A marginal increase in number of CAT aspirants

“This year the number of examinees has increased by about 1,000-1,500 than the last year,“ Murthy told The Indian Express over phone. The forms for CAT examination this year were sold from August 16 to October 1.

In 2008,the number of the students who had applied for the CAT examination was 2.76 lakh and then with the onset of the economic slowdown,the number of the examinees had gone down significantly.

The students from across the country will write the examination for 300 seats in 13 IIMs in the country including the new IIMs like IIM Udaipur,IIT Kashipur and IIM Tiruchirappalli. Besides IIMs,the score in CAT is treated as criteria for entry in various management institutes in the country. This year the management institutes in the country including the ones like Vinod Gupta School of Management at IIT Kharagpur will also admit the students on the basis of CAT examination.

The number of female students who have applied for CAT this year marks a marginal increase from 26 per cent last year to 27 per cent this year. The students would appear for the computer-based examination in a 20-day testing window between October 22 and November 18.

This years the CAT will include only two sections instead of the three. The first section will be for questions on Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation and the second on Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning. The two sections will be implemented sequentially with separate time limits. The candidates will have 70 minutes to answer 30 questions in each section. Each student will have access to an on-screen countdown timer.