CAT QUANT DEMYSTIFIED - Prof. Manish Salian

Well, whenever we talk about CAT , the first thing that comes into mind is Quant i.e. Maths . People are generally afraid or I should say have a phobia which we can call Quant phobia. We approached Mr. Manish Salian , who has been a proffesor of Quant and DI from last 7 years at places like Career Launcher and now is the head at Peak Seekers, Mumbai. The following is his take on Cat Quant .

The quantitative section is, by far, the least scoring one is CAT. It may not play an important role in the over all score of the candidate, but can definitely affect your chances of getting calls. There were many instances last year of candidates having a very good overall percentile not getting calls, because they could not meet the Quant cut-off’s.

Though CAT is infamous for its changing patterns every year, it has stuck to its composition of questions over the years. For example in the last 7 years, 3 topics have ruled the quant section of CAT – Numbers, Algebra and Geometry! CAT 99 was a landmark year in the history of CAT. Before 99, CAT used to be a normal aptitude test, where speed used to be an important factor for getting calls. The pre-1999 CAT were characterized by very high cut-off’s. Around 60% of the questions were asked on simple Arithmetic topics like Numbers, Percentage, Profit Loss, Ratio Proportion and Speed Time Distance. The year 1999 changed all that. In CAT 1999, for the first time in his history, Algebra was given importance in quant. Single digit cut-off’s were predicted for quant that year (perhaps for the first time in the history of CAT). In the years to follow, the proportion of Arithmetic fell to about 30% and that of Algebra rose to about 35%. The year 2003, saw the proportion of Geometry increase to about 25%, from a meager 10% in the previous years. By this time the share of Arithmetic questions had fallen to about 25%. Let me give you the break-up of CAT 2005 to drive the point across. Out of 30 questions of quant, there were 8 Q’s each on Algebra and Geometry and 6 Q’s on Number system. This means 73% of the questions were from these three topics alone.

The other change that is prominent in CAT is the increase of Reasoning based questions in quant (and decrease in formula based question). This means you would no longer require the application of some standard methods or formulae to answer the questions, but a little bit of thinking. A simple example is the CAT-2005 question, where you were supposed to find out the number of tiles of 70 x 30 cm2 that could fit into a rectangular floor of dimension 110 x 130 cm. This simple example illustrates how no formulae of Geometry can come to your rescue in CAT, but only application of mind. The most popular answer was 5 tiles, while the actual answer is 6 tiles.

To sum it up, CAT quant is moving towards application-based questions, and towards topics like Algebra and Geometry! Gone are the good old days when basic knowledge of Ratios and Percentages could help you sail through quant. I don’t yet see the inclusion of calculus (limits, derivatives and integration) in CAT. However, looking at the way things have gone so far, this day may not be far away (as these topics are already being asked in JMET and FMS!). My next article will focus on how should you prepare for this section of CAT.

Manish Salian
Prof. for Quant at Peak Seekers

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