The countdown to the Common Admission Test 2005 has begun.

How tough are CAT questions?

What will the cut-offs be?

Will the paper repeat the 2004 pattern?

• CAT 2005: Strategies, tips... more

CAT expert Gautam Puri, co-founder and managing director of Career Launcher (I) Ltd, chatted with CAT aspirants for one hour and answered a bevy of such queries.

An MBA from IIM-Bangalore, he has had successful stints at Hindustan Petroleum, Britannia [Get Quote] and VAM Organics. He has prepared close to 1,00,000 students for CAT. To keep himself abreast with the latest trends, he has been sitting for the examination every year for the last 10 years.

Here is the transcript:

Part II: Do you need work experience?

Part III: Does Verbal Ability worry you?

Part IV: 'CAT gets a little tougher every year'

Part V: Want to ace CAT? Revise, revise revise

AHMAD: SIR ,HOW MANY COLLEGE DONOT SEE THE SECTIONAL CUTOFF THROUGH CAT SCORE

Gautam Puri: Most of the institutes have sectional cut-offs; exceptions are FMS and IIFT. In the CAT brigade, the lower ranked institutes do not have sectional cut-offs.

Ashish: Does anyone know what was the cut offs for the last year CAT?

Gautam Puri: QA around 14, DI around 16, English around 20 and a total of 55-58.

fundmanager: Is placements provided for FPM of IIMS?

Gautam Puri: FPM students also participate in the placement process along with the MBA students.

RJ: Hi..can u tel me what kinda gd topics r usualy given?

Gautam Puri: Current affairs.

vaishali: how abt the plunging mock scores??

Gautam Puri: Take inspiration from Yuvraj Singh [Images]. After a string of failures, he scored 79 against Sri Lanka [Images] in the sixth ODI on November 9.

sangeeta: is it more important now to sole full length tests or go about practising secion tests...

Gautam Puri: Maximum of 2 FLTs per week. Focus on revising the earlier Mock CATs and FLTs.

sanjeev: sir very warm afternoon what is age for appering in cat or iim

Gautam Puri: No age limits, you need to be a graduate.

vipul: sir i am A CL student frm kolkata. i normally clear the total cut off easily but the problem is with EU. which institutes do not take sectional cut offs into account?

Gautam Puri: IIMs, S P Jain, MDI definitely go for sectional cut-offs. Others are not particular. Please ensure that you do not get a zero in any section.

rahul: gautam just wanted to know what exactly we should study now?

Gautam Puri: Revise important questions from earlier Mocks and FLTs.

ronit: percentile or score?

Gautam Puri: While taking a paper you can only focus on the score or attempts, not on percentile.

dev: does CA articleship count as work experience?

Gautam Puri: No, but it will help in the interviews.

ANKUR: Hi sir i am not satisfied with my mock cat's result pls tell me how to prepare in these last 10 days

Gautam Puri: Pick up all your old Mocks and FLTs and review the mistakes you've made. Specifically spend time on mistakes that have been repeated in two or more tests.

Ashish: If there are 4 sections in CAT -1 RC, 1 EU, 1QA and 1 DI, then what would be the sectional cutoffs for each? Has such a paper ever come till date?

Gautam Puri: This was the norm till 1998. But it should not matter as the question types do not change.

vipul: sir is there any weightage of CAT score at the time of GD and PI?

Gautam Puri: No, but the cumulative scores are taken for the final call.

Nikhil: Will slogging a lot in my weak section for the last ten days help?

Gautam Puri: Yes, but choose your areas carefully. Focus on getting 100 percent accuracy and not on attempts.

Ashutosh: Hello Mr. Gautam..well i wanna ask that after clearing the CAT written exams, wat is the elimination ratio as far as the GD and PI is concerned..

Gautam Puri: About 2,500 students get interview calls from the IIMs and half of them make it to one of the IIMs.

cataspirant: hi gautam it is said the longer the questions the more the information in them so easier to get correct answers.. so shold we go for long questions which take time to read

Gautam Puri: This cannot be generalised. Focus on question types that you are comfortable with rather than on the length of the questions.

AHMAD: IS IT TRUE THAT IN XIMB THERE IS 80% RESERVATION IS FROM ORISSA CANDIDATE THEN HOW MANY SEETS R AVAILABLE FOR OTHER COLLEGE AND WHAT IS THE PERCENTILE NEEDED IN THAT

Gautam Puri: It is 50 percent and not 80 percent.

tanya: sir,presently i am doing my final year engg in comp sc,and recently got placed in INFOSYS [Get Quote].I want to give CAT exams..but not this year.I have to join the company next yr in SEP.What do you suggest..which is the right time i should give the exams??

Gautam Puri: If you have filled up the CAT 2005 form, take your chance with CAT this year itself. Else CAT 2006 should be okay.

RJ: Wana echo Sathya's question. Kindly clarify...Is there any diff b/W FMS's 2 courses M.S & F.THow many students appear for M.S as compared to F.T

Gautam Puri: MS is a new course and at present is not considered at par with an MBA from FMS. However it still is a very good option. MS had about 10,000 applicants last year.

sangeeta:  sir, is there any sectional cut off for RC...cos in one analysis of Mock cat, the prof said that "8 marks in RC would be enough to clear the cutoff"

Gautam Puri: In the current CAT pattern wherein EU and RC are together, there is only a combined cut-off of the section. No separate cut-offs for EU and RC.

Roshan: Hi Gautam, I know they vary every year, but what would be decnt cutoffs for calls from IIMs in each section, from the trend you must have observed over the years?

Gautam Puri: Safe scores for QA 14, DI 17, English 22 and total 60.

udita: Does Engineers get preference over others?

Gautam Puri: No.

john: Hi Gautam,i've have a different accent..do you think b'coz of that i won't be able to get through the GD and PI??

Gautam Puri: It will not matter. Your content is important.

Anirudha: sir my quant is preety good and i was afraid of english , but after giving mocks i found that english is not a problem but quant is giving me headache , not able to clear cut offs , but whatever attempts i make in quant i found most of them right .plz tell me what should i do about quant?

Gautam Puri: Brush up the list of formulae in Quantitative Aptitude. Review the standard questions belonging to each topic you are going to attempt in this section. Focus on accuracy and not on attempts.

abbaby: With so many institutes coming up which claim to give you the best course material and training, how does one chose which is the best option to go for?

Gautam Puri: Ask the students. Student feedback is the best yardstick.

karan: what pattern do u expect this time?

Gautam Puri: Hate to predict, but it could be a continuation of the CAT 2004 pattern.

Aniruddha: Hi though I am quite strong at LR problems, I naturally make lots of mistakes if I can't get enough time in the SIMCATs. Please advise any quick trick that can be adopted for this?

Gautam Puri: Try using the choices to fill up the table.

praveenshere: is it advisable to take a mock test everyday until two days before CAT?

Gautam Puri: No, take two tests a week, the last one on November 20. Take practice tests only between 10 am and 1 pm.

Get used to being fresh and mentally active at that time of day. Avoid taking full length tests late at night as far as possible this week.

Part II: Do you need work experience?

Part III: Does Verbal Ability worry you?

Part IV: 'CAT gets a little tougher every year'

Part V: Want to ace CAT? Revise, revise revise

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Illustration: Dominic Xavier