On Tuesday, September 15, 2020, the Common Admission Test 2020 conducting body, i.e. IIM Indore announced some significant changes in the exam pattern of CAT 2020. The major change is the reduction in the duration of the exam from 3 hours to 2 hours.
IIM Indore in a media release on Tuesday said that the exam would be conducted in three sessions on November 29. It further stated that the exam duration is reduced to 120 min from 180 min. Till 2019 the CAT exam used to be conducted in two sessions and for three hours each.
The sections in the question paper remain the same-
- Section 1 Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension
- Section 2 data interpretation and logical reasoning
- Section 3 quantitative ability
The candidates will get 40 min for each section, and they will not be allowed to switch from one section to another while answering questions in a particular section.
As always a mock test or tutorials would be released by the conducting body in October to get a more clear picture about the changes. There is still lots of confusion regarding the number of questions in CAT 2020 as IIM Indore has not stated anything about the number of questions to be asked in the exam.
The last date to register for CAT 2020 has also been extended to September 23 till 5 pm which was earlier September 16. The exam is scheduled to be held on November 29 2020.
There will be a registration form edit window in which a candidate will be able to edit a few details after the closure of the registration window. The details allowed to be changed are
- Photograph
- Signature
- Test city preferences
This edit window will be open for a short duration after the closure of the registration window. It would be available to those candidates who have successfully paid the registration fee and registered during the registration deadline.
The media release also stated that due to the COVID 19 pandemic there might be more changes in CAT 2020 and asked the aspirants to keep a check on the official website of cat 2020 for any further information.
The CAT exam is a prerequisite exam for admission into postgraduate and fellow programmes into the prestigious colleges like IIMs. These scores are used by many non-IIM institutes as well. IIM has no role in the admission process of non-IIMs.
