About 1.95 lakh candidates across the country took the CAT 2016 on December 4, 2016.
The exam was scheduled from 9 am to 12 pm (first slot) and 2 pm to 5 pm (second slot).
It was speculated that the question paper will throw a surprise at the test-takers which was in the form of Geometry. In the QA section, higher weightage was allotted to Geometry than other topics.
CAT 2016 Analysis:
Here's section wise analysis of CAT 2016 exam from MBA expert Mikin Shah, ForesightSchool.
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Verbal : Moderate Difficulty Level. Emphasis on Reading comprehension, sentence sequencing and central idea. Difficulty level was average. The topics for RC passages were quite manageable. There were about 5 Non-MCQ questions. Average student could have attempted 18-20 questions while scholars could have gone upto 25-27.
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DI-LR : High Difficulty Level. Although easier compared to last year. Trick was to identify easier sets. For the easier sets, calculator proved to be very useful. It was easy to get lost and waste time in this section. An attempt of 10-12 questions will be sufficient to clear the sectional cut-off.
QA : Moderate to High Difficult Level. This was a well designed section. The surprise was higher weightage of geometry questions. Challenge was to go through all questions as there were a lot of speed breakers. An attempt of 18-20 questions would have been optimum. However the sectional cut-off could be cleared with about 15 attempts.
Overall Difficulty Level : Moderate to High : Optimum attempts - 48 to 55.
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CAT scores are used for admission to 19 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and various other top B-Schools. Are you eligible for the IIMs? To know more, click on the image beside. |
About the Expert: Mikin Shah is a serial topper. He cracked CAT in 2003 with 99.11 percentile score. He was ranked first in GCET 2004, 2009 & 2010. He topped CMAT 2012-13 and was ranked fifth in CMAT 2013-14. In 2015, he cracked CAT once again with 99.53 percentile. He is the co-founder and director at foresight school – an educational institute which specializes in entrance exams, MBA Tuitions and financial courses such as CFA.

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Student Forum
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Yes, students can take admissions to BITS Law School without appearing from CLAT exam. BITS Law School admissions also conducts its own entrance exam called BITS Law Admission Test. Shortlisted candidates need to appear for Personal Interview rounds for admissions.
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Contributor-Level 9
Answered 2 days ago
VGIM Cutoff 2025 is not available yet. However, according to the VGIM MBA/PGDM cutoff 2024, the overall MAT percentile required for admission to PGDM course is 70 for the students belonging to the General AI category
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Contributor-Level 10
Answered a week ago
No, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar has not mentioned that it accepts CAT score for MBA admissions on their portals. Candidates are instead required to appear for an in-house entrance exam that is conducted by GNDU itself.
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Contributor-Level 10
Answered a week ago
Yes, IBSAT exam is comparatively easier than CAT in terms of syllabus difficulty level and competition. CAT question paper requires high anlaytical solving skills to score well in exam, whereas IBSAT exam assesses candidate's speed and accuracy. The difficulty level of IBSAT exam is moderate.
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Contributor-Level 7
Answered a week ago
No, to gain admission to the MBA course at this institute, candidates have to appear for the CAT exam and then for the Group Discussion (GD) and/or Personal Interview (PI) rounds.
Students are only shortlisted for the GD and PI rounds based on their performance in the CAT exam. Students who clear bo
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Contributor-Level 10
Answered a week ago
Srinivas University - Bangalore Campus accepts national or state-level Management entrance exam scores for admission in MBA. Hence, aspirants can apply via CAT scores. They can also appear for SUAT conducted by the university for admission.
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Guide-Level 15
Answered a week ago
The registrations for the exam generally start from the month of August and continue till September. The admit cards are released by November. Exam is conducted usually by last week of November. Students can download their results by December.
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Contributor-Level 10
Answered a week ago
Yes, COEP, Pune does accept CAT score to admit candidates for MBA admissions. During CAP rounds, if candidates have a valid score in CAT, they will be chosen based on those scores only. Thus, such candidates are not required to reappear for MAH-CET.
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Contributor-Level 10
Answered a week ago
No, to gain admission to the MBA course at this university, candidates have to either attempt the CAT or other accepted exams (MAT, SUAT, etc.) and then appear in the Group Discussion (GD) and Personal Interview (PI) rounds.
Students are shortlisted for the GD and PI rounds based on their performa
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Contributor-Level 10
Answered a week ago
IIT Madras CAT cutoff 2025 is generally not released to the public and is instead only visible to students with login credentials.
Based on the previous year's estimated CAT cutoff for the General AI category, the overall CAT percentile was 85.11.
Note: The cutoff data provided is not official. It i
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Contributor-Level 10


Vipra Shrivastava is MA in English Literature from Delhi University with extensive experience in content writing of over 14 years. She has been handling content for Management, Accounting and Commerce streams for 8
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