The Common Admission Test is an exam that is known to be the most common and well-known entrance exam for students who want to pursue their MBA or PGDM degrees from the prolific IIMs. Every year there is a lack of students who are preparing for the CAT exam. All the students have the same dream of doing well and scoring great percentiles that can really help them to get an entry into the best colleges out there. Students start their preparation well in advance for the exam. One of the important aspects that becomes essential for students to know is the exam pattern. While students are preparing, sometimes they can feel that they don't have adequate information about the exam, therefore the first and key step for exam preparation should be to know the exam pattern. Many students for this reason take CAT coaching from institutions like Hitbullseye in order to make sure that they only get the right information provided to them. Students also like to incorporate CAT previous year papers in their preparation.

Marking Scheme Of CAT Exam

There are majorly two types of questions that come in the CAT exam, and the marking scheme is also based on these types of questions. The first type of questions that students will see, which are in the maximum capacity in the exam, are multiple-choice questions. The other types of questions in the exam are type-in-the-answer type questions. The marking scheme of the CAT exam is also based on this. For every correct answer for MCQ based and TITA based questions, students will be awarded 3 marks. When it comes to the incorrect multiple-choice questions, students will see that there is a negative marking of 1 mark. There is no negative marking for incorrect answers in the type-in-the-answer-type questions, which means that students can solve these questions without worrying about them being deducted.

Benefits Of CAT Previous Year Papers 

One of the very beneficial things about the CAT exam question papers is that students are truly able to get the most authentic understanding of what the exam can actually appear like. This cuts off a lot of nervousness for the students because when the students do not have any idea, the anticipation of what the question paper in the exam looks like will always make them feel nervous. Rather, when the students have solved enough previous year papers, they have good confidence in themselves to know that they have a certain idea of what the exam question paper is going to be like. This helps the students to go ahead with a positive mindset while giving the exam.

Students also prefer to solve the various CAT previous years question papers to get good practice for the exam. One of the important aspects for the preparation of any entrance exam is to always practice as much as possible. What can be a better thing to practise with than the previous year question papers. Students who are preparing for the exam do realise the importance of this and make sure that they're giving their time to solving various previous year papers so that they not only get the idea of what the exam question paper looks like, but they also get a lot of practice with different questions.

When to use CAT Previous Papers?

The previous CAT papers are always readily available on the internet. Students can always have access to them whenever they need. Students should try and be well versed with the syllabus first before starting with these previous CAT papers. Some students have a tendency to completely rely on these question papers and leave their practice behind. This will never result in students scoring well in the CAT exam.

The right time for solving the CAT previous year papers should be towards the end of the preparation. When students have learned all the syllabus, gone through practice papers and sample papers, and attempted various mock tests, that is when students should start with solving CAT previous year papers. These will just give the last extra bit of revision to the students and will make them see the pattern of the question papers that have come.

Conclusion

Whether it is the CAT previous year papers or any other practice material, it is only there to help the students accelerate their performance, but eventually, if students are not motivated enough and are inconsistent, they would not be able to put in the right kind of effort. In order to be able to value the practice material that students are provided with, it is important for them to become serious about their preparation. The effort of the coaching institution, like Hitbullseye, is also always to make sure that students are able to tap into their potential and realize that their seriousness will bring them results in the exam. In order to have good preparation, students should incorporate the CAT question papers in their preparation and also make sure that they are taking help from the other material as well.

Frequently Asked Questions 

1. How many times is the CAT exam conducted?

The CAT exam is conducted once every year. There are different slots in which the students appear for the exam, but the exam itself is not conducted in different months. Rather, it is an exam that is only conducted once in a particular year. This means that there are thousands of aspirants who every single year want to prepare for the exam and appear for it. Students have to put their heart and soul into the preparation to get good results.

2. Is the CAT exam preparation easy?

It depends upon the efforts that students are willing to put in, which will decide if they can have good preparation for the CAT exam or not. There are times that students are able to put away all the distractions and truly work upon what is important, and they see the result. It shows in their preparation. When the students work hard and they put in the time and effort that are required for good preparation, they will see the results that will truly make them happy. Students need to know about the CAT exam syllabus also for good preparation.

3. What is the sectional time limit for the CAT exam?

There is a strict sectional time limit of 40 minutes for the CAT exam. This means that to complete every section of the exam, the students are given the 40 minutes of time duration, and once this time duration is over, the computer screen automatically moves to the next section. The students then don't have any option with them to go back and make any changes in the previous section.