Celebrating the spirit of CAT

The Third Sunday of November has had a marked significance for Indian youth.

This is the day when young pilgrims of knowledge, irrespective of their socio-cultural-religious background, get together at different centers across the country and undertake one common ‘ritual’. A ritual to accomplish one common ‘mission’.

The ritual of writing an exam.

The mission of ‘Cracking CAT’.

Yes, I am talking about one of the most popular, most challenging and undoubtedly the most rewarding examinations of India, the ‘Common Admission Test’ or CAT.

CAT is not just an exam; It is a promise of a fabulous career.

The most tempting examination, The most sought after institutes, That’s CAT.

It is not just the average salary figures of management graduates but the chance to make a place in THAT elite group of intellectuals, which makes CAT so special. Going by statistics, IIMs are more selective than the Ivy League Universities.

CAT is not like the other exams wherein the eligibility of a test taker is restricted by age, field, higher registration amount or scope of syllabus. All you need to do to be eligible for CAT is to a graduate in any course with more than 50% aggregate. The syllabus consists of 10^th grade mathematics, reasoning and English.

An exam with such a wide scope of syllabus has yet forever been very competitive and never monotonous. The credit goes to the paper setters.

There has always been an element of surprise in CAT patterns. This is to keep you on your toes. Unlike past few years, this year, Verbal ability section had 60% more questions than the other two sections (Quantitative ability, Data interpretation and logical reasoning). The folks with weaker verbal ability will be at loss this time. The CAT pattern, in terms of number of questions, time-allocated, differential-marking, as well as style of questions in general, keeps on changing. This makes CAT more interesting.

After religiously taking CAT for the last three years, I have realized that it actually tests managerial skills of the candidate.

Perseverance: Putting up two and half hours at the test centre and maintaining your cool is no joke. Their might be reasons to feel uncomfortable. Say, a large noisy procession is passing by or perhaps your room is situated close to a stinky toilet. There may be distractions. But like the Arjuna, you ought to concentrate on the bull’s eye.

Decision making abilities: You need to know which question is to be attempted and which is to be left. You cannot solve all the questions in the paper within the allocated time. The trick is to solve the ‘solvable’ questions. Their might be certain questions which are simply very time consuming. Such questions are show stoppers. You should let go of a question after spending a minute or two. Bring ego into the picture and you are ruined.

Efficient allocation of resources: You need to perform equally well and clear cut offs in each of the three sections to get a call. If you are good at verbal but weak in quantitative, it may be a good idea to trade off some time from verbal to quantitative so that the performance is balanced. You could make out any other strategy that suits you.

CAT is a phenomenon. It is an event. A festival.

A festival which comes each year, makes its mark and reappears yet again the next year. Each year you start preparing for CAT by enrolling for mock cats. These tests are analyzed each week until the ‘D-Day’. The day before the test you wish others luck for the exam. It is forgivable to miss wishing diwali or holi but never forget wishing a CAT-taker before his exam. After the exam, the next step is to gauge your performance with the answer key published next the day. The results are out by December/January. If you make it, good enough or else the cycle continues the next year.

One of my friends had once joking remarked that he is going to open an After-CAT depression counseling center. After missing CAT cut-offs by single digits since the last 4 years, he is no doubt a veteran. Going by the number of CAT takers (over 2.5 lakh), I see no reason why his counseling center should not be a success.

It’s been two years since I passed college but I am still hooked to CAT. The same holds true for others in my peer group. I took CAT the first time simply because my classmates were taking it. I enjoyed the test and made a decent 97 percentile on it. I thought I could do better with some preparation and decided to take CAT again. This time I had a job and had to take time off for preparations. I missed cut-off in quant. But I still could not let go of CAT. I may be third time lucky.

Whether or not I make it, I would never regret preparing for CAT. The preparations have done me good. I can do complex calculations; my improved logical reasoning has helped me write better codes as a Software Engineer and I have better command over language. I won’t mind writing another CAT.

I am simply happy to be a part of the zealous crowd at the test centers. These are the people dying to make a difference in their lives.

I took my exam at a Noida center, which is quite close to the location where a bomb exploded injuring two children, just the day before the test. But I did not find a single absentee in the examination hall. All I found was the usual CAT ambience, the entrance crowded with youngsters, their parents coming to drop them off and giving them last minute test tips. It was mesmerizing.

I rejoice the spirit of CAT.

I salute the CAT takers.