CAT 2022: How to score 99 percentile; No. of questions to attempt, important topics

NEW DELHI: Common Admission Test (CAT) 2022 is scheduled to be held on November 27 at various centres in 150 cities spread across India. Getting into IIMs or other top MBA colleges is the dream of CAT aspirants but only those who manage to score above 99 percentile have high chances of getting admission. MBA colleges accepting more than 99 percentile are IIM Indore, FMS (DU), Delhi, MDI, Gurugram, Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management (JBIMS), Mumbai, DMS (IIT) Delhi, etc.

CAT 2022: How many questions to answer for 99 percentile

To exactly know how many questions need to be answered in order to get above 99 percentile is pretty impossible as the number of questions in CAT is not fixed, it varies every year. However, one can do a guesswork, analyzing the trends followed in the previous CAT questions paper. Let us take for example CAT 2021 in which total marks were 198. Overall scores needed to get 99 percentile were 98. And for 99.5 percentile, the scores required were 120 out of 198 marks. For more details, look at the table of percentiles below.

CAT Exam: Marks vs percentile

Candidates should note that these are just indicative, in actual, these may vary, depending on the number of questions. So candidates had better set the target score a bit higher.

CAT 2022: 80-80 method for 99 percentile

The CAT exam is more like a mind game and the overall difficulty of the exam ranges from easy to medium. The CAT exam pattern includes three sections and each section has a time limit of 40 minutes. Total time duration is 120 minutes and one mark will be deducted for every wrong answer. Applying the right strategy can get you the desired score in CAT 2022.

What is the 80-80 method?

With the 80-80 method, candidates can prepare for all sections in less time and all that without feeling the stress. This is the best approach that a candidate can apply to score 99 percentile. This method is explained in easy points below.

• Attempt 80% of the total number questions in every section

• Take for example VARC which has total 24 questions and 72 marks ( each question is of 3 marks)

• 80% attempt means at least 19 questions should be answered

• At 80% accuracy, the correct marks in VARC will be 45 and incorrect marks will be 4

• The total marks obtained will be 41

• Applying the same method to DILR and QA which have 20 and 22 questions respectively, total marks obtained in these sections will be 36 and 38 respectively

• Adding the total marks obtained in these three sections, the overall score will be 115 while a candidate need 98 marks to score 99 percentile

CAT 2022: Important topics to study

There is no CAT exam syllabus defined by the CAT exam conducting body. Candidates can know which topics should be covered while preparing for the CAT exam by looking at the previous CAT exam question paper. Also, IMS, Career launcher, and the likes offer CAT exam analysis to help candidates understand the CAT syllabus and prepare accordingly. Based on the past questions, here are the most important topics to focus on for each section.

1.Quantitative Ability(QA)

• Arithmetic: function, percentile, profit & loss, discount, ratio & proportion, average, simple & compound interest, mixture & solutions, time, speed & distance, time & work, pipe, ciston, clock,calendar and miscellaneous

• Algebra: Equations, polynomials, inequalities, absolute value, functions, graph, progression and sales

• Geometry: Line, triangle, quadrilaterals, polygons, mensuration, coordinate geometry, equations & parallels, and perpendicular lines

2. Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC)

• Reading comprehension

• Para jumble

• Odd sentence out

3. Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR)

• Set theory

• Coding-decoding

• Venn diagrams

• Arrangement

• Matrix

Note that DILR is the most unpredictable. Every year questions are different. So the best approach to preparing this section is doing more CAT 2022 mock tests.