How many questions to attempt in CAT?

How many questions to attempt in CAT? 

The CAT exam is considered to be one of the toughest MBA entrance exams in India. Also, its pattern and scoring system is a bit complex. Most of the candidates get confused because of its scoring system. They could not decipher which score translates to which percentile. The confusion again persists when the candidates do not know how many questions to attempt to get their desired percentiles or desired score. 

However, understanding the CAT’s scoring system, and in fact, cracking it is not that difficult. Therefore, we have written this detailed blog to clear out the confusion of each and every candidate. In this blog, you will find the answer to the question- How many questions to attempt in CAT?

But before we start answering this question, you need to know the difference between the CAT score and CAT percentile. 

Difference between CAT score and CAT Percentile 

‘What is the difference between CAT Score & CAT Percentile?’ - This is the most sought after question by CAT aspirants. Well, CAT score and CAT percentile are two factors – while each of them plays an equally important role in getting admission in one of the top IIMs. 

What is CAT Score? 

The total marks scored by a candidate is known as the CAT score. Simply put, it is the marks that you get by answering the questions correctly and taking into account the negative marking as well. To understand the CAT score better, let us have a quick look at the CAT marking scheme and CAT exam pattern-

1. There are a total of 100 questions in the CAT exam
2. There are three sections in the CAT exam- Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension with 34 questions, Logical Reasoning, and Data Interpretation with 32 questions and Quantitative Ability with 34 questions.
3. Each correct answer will fetch you three marks. 
4. Each incorrect answer will cost you one mark.
5. The non-MCQ type questions do not carry any negative marking.
6. The total marks of the CAT exam are 300.

So, if you answered 55 questions correctly and five questions incorrectly, then your raw CAT score will be 160 (55x3 – 5). However, that is your raw CAT score. The actual CAT score is scaled according to the difficulty level of the questions pertaining to both the slots of the CAT exam. This is done in order to maintain fairness among the candidates appearing in both the slots. The scaled CAT score can be more or less than the CAT raw score. However, most of the time, there is not much of a significant difference between the two. Your CAT scaled score is considered while preparing your Composite Score along with considering other factors like 10^th percentage, 12^th percentage, work experience, graduation percentage, and diversity (both gender and academic). 

What is CAT Percentile? 

On the other hand, the CAT percentile shows the performance of a candidate relative to the total number of candidates who have appeared for the exam. In other words, the CAT percentile is a metric of getting a relative score by ranking a candidate as opposed to other candidates based on their results. This relative performance percentile is obtained by evaluating marks obtained by the candidate in the CAT test, along with considering a few other criteria. CAT percentile plays a significant role in shortlisting or screening candidates for the subsequent round of Written Ability Test (WAT) and Personal Interview (PI). 

Let us explain the concept of CAT percentile with an example – Let us assume that a candidate scored a 95 percentile. This means that this particular candidate has performed better than 95 percent of the candidates who appeared for the exam. Or in other words, this candidate is in the top 5 percent of the candidates who appeared for the exam. 

Let us take another example for your better understanding. Let us assume that 1000 candidates appeared for an exam, and a particular candidate scored better than the 900 other candidates, then his or her percentile will be – (900/1000)x100= 90 percentile. 

How many questions to attempt in CAT? 

Let us analyze the score vs. percentile table given below for CAT 2018

As you can see from the table above that for scoring a 99 percentile, you need to answer correctly approximately 51 questions in total. Whereas, for scoring a 99 percentile in the Verbal section, you need to answer 25 questions correctly. And same follows for Quants and LRDI section- For a 99 percentile, answer 21 questions correctly in Quants and 15 questions correctly in LRDI. You can accordingly compute the number of questions you need to answer correctly as per your target percentiles. 

Here is the score vs. percentile table for CAT 2019

By observing the above tables, you can accordingly set the target for your CAT exam. Similarly, try to achieve those targets in the mock tests that you take. And don’t take these numbers as written in stone. This is because the CAT exam’s difficulty level varies every year. Even the sectional difficulty also varies. As you can see, a 56 score in verbal section translated into a 95 percentile in CAT 2019. Whereas, a verbal score of 62 translated into 95 percentile in CAT 2018. Therefore, try to have an approximate target of the number of questions you want to attempt in the CAT exam. This is because the verbal section of CAT 2019 was slightly on the tougher side as compared to CAT 2018. You need to stay calm during your CAT exam and accordingly tackle it. Mocks are an excellent way to practice. Closely analyze those mocks and take measures to improve your weak areas.