What does the CAT really test and how Winning Pedagogy at Catalysis will help you crack the CAT?

The CAT is designed for graduates of the three major streams: science, humanities, and commerce.

After Class X students branch out into various streams such as the sciences, humanities, and commerce. The CAT should, therefore, logically be designed to test whatever concepts that should have been in place by Class X. Solve a few past actual CAT papers and you will realize that the CAT tests skills that one should have acquired by the time one clears class X.

There are, however, two vectors to skills: (1) Range and (2) Level.

See the following question: If the one-way air-fare from Place A to Place B is Rs.3400 and the return air-fare is Rs.5440, what is the savings, in percentage terms, on buying a round-trip? This is a simple question. You would save Rs.1360 on a round-trip ticket. The saving is 1360*100/6800 percent of Rs.6800. So you could say that PERCENTAGES is one among the RANGE OF SKILLS tested at an examination in which you see such a question. 

See what one means by “LEVEL OF SKILLS”. See this question from the actual CAT paper of 2001:

“The owner of an art shop conducts his business in the following manner: Every once in a while he raises his price by X%, then a while later he reduces all the new prices by X%. After one such up-down cycle, the price of a painting decreased by Rs.441. After a second up-down cycle the painting was sold for Rs.1944.81. What was the original price of the painting?

Option 1: Rs.2756.25; Option 2: Rs.2256.25; Option 3: Rs.2500; Option 4: Rs. 2000”

Before attempting to solve this question, one must be able to discern that this question does not tell you the exact percentage by which the price was increased and then decreased and hence the answer does not depend on any particular percentage. Therefore it is for us to assume a value for X.

Furthermore we must be able to determine whether the art dealer in the question is going to make a profit or is he going to make a loss when he indulges in these X% up and X% down cycles.

How do we do this?  Imagine that 100A units of money. The price is then raised by 10%. The new selling price is 110A units. A discount of 10% is offered. The selling price drops to 99A. The ratio of the price after increase and decrease by 10% is 99: 100.

Now imagine that this 99A is equal to something else, say100B. The price is again raised by 10%. The new price is 110B. A discount of 10% is offered. The price then drops to 99B. The ratio of the price after increase and decrease by 10% is 99: 100. The ratio of the initial price to the price after increase and decrease by 10% is 99: 100. The moral of the story is as follows:

The ratio of (I) the initial price to (II) the price after increase and decrease by the same percentage remains constant no matter what be the rate applied for the increase/decrease cycle.

Understand this as well: the figures in the first two options are to two decimal points. Does this mean we have to calculate up to two decimal points?

A business manager, which is something that a student from a top b-school would soon become after graduating, is expected to work out only the nitty-gritty, only the essence of the matter. A business manager is not expected to be a blooming calculator.

He should be able to understand, for example, that in the above question the amounts in the options are in thousands and one can safely ignore the decimals without fear of the earth shaking, since the earth has better things to do than shake at every little thing.

One must also appreciate that the only unknown in this question other than the rate of discount in the up-down cycle is the original price of the painting and there are options that give you the possible original price. In such a situation, if you do not make use of the options, what will you do with the options? Pickle them?

If the price before any increase/decrease cycle was 2756 as per Option 1 and decreased by Rs.441 after the first up/down cycle, the price after first up/down cycle was 2756-441=2315. The ratio between this and the starting price was 2315/2756.

If after the second increase/decrease cycle the price dropped to 1944, the ratio between this and the starting price of 2315 of the second cycle would be 1944/2315.

Pattern Recognition: The Master Key to the QUANT Section of the CAT

The key to cracking the CAT is developing the logical ability to recognise whether a pattern is emerging and, if yes, what is the pattern. It is the ability to derive lessons by reducing seemingly huge problems to small levels, drawing one’s lessons from the reduced level and then using those lessons to solve the larger problems in a jiffy. This skeleton key to the CAT is - what I would call - Pattern Recognition. The number of instances that this ability is put to test at the CAT is simply staggering. See some illustrations; see Q.55 from the actual CAT paper of 19th November 2006 that goes as follows:

Consider a sequence where the Nth term = N/(N+2) where N=1, 2, …. . What is the value of the third term × the fourth term × the fifth term × … × the fifty-third term? The options are as follows: (1) 2/495 (2) 2/477 (3) 12/55 (4) 1/1485 (5) 1/2970

The meaning of the words “the third term × the fourth term × the fifth term × … × the fifty-third term” in the question is that while you may be willing to calculate all the fifty-one terms starting from the third term and ending with the fifty-third term and would then not hesitate to multiply them one with the other, such an exercise may be hugely counterproductive because it would take away an hour or so and you may end up with the right answer (with luck on your side) but you will certainly not crack the CAT because what you might gain on the turnstile, you might end up losing on the merry-go-round: for getting one such question correct, you will waste so much valuable time that your score may not be sufficient to be called for further admission procedures. What these words mean is that it is possible to derive a strategy to solve this question in specific and such questions in general by experimenting with (A) third term × fourth term × fifth term and then with (B) third term × fourth term × fifth term × sixth term and then trying to find out whether a pattern emerges and, if yes, what is the exact nature of the emergent pattern.

When you calculate the product (A) above, you realise that third term × fourth term × fifth term = 3/5 *4/6 *5/7 or (3*4*5) divided by (5*6*7) which would be (3*4) divided by (6*7).

When you calculate the product (B) above, you realise that third term × fourth term × fifth term × sixth term = 3/5 *4/6 *5/7 *6/8 or (3*4*5 *6) divided by (5*6*7*8) which would be (3*4) divided by (7*8).

This means the following pattern emerges: the numerators of the first two terms and the denominators of the last two terms will remain in the fraction; all other terms will be cancelled out. So the correct answer would be: (3*4)/(54*55) =2/495. So Option 1 is correct.

Want to see some illustrations where this skill of Pattern Recognition is put to test and where nothing else could work unless you have oodles and oodles of time for writing the CAT? And that too, of course, only actual CAT questions? Write to us at query@catalysis.co.in

How we help you build sound Verbal Reasoning Skills

We see some actual questions from the Verbal Reasoning Section of the CAT paper of 16th November 2008 that will give an idea of what skills is the CAT really trying to test in the Verbal Reasoning Section. See Q.55 from booklet type 444; you are expected to choose the best option that fits the blanks:

“The genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda, apart from being mis-described in the most sinister and _____ manner as ‘ethnic cleansing’, were also blamed, in further hand-washing rhetoric, on something dark and interior to ______ and perpetrators alike.

The options are as follows: (1) innovative; communicator (2) enchanting; leaders (3) disingenuous; victims (4) exigent; exploiters (5) tragic; sufferers.”

Before we see how to tackle the question, let us understand a few words in the question.

Going back to the question, something mis-described is something wrongly described. The word in the first blank should be a synonym of sinister. Therefore the words “innovative” - which means new and therefore has necessarily positive overtones - will not fit into the first blank. Nor for that matter will the word “enchanting” do since it means charming and also has clearly positive overtones. We are left with the words “disingenuous” “exigent”, and “tragic” for the first blank. “Disingenuous” could do since it means crafty. If something as horrible as killing of thousands of persons is described as “cleansing”, the word “cleansing” could certainly be deemed to have been used craftily.  The word “exigency”, as we have seen before, is used to denote a pressing circumstance or an emergency. There cannot be an exigency or emergency in the perpetrators of genocide describing their mass killing as “ethnic cleansing”; this description is utterly cold-blooded. A situation could be described as an emergency if it creates panic among people. Anyone engaged in killing thousands of persons whom he detests would do so in cold blood.

Finally, the word “tragic” will not do in the first blank because if a mass-killing is described as “tragic”, it is only correctly described as tragic, not mis-described. This is why the only option that will fit the bill is Option 3. To cross-check, the word in the second blank could only be the opposite of “perpetrators” and hence “victims” will do very well.

How we help you master Data Interpretation Skills

The Data Interpretation Section, as the very name suggests, is about interpreting data and not massaging the data. If you crack the CAT, you would graduate from a prime business school and land a plum job as business manager in a large outfit and would, in all probability, be equipped with laptops and palmtops and so on for making detailed calculations (if necessary, of course). Since these devices do not start calculating on their own, the business manager would be able to calculate with the help of these devices provided he knows what to calculate. This is the logical reason why the CAT is designed to test whether you know what to calculate rather than how to calculate. This is probably why the questions in the DI section do not require any significant amount of calculations. As a matter of fact, the ability to count from 1 to 100 and the tables of 1 to 10 would have sufficed for getting into the top league of the DI Section.

Don’t believe this? See the following questions from the actual CAT paper of 20th November 2005 that are to be answered on the basis of the information given below. These four questions carried 2 marks each, which means they carried the highest level of difficulty (in the estimation of the IIM): The year is 2089. Beijing, London, New York, and Paris are in contention to host the 2096 Olympics. The eventual winner is determined through several rounds of voting by members of the IOC with each member representing a different city. All the four cities in contention are also represented in IOC.

The following incomplete table shows the information on cities that received the maximum and minimum votes in different rounds, the number of votes cast in their favour, and the total votes that were cast in those rounds.

Answer 1

In Round 1, New York was eliminated since it fetched the least number of votes. This is why New York representative was able to vote in Round 2. This is why the total votes in Round 2 is one more than the total in Round 1 and hence the total number of votes in Round 1 would definitely be 82. This is not just guesswork, mind you! You will see a question where you are to find out whether it is true that the IOC member from New York must have voted for Paris in round 2.

The meaning of the words “Those who voted for New York in round 1, voted either for Beijing or Paris in round 2” is as follows: Since there was no change in the number of votes in Round 2 in case of London, this means none of those who voted for New York or Beijing in Round 1 voted for London in Round 2.

See the information in the question. The meaning of the words “All those who voted for London and Paris in round 1, continued to vote for the same cities in subsequent rounds as long as these cities were in contention” when seen in the light of the fact that New York was eliminated at the end of Round 1would mean that those who voted for London and Paris in Round 1 did not vote for Beijing in Round 2.

The above information means that Beijing could have got its votes in Round Two from any or all of the following:

Out of those 12 who voted for New York in Round 1, 9 voted for Beijing in Round 2. Thus the percentage of members from among those who voted for New York in round 1, voted for Beijing in round 2 is 9×100/12=900/12=75% and hence Option 4 is to be marked as correct.

If you wish to attempt questions 2 to 4 in this pattern and wish to check your answers, do feel free to get in touch with us at query@catalysis.co.in.