CAT: What lies beneath Part 2: Content

Most of you would wonder whether there’s anything really worth writing about in the content of the CAT: after all, it’s an aptitude test, isn’t it? Big deal.

You’re right; it should have been that way. An aptitude test cannot and should be very open about its content. Moot point. And here comes the catch. Ideally, as you would agree, the content of an exam so famous and so old should keep springing one surprise after the other, remain completely accurate, should not repeat questions over years and, most importantly, actually check what it sought to check in the first place. Sadly, none of this matches up well with the CAT.

The CAT has done well on the count of surprise, but not too well. If you remove CAT 08, the previous papers from at least 1998 were predictable enough on at least one count: the weightage of the three sections was always the same. That means that the importance of language, number-crunching and logic was the equal for the testing body. That also means that while the dot-come world swooshed past, skill-requirements changed drastically, the old world order all but collapsed, communism died away (well, almost), MNCs and a borderless became a reality, nothing changed at the CAT. In the rapidly changing world they thought the basic skills required for a great manager remained constant and stagnant. And suddenly from 2007 to 2008 the world changed (at least for the CAT), because they suddenly woke up and decided in mid-life-stupor that language was 60% more important to management skills (CAT 08, you will remember, allocated 160 marks to language section vis-à-vis the 100 marks each for quants and DI/LR/AR). What prompted them to raise the bar in the verbal section would remain a mystery – the CAT Sphinx doesn’t bother to elaborate. If all the CAT committee wanted was to spring a surprise, they might has well have inserted some weightage for heart-bits and / or fitness: after all, Anil Ambani is the new poster-boy of the Indian corporate world and he is very fit, hence it follows all managers should pass a certain fitness test.

Next: accuracy; much has been written about it. In that matter, the CAT remains a true-blue PSU: sell an important commodity in a semi-monopolistic market, at a high-price, and never apologize – not even acknowledge – for the shoddy quality. I cannot think of a single year (i.e. a single CAT) having passed by without the CAT carrying one mistake or the other. Charming. If I pay Rs.1000 for a two-hour test, I have damned right to expect accuracy. No sir, the CAT doesn’t agree. Perhaps the CAT wants to wake us to the real-world reality: nothing’s perfect.

Next: repeats. Hold your breath. A shocking incident is about to unfold. The cancelled CAT (2003) was unique in many ways (apart from being a leaked paper of course). Its RC contained poems. No hassles. But did you know 3 questions of LR/AR were straight out of the CAT 98 (or 99). I still remember them: they were sitting arrangement questions. But hey wait: these were, in turn, lifted from the Barron’s GRE Analytical Reasoning 1998 edition. Not done. Not fair.

Finally, it’s not state secret that the CAT follows the GRE/GMAT model of testing. But that raises two important questions. One: assuming that GRE/GMAT questions were modeled after some careful research as to the skills required in the developed world context, is it ok for the CAT to assume that the same research fits perfectly to the developing country that India is? Have the CAT committee and the IIMs conducted any real-life research to identify what are the skills required to be tested? If yes, when, how often? Why not publish a white-paper on so vital a subject? Two: How do they justify the weightage accorded to the written test, GD, PI, work ex, acads, (80% in Chandu-Mandu college is not the same as 80% from NITs or the IITs, but that’s another story)? Is the weightage decided after some study, or is it done by the whim of some higher-ups?

Signing off with this thought for you to munch over: Do the IIMs practice what they preach? The very IIMs that preach glasnost, welcome the MNCs with open arms (good placement for students and good consultancy work for the professors) but shun competition from foreign university. Double standards. Ha ha ha.
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