CAT is a common entrance exam conducted for admission to MBA programs in some of the top B-Schools in India, including IIMs. Every year the test is conducted in the month of November. This year too, CAT 2020 will be held on November 29.
The examination is held each year on the different TCS centers across India since 2015 with two slots, morning and evening. The morning slot is from 9 am to 12 noon and the evening slot is conducted from 2:30 pm to 5:30 pm. Students can choose between the two slots.
Though the official site for CAT doesn’t carry the syllabus, it is a wide syllabus based on current topics and previous-years’ question papers. Although to get a gist of what to expect, one should take a mock test that will be released by IIM-Indore on the official website on October 16.
CAT 2020 Exam Pattern
CAT 2020 will be conducted by IIM Indore and the exam pattern remains the same with three sections, Quantitative Ability (QA), Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DI&LR), and Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC) and a total of 100 questions.
The QA section of CAT exam is a Mathematics section in which the topics are covered in Class 10 to Class 12. The weightage for this section is 34%.
The DILR section consists of two sub-sections.. In this section, there are 16 questions each of data interpretation and of logical reasoning. The weightage of this is 32%.
The VARC section consists of reading comprehension and verbal ability. The RC consists of a wide range of topics such as current affairs, literature, business and economy. Whereas the verbal ability has the grammar part identification. This section has a total weightage of 34%.
Also, there is no compulsion to follow any order to solve the question paper. Students can choose any section as per their choice to start with.
CAT 2020 Syllabus
Here is a break up of CAT 2020 syllabus:
| QA | DILR | VARC |
| Number System | Venn Diagrams | Reading Comprehension |
| Profit, Loss and Discount | Logical Matching | Sentence correction |
| LCM and HCF | Seat Arrangement | Grammar |
| Trigonometry | Binary Logic | Analogies |
| Probability | Logical Connectives | Synonyms and Antonyms |
| Ratio and proportion | Blood Relations | Summary Questions |
| Surds and Indices | Syllogism | Fill in the Blanks |
| QA | DILR | VARC |
| Mixtures and Alligations | Logical Sequence | Meaning Usage Match |
| Complex Numbers | Clocks and Calendars | Jumbled Paragraphs |
| Speed, Time and Distance | Cubes | Facts, Inferences, Judgements |
| Quadratic and linear Equations | Column Graphs | Cloze Passage |
| Set Theory and Functions | Bar Graphs | |
| Averages | Puzzles | |
| Mensuration | Caselets | |
| Coordinate Geometry and Geometry | Tables | |
| Permutation and Combination | Sets | |
| Time and Work | Line Charts | |
| Inequalities | Pie Charts | |
| Percentages | Series | |
| Simple and Compound Interest | Family Tree | |
| Sequences and Series | Data Structure | |
| Logarithm | Data Arrangement | |
| Binary Logic | ||
| Coding – Decoding |
Students need to keep in mind that there is a sectional cut-off for each section if they are aiming for the IIMs. So, the aspirant will have to prepare with all the three sections thoroughly.
As there is no predefined syllabus for the examination, studying previous-years’ question papers becomes an important part of the preparation for the CAT Exam. If we take a look at the previous years’ question papers, the weightage on the topic on DILR and VARC sections remains the same for both the slots. The weightage on each topic differs from morning to evening slot only for QA section. So, there is no difference between the syllabus point of view from slot to slot and expecting the same this year. Thus, consistent practice is required to crack the CAT Exam.
