CAT 2021: Expected Dates, Exam Pattern, Syllabus and Past Year’s Trends

Before actually deciding to start a career in Master of Business Administration, you must know about the biggest gateway- CAT. Common Admission Test (CAT) is a competitive management entrance exam. It is conducted at the national level.

As per the last year's analysis, there are a total of 2,27,835 candidates are applied for CAT 2020. In that, 1, 90,143 students appeared for the CAT exam. A total of 37,692 candidates did not appear for the CAT exam last year due to one cause of infection COVID-19. So the present percentage has reduced when compared to previous year i.e. 83.456%.

Even when the exam conducting body for CAT changes, the dates have mostly been the last Sunday of November. Keeping this trend in mind, we expect the CAT 2021 to be on November 28, 2021.

1. Candidates who successfully completed a Bachelor’s Degree in any stream with 50% of aggregate marks (45% for SC/ ST/ PwD) from any recognized university/ institute are eligible to apply for CAT 2021.
2. Candidates who appeared in the final year of the degree examination or who have a backlog in their examination can also apply.
3. There is no age restriction to apply for the CAT exam 2021.
4. CAT 2021 does not mention that one needs to have any work experience to be eligible to apply, but if one has it, they are likely to have an edge.

• Every correct answer carries 3 marks.
• Every wrong answer carries -1.
• Negative marking do not apply to non-MCQs or TITA (type in the answer) questions.
• The order of attempting the sections is pre-determined.
• Sections start with VARC, followed by DILR, and ends with QA.

The details of the CAT 2021 syllabus for exam are as follows:

The selection procedure differs according to various participating institutes. However, the one uniform feature among all is the preliminary round selection where candidates are shortlisted based on CAT cut-off.

For the second round selection, candidates will have to appear for the Group Discussion (GD) or Writing Ability Test (WAT) or both and Personal Interview (PI) rounds. The new IIMs have in fact started to conduct Common Admission Process (CAP) where the shortlisted candidates from all participating IIMs appear for WAT and PI rounds jointly.

After the end of CAT selection procedure, each IIM release their separate merit lists. The final selection process of B-schools or the CAT selection procedure of participating B-schools is based on multiple criteria such as performance in CAT and GD/WAT and PI rounds and past academic records and or work experience. The criteria or parameters vary from institute to institute. IIMs release their detailed admission criteria after the CAT notification every year.

The tentative dates for CAT 2021 are listed below. Keep checking this window for more updates.

• 9 candidates have secured 100 percent overall in CAT 2020 examination.
• Out of the nine candidates who got the overall percentage, 7 were from engineering / technical background, 1 candidate was from the mathematical background and 1 was from a management background.
• In CAT 2020, 19 candidates scored a total of 99.99 percent, of whom 18 were men and 1 was women. Of these candidates, 16 are from Engineering / Technology, 2 from Economics, and 1 from Management.
• CAT 2020 was held on November 29, 2020, in three shifts. A total of 1,90,144 candidates appeared for the exam, which was held at 430 test centers in 159 cities across India.
• The gender distribution of the candidates who appeared for CAT 2020 is as follows;

After the completion of the CAT 2020 exam, the CAT convener provided slot-wise statistics on the total number of candidates appearing for the exam.

Stay informed, Stay ahead and stay inspired with MBA Rendezvous