than the past few years&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2>4&period; THE TIME LIMITS<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Just like the last few years&comma; CAT 2018 also had sectional time limits&period; Candidates weren’t allowed to switch from one section to another&period; This plays as a levelling ground for the students who have a command on one subject and find the other one difficult&period; The VARC&comma; LRDI and QA sections had 34&comma; 32&comma; 34 questions respectively and each of these sections had a time limit of 1 hour&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">CAT 2018 has thrown its surprises&period; How the aspirants batted against them is yet to be seen after the authorities declare results in the first week of January&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;