CAT 2021 was held on Sunday, November 28, 2021. The exam was conducted in three slots that is Forenoon Session (8:30-10:30AM), Afternoon Session (12:30-2:30PM) and Evening Session (4:30-6:30PM). It was a 120 Minutes (Two hours) exam divided into three sections of 40 Minutes each. The first section is VARC (Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension), the second section is DILR (Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning) and the third section is QA (Quantitative Aptitude).

Every correct answer response will add 3 marks and every incorrect answer will deduct 1 mark. There is no negative marking for TITA type questions. You could not change the order of sections. You also could not go back to a previous section or jump the section.

There were no major change in CAT 2021 apart from number of questions. In terms of difficulty, CAT 2021 was slightly on the higher side compared to that of CAT 2020. The number of questions in CAT 2021 reduced to 66 questions from 76 questions in CAT2020. The number of questions in CAT 2020 decreased to 76  from 100 Questions in CAT 2019, CAT 2018 or CAT 2017. 

Detailed Analysis of Section: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC)

VARC Section of all three sessions was Average to Difficult and roughly of the same difficulty level.  

4 RC’s featured a total of 16 questions with 4 questions each. These 16 RC questions were a good mix of 4 categories, a) Fact based  b) Exception based (What is not true according to the passage) c) Inference based d) Critical Reasoning based. The biggest chunk of questions was from critical reasoning based in line with trend of past 2-3 years. There were no questions on identifying tone of the passage.

Verbal Ability had a total of 8 questions with 3 types: a) Summary of a passage, b) Odd one out, c) Parajumbles. Of these 3 categories, Summary of a passage was MCQ type and Odd one out and Parajumbles were non MCQ type. No direct questions based upon Vocabulary, Grammar, Logical Continuation & Critical Reasoning were asked.

Detailed Analysis of Section: Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation (LRDI)

LRDI Section of all three sessions was average-difficult.

There were a total of 4 Sets with 20 Questions, 2 Sets of 4 Questions Each and 2 Sets of 6 Questions each.

In each session, 1 Set was based upon DI (Data Interpretation), 1-2 Sets were based upon LR (Logical Reasoning) and 1-2 sets were LRDI (Beautiful mixture of Data & LOGIC). DI set in each session was the easiest set among all the 4 sets of respective sessions. LRDI and LR Sets with 6 questions each were difficult in each session. Apart from 1 DI Set, all other LR/LRDI Sets were time consuming and required high level of Logic, Reasoning and high skills of Puzzle solving.

LRDI Section of CAT 2021 was Average to Difficult. LRDI Section of Evening Session was slightly tougher than Afternoon session and LRDI Section of Afternoon Session was slightly tougher than Forenoon session.

LRDI section was slightly more difficult than CAT 2020 due to the number of sets now being four instead of the five last year. The reduction of one set created a drop in the choice of sets for CAT takers.

The level of difficulty of LRDI section of CAT 2021 was slightly difficult than CAT 2020. The difficulty level of this Section has kept on rising slightly each year since CAT 2017.

Detailed Analysis of Section: Quantitative Aptitude (QA)

QA Section of all three sessions was average-difficult. 

There were a total of 22 Questions including 7-8 questions for which answer needed to be typed. There were around 10-11 Questions of Arithmetic, 5-6 Question of Algebra, 3-4 questions of Geometry, 1-2 Questions of Numbers and 1-2 questions of Modern maths.

A lot of Quant Questions were doable but cleverly framed to check your concepts and common-sense or smartness in approach.

In terms of questions, you can see that Arithmetic dominated this section. Out of these 10-11 Arithmetic questions, 1 question each from Percentage, PLD and SI&CI, 1-2 from Time Speed & Distance, 2 from Average, Alligation & Mixtures and 2 from Ratio and Time & Work.In terms of questions, The topic Number System was under rated in CAT from last 4-5 years.

The level of difficulty of QA section of CAT 2021 was roughly same or slightly tougher than CAT 2020 or CAT 2019.  The level of difficulty of QA section of CAT 2021 was definitely tougher than CAT 2017.

Cheers!!

Team AnkGanit