CAT 2019 Analysis - Slot 1 and Slot 2

CAT 2019 Analysis Slot 1 and Slot 2

First thoughts

DILR was at the same level as seen in the past 4–5 years, perhaps a little easier. Quant was easier than 2018 but far tougher than the levels seen in 2017, 2016 or 2015. The elephant in the room was VARC. The passages were tough, the questions reveled in double-negatives. We have given a quick snapshot of what we think could be the cut-offs. Note that these are, at best, wild guesses.

VARC substantially tougher, DILR at same level of 2018, Quant easier than 2018 but tougher than 2017

Our estimates for CAT 2019 percentiles and scores are given below for both slot 1 and slot 2.Note that these are merely estimates and are not based on statistical analysis.

VARC - Really Challenging

The RC section was relentless. Passages were non-obvious, choices were long, quite a few had 2 close choices and we had to read and re-read the choices all the time. Our reading is that the overall error rate in VARC is going to be much higher than it has been for a while. Too many questions had ‘weaken the argument’, ‘support the author’s beliefs’ - on a couple of occasions, we couldn't even sure what the author’s position was. Attempting a lot of questions might not be the prudent strategy in this section. A score of 70 might fetch a 99.5th percentile or so.

DILR - We are all probably getting better at this

DILR was the surprise package in 2015 and 2016; but over the past 2–3 years, we have kinda caught up with the CAT’s way of testing DILR. There was one nice simple DI puzzle, one very do-able math-based puzzle. So, a serious candidate could get 8 questions correct. Post this, free marks were hard to come by. 4 sets with almost everything correct should fetch one somewhere in the 99th percentile range.

Quants - Easier than last year, but not a give-away section

CAT 2018 Quant was a nightmare. This year, there were quite a few very do-able questions. I think some guys might even have killed this section and scored 97+. Time pressure was ever-present but was not debilitating. I think one needs to get 70+ for 99.5th percentile, and 37–38 to get 90th percentile. Quite a few questions from functions, sequences, exponents etc, usual number from Geometry and very few from Number Systems, Permutation and Probability.
As ever, these are mere conjectures and the actual numbers could be wildly different.

CAT 2019 Analysis Slot 1 by Experts Video

CAT 2019 Analysis Slot 2 by Experts Video

CAT 2019 Analysis Topic-wise breakdown

As far as the CAT syllabus was concerned, a great many questions were from Arithmetic. Number Theory was not heavily tested at all whereas Geometry featured reasonably well.

CAT 2019 slot 1 Quants

CAT 2019 slot 2 Quants

CAT 2019 Topic-wise breakdown in VARC

CAT 2019 TITA-MCQ breakdown in Quant, VARC and DILR

CAT 2019 had 26 questions of TITA kind.

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