CAT 2022: Learnings from CAT 2021 to ace the QA section.

By Anjali Chowdhury|Updated : September 8th, 2022

CAT (Common Admission Test) is a national-level entrance exam conducted annually by the IIMs. CAT 2022 is scheduled to be held on 27th November 2022. Earlier till 2019, the CAT exam used to be of 3 hours and was conducted in 2 slots but due to COVID-19 from the year 2020 onwards the duration of this exam has been reduced to 2 hours, and the exam is now conducted in 3 slots. There are usually 3 sections in the CAT entrance exam: Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC), Quantitative Ability (QA), Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DILR). In this article, the learnings from CAT 2021 have been discussed to ace the QA section in CAT 2022.

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Table of Content

1. Quantitative Ability Year-Wise Comparison
2. Topic-Wise Breakup
3. Learnings from CAT 2021 to Ace the QA Section

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Quantitative Ability Year-Wise Comparison

Quantitative Ability is one of the important sections of the CAT exam. Earlier the sectional duration of this exam was of 60 minutes but from 2020 onwards the sectional duration has been changed to 40 minutes. In the table below the year-wise comparison of the Quantitative Section of the CAT exam has been discussed:

Particulars	CAT 2019	CAT 2020	CAT 2021
Time (in minutes)	60	60	40
No. of Questions	34	26	22
MCQ Questions	23	20	14
Non-MCQ Questions	11	6	8

Note: Although the total number of questions has been reduced the number of Non-MCQ questions has been increased. Therefore, the overall difficulty level of the CAT 2021 exam was Moderate-Difficult.

Topic-Wise Breakup

Usually, it has been seen that this section is dominated by Arithmetic followed by Algebra. In CAT 2021 also this trend was followed. Below in the table the topic-wise breakup has been discussed:

Topics	CAT 2019	CAT 2020	CAT 2021
Arithmetic	14	10	11
Algebra	11-13	5-8	5-6
Geometry	4-6	3-5	3-4
Number System	2-3	3-5	1-2
Modern Mathematics	0-1	0-2	1
Total	34	26	22

Note: As seen in the table above though the total number of questions has been reduced there is one extra question in Arithmetic in CAT 2021 as compared to CAT 2020. Almost 50% of the total number of questions have been asked from Arithmetic.

Learnings from CAT 2021 to Ace the QA Section

Arithmetic & Algebra are the two major topics of the CAT exam.
The number of Non-MCQ questions has increased.
The questions asked in CAT 2021 were a bit lengthy.
The questions of CAT 2021 involved a lot of calculations.
It is suggested that the candidates need to concentrate on the basics.
As the sectional time has reduced the candidates should focus on their speed and accuracy to score well in this section.

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