On January 14, Common Admission Test (CAT) results were declared in India. CAT is a test used by business schools in India as an entry for their two-year PGP programmes (accredited as MIM by AMBA, UK and ‘MBA equivalent’ by Association of Indian Universities). Unlike business schools abroad and in India that use GMAT as one of the many shortlisting criterion for their full time MBA programmes, business schools accepting CAT for the PGP programme shortlist candidates solely based on CAT percentiles.
So is it the end of the road for those who scored relatively less on the exam? Not at all. There are equally good, if not better options ahead. We advise applicants who have scored less than their target to not get despondent or settle for tier 2 schools. We encourage these applicants to instead gain valuable work experience, as is custom for MBA applicants globally, and to then apply to the globally accredited One year MBA programmes in India at India’s top business schools. (read: Deccan Herald says the One year MBA is the first MBA in India). The learning gained in a One year MBA programme benefits from a class with extensive work experience. Placements gained through One year MBA programmes in India are in line with those gained through international MBA programmes: graduates of the course join companies as Vice-presidents, General Managers and CEO’s. (Read: Placements light years ahead)
The verbal section of GMAT contains 41 questions to be answered in 75 minutes. All questions have to be answered in a serial order because, unlike CAT, this exam does not allow you to skip any question. The three types of questions in this section are:
1. Sentence Correction (SC): CAT candidates would have practiced a multitude of SC questions, and both exams require candidates to spot grammatical errors. But, there is an important difference. GMAT SC is based on American English while CAT SC is based on British/ Indian English.
2. Reading Comprehension (RC): This is the area your CAT preparation can be leveraged to the maximum. The passages in the CAT and GMAT are almost equally puzzling. The only difference is that the content of the GMAT passages are more international and often full of complex passages from scientific journals.
The other difference between the CAT and GMAT when it comes to RCs is the way the questions are presented. In CAT, the passage appears on the left pane of the screen and all questions appear on the right. In GMAT, the passage appears on the left pane of the screen and only one question appears on the right. Only after you provide the answer to the first question and click ‘next’, will you be able to see the second question of the same RC.
So you cannot predict how many questions each passage will have beforehand. This tends to make timing your responses on the GMAT exam that much more difficult.
3. Critical Reasoning (CR): This section will need some work for candidates used to CAT. The level of CR tested in the CAT is straightforward: there are two or three questions on the basis of assumptions and inferences. CR in GMAT is more evolved. There will be 13 to 14 CR questions among the 41 verbal questions in the GMAT. In a CR question, you will be given an argument based on an elaborate framework of premise, conclusion, reasoning, assumption and inference. This argument will be followed by a question. There are about eight or nine types of questions based on five aspects of the argument. You should practice at least 500-600 questions to be able to match up to the level of CR questions asked in GMAT.
Quantitative
In GMAT, this section consists of 37 questions to be handled in 75 minutes. There are two types of questions: (1) Problem Solving (PS) and (2) Data Sufficiency (DS). About a third of the questions will be based on DS.
The good news is that many topics for CAT will not be tested in GMAT including logarithms, trigonometry, calendars, clocks and shares. However, there is an inordinate amount of weightage given to number theory and inequalities.
PS questions test your ability to arrive at the answer from a given set of information given in the question.
DS questions test your ability to identify the most minimal amount of information required to answer a question.
In GMAT, DS accounts for 12 to 18 questions. The toughest questions in the quantitative section will be a mixture of number theory and inequalities couched in a DS question.
Analytical writing assessment
This is one area that you would never have had to practice during the CAT preparation days. No Indian MBA entrance exam involves essay writing. However, the GMAT tests your clarity of thinking in this section. It looks for content, organisation of thought process, language skills and writing mechanisms in evaluating the essays. An interesting point is that the essays are reviewed by two entities—a human reader and a software programme.
In GMAT, test takers will have to write two essays within 30 minutes each. The essays are graded on a scale of 6 (in steps of 0.5) and this score is not clubbed with the score that you will receive for the quantitative and verbal sections (on a base of 800 in steps of 10).
The AWA section would need some getting used to however so practice writing a few essays within the assigned time.
How to start your GMAT prep? Some books we recommend:
GMAT Official Guide 13th Edition Bundle – A fabulous place to start your prep. This set of three books contains actual GMAT questions that appeared on the GMAT exam but have now been retired. The books therefore provides a good overview of the kind of questions to expect on the exams. The bundle includes the main Official Guide and two additional books: the Verbal Review & the Quantitative Review which give you more questions for practice from each section. In case you don’t need the additional questions, you would get by just fine getting only the Official Guide which is available separately: GMAT 13th Edition Review: The only Study Guide by the Creators of the Test: The Official Guide
Manhattan GMAT Complete Strategy Guide Set, 5th Edition (Manhattan GMAT Strategy Guides)