Taking this year's changes in the Common Admission Test timings and the announcement of cut-offs by IIMA, at this stage in your CAT preparation there will be a lot of discussion and anxiety regarding sectional and overall cut-offs, as well as other aspects of the IIM selection process.

First, a brief look at the IIM selection procedure. Let me put in a disclaimer that a lot of what I will be discussing regarding the procedure is based on solid research done by T.I.M.E over the years and has not been officially given by the IIMs.

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Let's start by looking at the parameters that IIMs use for selection:

• CAT
• Group Discussion
• Interview
• Work Experience
• Academic Record (Class 10 class, Class 12, Graduation)

These parameters are specified by the IIMs in the CAT bulletin. What is not specified is the weight given to each parameter. From our extensive analysis of previous CATs, we could make the following observations. Please note that these are based on extensive research done by T.I.M.E. but are not confirmed by the IIMs.

1. Scores on the above parameters are cumulative, with different weights assigned to each. i.e. The final admission offer made by the IIMs depends on the weighted average of all scores obtained in different parameters.

2. The weights are not specified by the IIMs but, based on our research, at least 60 per cent of the weightage will be for the written test.

3. The weights assigned are not the same for all IIMs. In fact, it seems likely that different IIMs even assign different weights to the sections of CAT, which explains why overall CAT percentile alone doesn't explain the IIM calls received (or not received) by students. For example, a student with 99.4 per cent may not get a call from, say, IIM Bangalore, but a student with 99.15 per cent may get a call. Such a scenario may be explained by the student profile (work experience or academic record), or by the fact that their scores in various sections are different.

Focusing on the written exam, the IIMs have sectional cut-offs for each section, i.e. RC/VA, DI/LA and QA. These sectional cut-offs are also not the same for all IIMs, though the cut-offs for various IIMs are very close. T.I.M.E's research -- covering the scores of over 800 IIM call-getters in CAT 2005 -- shows that sectional cut-offs for General Category students ranged from 16 per cent to 24 per cent of the total marks in the section, i.e. 8 to 12 marks.

Now for the CAT 2006 surprises.

First, there has been a 30-minute increase in time allotted for the exam, taking the total time to two and a half hours. So, how much will this affect the cut-off scores?

IIM A, in this year's CAT bulletin, has said that its cut-offs will be a minimum of 25 per cent for each section and 33 per cent overall. What does this mean? If we take it to mean that the percentage is out of the marks allotted, it implies cut-offs of 12.5 per section and 50 overall. That is a little difficult to achieve, especially in QA and DI/LA, where sectional cut-offs for the last few years have been around 10. Even the overall cut-off for CAT 2005 was about 46.

While there is a 30-minute increase in time allotted overall, would it be sufficient to increase the sectional cut-offs to 12.5? Empirical data from T.I.M.E. AIMCAT's this year indicates that increases in sectional cut-offs due to the extra 30 minutes is marginal. Do remember that most easy questions in the paper will have been attempted by students in the first 120 minutes, not leaving much for the additional 30 minutes; which is exactly what has been happening in the AIMCAT's this year.

Another way of interpreting the IIM A announcement would be to consider 'percentage' the way IIMs use it in the CAT scorecards. In the scorecards, IIMs give a percentile score as well as percentage score for each section as well as overall. The percentage is defined as a normalized percentage. Again, using data available from students, we have been able to understand percentage as Candidate score/Highest Score of the section X 100.

This explanation makes sense for the following reasons:

1. IIMs have been known to base cut-offs on relative scores, not absolute scores.

2. IIMs have defined percentage as a normalized percentage in the scorecards. Why should they have two different definitions?

3. Cut-off scores as calculated by this method (25 per cent of top score and 33 per cent overall) give you the following numbers. For open category students, 25 per cent marks would mean the following for CAT 2005:

• DI - 10
• QA - 10.5
• VA - 12.5
• Overall - 43.77

This is almost certainly what happened last year. Therefore, the most likely scenario is a paper of similar difficulty as last year, with similar cut-offs, and a small increase in overall score due to the increase in time allotted.

Remember: By worrying unduly about the cut-offs that IIMA is talking of, you should not miss the main points needed in your strategy to tackle a test paper. Follow these points and you should be fine regardless of the difficulty level of the paper:

• Distribute your time appropriately over various sections.
• Consciously look for the easy questions and get them right.
• Do not get stuck on any single question.
• Do not worry about the difficulty level of the paper? relative and not absolute scores will matter.

-- The writer is a CAT trainer at T.I.M.E.

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