CAT 2020 Official Mock Analysis
One thing that all the CAT aspirants were waiting for was CAT official mock 2020 which was to be released on 16th October but after that, the assumptions were it will be released in October but that also turned out to be vague. Now, finally on 5th November it has been released.
Well, it proved to be a relief also but mostly, it created a lot of confusion and terror in the aspirants minds. Well, let’s clear all the confusion which is going on.
Why CAT official mock 2020 is important?
Basically, CAT official mock works as a tutorial for the students which familiarizes them with the platform on which CAT will be held.
How to access CAT 2020 official mock:-
Open IIM Cat official website.
Under the Quick Tour section on the bottom of the website, you will find a link stating CAT 2020 mock test link.
A pdf will open. It will contain the link of the official mock 2020.
A window will open with a standard template and with demo credentials filled.
You can continue with demo credentials or can enter your own credentials too.
Click sign in and you will be redirected to the testing window.
CAT 2020 Official mock Pattern:-
Now, in CAT 2020 official mock:-
- There are 3 sections – Quant, LRDI and VARC.
- The total time allotted is 120 minutes and each section has a time limit of 40 minutes.
- Negative marking for MCQ’s and no negative marking for TITA questions or skipped questions.
- Every correct answer awards you 3 marks.
- Total number of questions in CAT official mock are 100. Sectional division is – 34 in VARC, 32 in DILR and 34 in Quant.
What does CAT 2020 official mock entails?
- Basically, CAT 2020 official mock is just to familiarize the students with the testing environment. The PDF clearly states that “The objective of this Mock Test is not to disclose the exam pattern for CAT 2020 and the actual exam may or may not contain similar type or number of questions”. It clearly means that it is not meant to disclose the pattern.
- It contains questions from last year CAT papers. It will be good for the students to try out these as it will help them to review their preparation
- The structure is most likely to be different from what the official mock displays.
Discrepancy between Instructions and Interface?
Timer:- In Instructions, it is clearly mentioned that the sectional time limit is 40 minutes and a candidate could navigate from one section to other only after the completion of time.
But in mock, a section could be submitted without the time restriction. As you can see, we were able to submit VARC section in less than 1 minute
Marking scheme:– In instructions, it is mentioned that for every correct answer, 3 marks will be awarded and negative marking will be there for wrong attempted questions excluding TITA i.e. -1. But in mock, no negative marking was there. On top of every question, it was showing that +3 for correct and 0 for wrong. This surely confuses a lot of candidates but in actual CAT, negative marking is going to be there.
Surprise elements:-
Well, there are going to be a few surprises for students till 29th November like the actual pattern will not come to light till 29th November 2020. So students have to deal with the anxiety but still, you can practice mocks till then which are based on new format to make yourself familiar with the time limit.
Conclusion:-
Well, we could take out the conclusion that CAT official mock does not disclose the pattern at all. It Is highly unlikely that CAT will present students with 100 questions to be completed in 120 minutes as for that, they have to reduce the difficulty level to a good extent and that is not possible. So it would contain less number of questions with the same marking scheme as of last year i.e. 3 marks for the correct answer, -1 for the wrong(excluding TITA), and 0 for skipped ones. Well, it does not change anything. Focus on mocks as you were doing earlier. With less days remaining, this is surely going to be a tough fight but in the end, that is what matters