There is an excitement in the air now a days at the centre...of anticipation and nervousness. Suddenly, after the "Quant for Dummies" session by Nitin this week, people started coming to the centre with renewed hope.
I wanted to pay tribute to this renewed vigour and take the opportunity to invite those who are feeling low for obvious reasons. Come and be a part of the new revolution that is taking the CL, Pune centre by storm.
Personally, I am enthused by the ways and means of the new czars of CAT, who till now didn't even want to give it a shot. But armed with the belief that CAT Quant is not for the Mathematicians of this world, they have picked up the lost threads, and in style too!
If you haven't yet booked your time slots for one-to-one counseling, make sure you do it at the earliest. But before that, take a look at the SIS pages with all the details about your Mock Tests. My favorite pages are the ones with Selectivity Analysis for each Test. For those who are new to the SIS, these links come under the Details tab.
Lets celebrate the beginning of the slog overs in the run up to CAT!
The Dummies' Methods: Zindabad!
solution :
XAT on January 6th
XAT 2008 will be conducted in 31 cities on January 06, 2008; Test Timings: 10:00 am to 12:30 pm
Ahmedabad, Allahabad, Bangalore, Berhampur, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Cochin, Coimbatore, Dehradun, Goa, Gurgaon, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jamshedpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, Noida, Patna, Pune, Raipur, Ranchi, Rourkela, Trivandrum, Vadodara, Visakhapatnam.
MOCK XAT Analysis
Overview:
In this paper, Quantitative Ability, Verbal Ability and Reasoning and Decision making Ability section were high on difficulty index.
The information the cover page made available to you was:
| There were 130 questions in all, distributed over three sections. Section A had 49 questions, section B had 41 questions and section C had 40 questions carried 4 marks for each question. Wrong answers carried negative marks equal to one-third of the marks allotted to the question. Total time available to answer all the sections was two hours and 20 more minutes were available for essay writing. |
Executive Summary:
A synopsis on how this paper could have been attempted is:
| Section | Topic | Total Qs | Suggested Time (in min.) | Possible number of attempts | Possible Score* |
| I | Quantitative Ability | 49 | 40 | 15 | 11 |
| II | Verbal Ability | 41 | 40 | 20 | 12 |
| III | Reasoning and Decision Making Ability | 40 | 40 | 14 | 10 |
| | Total | 130 | 120 | 49 | 33+ |
*Note: The number of attempts and the score has been worked out on the basis of the experts’ insight on how the students would have taken the test and what score XAT have been considering for dispatching the call letters. The correct cut-offs can be confirmed statistically only after seeing the actual performance of all of you.
SECTION A: QUANTITATIVE ABILITY
The quantitative ability section was a mixed bag having problems from data interpretation as well. Problems were from a variety of topics. One could have made selective attempts in this section. Let us see a few questions that could have been done.
For Q. 1 one could have substituted x by 1/x and solved to eliminate f(x) and got a quadratic equation ,which was 6x2-1749x-4=0.The sum of roots here was 1749/6=291.5
In Q.2 8643 by 132 =>4x (2 x 8642 by 33), but remainder for 820k by 33 is 1.Hence 4x(2 x 8642 by 33 = 4x (128 by 33)=429=116
One could have looked at Q. 6 for an attempt. If ‘a’ be the repeated root and the other root be b. Then, one could have easily established the following relations:
b= -a/2, A=6b, B=a3 and A3=-27B. One could plug in values for B and check out the value for A and hence find out the value of A+3B. For A+ 3B to be 72, A= -9 and B=27 which is not possible since then b is no longer an integer and hence the answer.
For Q.10 one could have calculated all the values from T3 to T6 then it was just putting the same to get the ratio T6/T5. A must attempt question.
Q.18 could have been done pretty quickly if one could understand that the linear equation was nothing but the equation of a line in the intercept form and (x2+y2)1/2 was the radius of the circle whose center was at origin. In order to have a minimum value for radius the line must be a tangent to it and hence the distance from the centre, i.e. origin to the tangent must be calculated which was 375/(152 +202)=15
Q. 19 and Q. 20 were easy. One should have surely not missed out on these two. One could have found out all the possible values for the expression for different m and n in the given range and then one could have moved to answer the questions with ease.
Q. 22 again was given to check your basics. The condition for unique solution could have yielded a-1/2 not equal to 3/(b+1), which could have further yielded (a-1)(b+1) not equal to 6. Once this basic was clear, one could have gone on to find out as to how many values satisfied the same.
One could have attempted Q. 24 from the set of 2 questions as it was the biggest sitter in this section and could have let go of the other question in the set. The possible codes could have been 210 if not taking any could have been also a part of code which was not the case here and hence one had to subtract 1.So the answer was 210-1=2003
In Q. 31 for the minimum possible sum of all the prime factors, the number should have been 29.So its composite factors were 22,23,24, 25,26,27,28.Hence, the minimum possible sum of prime factors=2.
In Q. 27 the statements alone would not have yielded any definite answer. Combining both statements, one could have got the following possibilities:
R-S-P-T-U-Q, R-S-P-U-T-Q, Q-T-U-P-S-R, Q-U-T-P-S-R.
From here one could have concluded that S was always adjacent to P.
In Q. 28 if one combined both the statements and looked ahead there was only one combination which gave CX=3 units, BX=1 unit and AZ = 2 units. Further it could have been deduced that ABC was a right angled triangle with angle B=90
In Q. 29,from statement I, both p and q could have been either positive or negative. Otherwise only p could have been negative and greater than –1.So it could not have been determined. From statement II, p and q could have been both negative or one of them was negative. So it could not have been determined.
SECTION B : VERBAL ABILITY
The Verbal Ability Section was Moderate- difficult and required astute question selection and concentrated solving.
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| A set of difficult 6 sentence Para-jumbles. You could have attempted 3 and got 2 questions correct. |
| Q 54- 57 RC Passage | A doable passage with fact+ inferential questions .You could have attempted this passage and got at least 2 questions correct. |
| Q 58-61 Grammar Sentence Correction | A set of easy questions. You could have attempted all four getting 3 correct. |
| Q 62-66 RC Passage | A readable and doable passage with one fact and 4 inferential questions. Slightly time consuming but doable. You could have got 2 questions correct out of 4 attempts. |
| Q 67-70 Poem | A very difficult proposition to understand the poem and attempt the questions successfully. You could have left this. |
| Q 71-75 Contextual Synonyms | A set of 5 questions, which tested your knowledge and application of words. The choices were not easy and you could have ended up getting 2 questions correct from an attempt of 4. |
| Q 76-80 RC Passage | A passage, which was reasonably easy to read, but the questions were inferential with very close choices. It would have been better to leave out this passage. |
| Q 81-85 RC Passage | A moderate passage, which had a mixture of fact+ inferential questions. If attempted, you could have got 3 questions correct out of 5 attempts. |
| Q86-90 Critical Reasoning | Q 86 and 87 were moderate. The last three questions were easy and doable. A must attempt chunk .You could have attempted 3 questions getting at least 2 correct. |
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Overall you could have attempted 18-20 questions getting 13 -14 correct. This is because your accuracy would have suffered because of close choices.
SECTION C : REASONING AND DECISION MAKING ABILITY
This was a new type of section introduced in the XAT last time. This paper comprised of logical reasoning and case study problems, something one would not have been used to. The mute point is not to get unsettled by such a section as it remains and behaves the same for any other test taker too. One should have attempted this section not to mention the whole paper with a cool and composed head. Let us have a look at a few problems from this section, which could have been tackled.
| Q. 91 | A single read to this question revealed that it was doable. A sum of 195 could have been possible with (95,100), (96.99) and (97,98). After that the next lower sum possible was with (93,94) that was 187 after which next possibility was with (91,92) that was 183 and so on. Now it was to be seen that it takes a form of a decreasing AP with common difference –4.after 5 moves one could had got rid of the sum 183.So, after 35 moves it should have been 183-4x30=63. |
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| Q. 93 | A problem based on a very basic concept of remainders. If one cared to go through this problem one would have realized that the total number of devotees when divided by 2,3,4 etc respectively gives remainder 1,2,3 and so on. One could have taken the LCM of first 10 natural numbers and subtracted 1 from that to obtain the total number of devotees, which was 2520-1=2519. Now, one had to calculate the remainder when 2519 was divided by 16 and which was 7. |
| (Q.94 to 99) | One could have attempted this set though cautiously. The names could be denoted by PS, CS, Now value of x for OP was either Rs. 10 or Rs. 20 or Rs. 30.So, one could tabulate 3 conditions from the above conclusions and then go about answering each and every problem in this set. Once the table was ready, it would hardly have taken any time to crack the 6 problems. |
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| One could have attempted this logical reasoning set. The first question could be solved by verifying the given conditions. Here only option (e) satisfied all the restrictions given in the question. For the next question one had to fill 14 positions and out of these positions, 2 counselors worked on 4 days, during the week. Other 2 counselors worked on 3 days during the week. If only Noori and Juliya worked on Wednesday, then they could not work on 4 days during the week. So, Ruhana and Fatina worked on 4 days during the week. And the possible schedule could have been tabulated. Noori and Juliya worked on Friday in both cases. One could have attempted other questions of this set by tabulating the possible cases for the corresponding individual questions. Had one been patient enough one could have answered all the questions here. |
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| This variety came as a surprise in the XAT paper last year. This set was relatively easy to handle; however, the only concern was the lengthy directions given in the question. One could have looked at attempting this set. |
| Q 124- 127 | This case study was also of moderate level of difficulty and hence one could have leveraged on this, if one possessed a good reading speed. One could have scored from here too. |
| Q 128-130 | This was tough. One could have avoided this and saved oneself from negative marking. All in all the case study section was of above average level of difficulty. |
This translates to an attempt of about 14 questions. For a realistic accuracy of 80%, a score of 10 could have been achieved.
Sample Essay:
Topic – “Indo-US strategic partnership is a major step towards a multi-polar world”
Write-up:
What is a multi-polar world? Discuss bi-polar and Multi-polar world.
· Define multi-polar world as a world where political power is not concentrated in one or two Power Blocs but is more evenly spread
· Define traditional bi-polar world (US &
Advantages and disadvantages of a bi-polar world
· Discuss disadvantages of a bi-polar model with historical examples (Cold War, Arms Race, Power Blocs, Uneven development)
Why is there a need for a multi-polar world?
· Discuss how the world has changed through globalization, improved communication
· New challenges faced by the world from global terrorism, lack of economic development in major areas of Asia,
· Hence talk about need for more balanced sharing of power and resources away from concentration in one or two blocs
Current status of power-alliances in the world
- Some bi-polarity still exists (viz. US and
- Signs of grouping for economic resources evident in Asia (Russia & China & Central Asian republics) vs. (US,
History of Indo-US alliance
- Traditionally it has been frosty with
- However, post 9/11 and the global shift of terrorism closer to
- Traditionally being part of the Non-Aligned movement,
- While
How the Indo-US strategic alliance will impact the world.
- Its outlook is neutral and non-groupist
- It is a natural leader of SAARC countries and shares many regional concerns
- It is home to a growing economy with fast progress in many global fields such as software
- Indo-US alliance will be a major balancing factor in troubled
Is it a major step or not. Reasons for the same
- Explore this in line with the above arguments and conclude.
All the best!!
Career Launcher Team
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Explanation correction:
Q. 108:
Read option (d) explanation as “ Option (d) is possible when a = 28, b = 26 and d = 36. So a + b + d = 90”
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Mock-6 Analysis
MOCK CAT – 6 (2007)
Overview:
When the going gets tough, the tough get going! Persistence is the key --- in love, war and Mock 6!!!
Over all a real tough paper, which would have shaken you, all ends up. Almost midway en route to the journey to CAT 2007 and what better reason to work on the weak areas, which were revealed along with the end of this test!!
In this paper, Logical Reasoning based Data Interpretation and Verbal Ability sections were above average, and Quantitative Ability section was tough.
The information the cover page made available to you was:
| There were 90 questions in all, distributed over three sections. Each section had 30 questions and carried 4 marks for each question. Wrong answers carried negative marks equal to one-fourth of the marks allotted to the question. Total time available to answer all the sections was two and a half hours. |
Executive Summary:
A synopsis on how this paper could have been attempted is:
| Section | Topic | Total Qs | Suggested Time (in min.) | Possible number of attempts | Possible Score* |
| I | Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation | 30 | 50 | 14 | 40 |
| II | Verbal Ability | 30 | 50 | 11 - 13 | 38 |
| III | Quantitative Ability | 30 | 50 | 12 | 36 |
| | Total | 90 | 150 | 37-39 | 114 |
*Note: The number of attempts and the score has been worked out on the basis of the experts’ insight on how the students would have taken the test and what score IIMs have been considering for dispatching the call letters. The correct cut-offs can be confirmed statistically only after seeing the actual performance of all of you.
SECTION I: LOGICAL REASONING AND DATA INTERPRETATION
LR/DI section in this paper was of above average difficulty level but there were sets where one could have capitalized and utilized upon the opportunity to score. Again as always making the smart choice of doable sets is of utmost importance. Also, attempting few questions from many sets is also not a bad option always. Lets see the sets one by one.
| Set 1 | This was one of the sets, which were easy to crack but demanded patience. From Dream Team 7, it could have been deduced that P12 must be from Chicago Bulls. From Dream Team 6, it could have been deduced that P15 belonged to Utah Jazz and that P14 belonged to Chicago Bulls. Dream Team 1 could have led to P1 belonging to UTAH Jazz and Dream Team 4 could have ensured P10 belonging to Chicago Bulls. From Dream Team 2, P11 belongs to Chicago Bulls and P13 belongs to Utah Jazz. From Dream Team 3, P5 belongs to Utah Jazz and so on. One can finally find all the belongings. La Lakers: P2, P3, P4, P6, P8, P9, P16 Then all the questions could have been answered one by one. |
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| Set 2 | This set was pretty simple to read and understand. One should have done the first 3 questions of this set without much effort and left this set to attempt others. The main thing to keep in mind while solving this set of questions was the start and stop operations of the machine and the bit manipulations associated with them. Last 2 questions could have been left untouched on account of opacity and length. |
| Set 3 | This was again a set, which could have been done after getting the hang of it. One could have left the last question and attempted all the others. One needed to pay heed to each statement in the mother data and then could have played with the various combinations so as to obtain different possibilities of total amount paid by each girl and the different combinations of eatables. Q. 12 and Q. 14 were very easy, which did not even require one to do any calculation. This set could have asked for time investment but returns could have been fruitful. |
| Set 4 | This was one set that could have been avoided. A tabular combination of weights, maximum and minimum possible members belonging to a party and parliament and state 1, 2 and 3 could have been established. Then depending upon the individual questions one could have gone on to solve each of them individually. This set was a test of your analytical as well as logical ability to the extremes. It would have been wise to do around 2 questions from this set and find an escape route. All in all a tough set. |
| Set 5 | This set was again an easy read and therefore a must read. One could have done the first 3 questions from this set and left the set. One could have taken realistic values like 23,17,26,25 or 22,24,18,27 and 21 and 22 were done. One could have seen that for the second smallest value more than 23, other values could not have been chosen so as to satisfy the sum as expected. Last 2 questions could have been attempted only if there was ample time and no hurry. |
| Set 6 (Q.26 to 30) | This set was more into numbers and those who are not very comfortable dealing with maximum or minimum value question would have been better off not attempting this set. However, the concept was not alien and only the theme was different. If at all one were to attempt this set, a table revealing the Fresh participation roll over participants and total participants should have been formulated. Q.26, Q.29 and Q. 30 should have been attempted and other should have been skipped or avoided. |
This translates into an attempt of about 14 questions. For a realistic accuracy of 75%, a score of 40 could have been achieved.
SECTION II: VERBAL ABILITY
This was a Verbal ability section that really tested your
You really needed to display your question selection skills and solve them with a cool, logical mind. You may have had to read each question once, twice or even thrice. But you may have found out that many questions revealed answers when you persisted a second or third time.
Following is an analysis of the question types:
| Q 31-35 Para-jumbles | These 5 questions ranged from medium to difficult to very difficult. Q 31 and Q 33 could be called as the medium ones. Q32, 34 and 35 were difficult. You could have attempted 3 Qs here getting 2 correct. |
| Q 41-45 Para-completion | These were a mix of Easy-Medium-Difficult types. Q 43 and 45 were easy. Q41, 42 and 44 were medium to difficult. You could have again attempted 3qs getting 2 correct. |
| Q 51,52 Analogies | Q 51 was medium whereas Q 52 was very difficult. You may have got 1 correct out of 1 attempt. |
| Q 53,54,55 Grammar-Errors | These were tricky but a must attempt chunk. You could have got 2 correct out of 3 attempts. |
| Reading Comprehension | |
| Passage 1- Qs 36-40 | The passage was moderate to read. Questions were a mix of medium to difficult ones. Q 36,37 and 40 were moderate and Q 37 and 38 were difficult. A doable passage in which you could have got 3 correct out of 5 attempts. |
| Passage 2-Qs 46-50 | A difficult passage to read and questions were on the difficult side. This passage could have been left. |
| Passage 3-Qs 56-60 | A MUST ATTEMPT PASSAGE- because it was short and readable. Q 56, 57 AND 59 were easy to medium. Q 58 AND Q. 60 were difficult. |
This translates to an attempt of about 11-13 questions. A SCORE of 32-34 is possible considering that many of you would have spent more time on the English section –seeing that QA and DI were tough.
SECTION III: QUANTITATIVE ABILITY
The quantitative ability section of this Mock CAT was yet again high on the difficulty index. One could have sorted out the relatively easier ones and then went on to solve them.
Q. 64 could have been attempted. The lengths of EH, BC and perpendicular distance between BC and EH could have been found out and then the area of the trapezium could have been found. The area of the annular ring was the difference between the area enclosed by the larger circle and that of the smaller circle. Now, the ratio could have been equated to the given ratio and found out the desired ratio.
For Q. 65 one could have just seen that the last digit from the product of 13 and 17 is 1, hence the desired prime numbers should be such that their product ends in 7,which is possible only when their last digits are (1,7), (3,9)(9,3) or (7,1). The product should be different and hence one should have taken care that repetition must not occur and thus found out 55 different products.
In Q.67 one could have seen that there were 12 items (10 beads and 2 pendants), out of which 2 pendants were identical. Thus, the number of ways of forming a necklace =(11! /2) x (1/2) =11! /4
Q.69 again was a must attempt. One could have found out the length of DE or CF, which would have meant that angle ECF is known. Now CP = 4 and BC = 4, so PB could have been found by using cosine law.
For Q.72 one could have calculated the horizontal distance and vertical distance between the two points and then applied Pythagoras theorem to get the distance as 6(7) 1/2 or if some one is very comfortable with fixing coordinates, one can do that and directly calculate the distance between the 2 points.
Q.74 again could have been done by observing the fact that if the 3 digit number ranged from 100 to 109 then the resulting 2 digit numbers could have proceeded like 81,72,63.54 and so on. Hence the 3-digit number must have been a multiple of 9 and so it must have been 108.Only option (2) was a factor of 108.
In Q.76 apart from the pure geometrical way as given in the solution booklet if one could have fixed the coordinates of P, O and Q which was very easy, one could have easily known the area of the triangle without much manipulation.
Q. 77 was a must attempt and one could have observed that the numbers were in the form a2 x b2 x c x d or a2 x b2 x c3 for a, b, c, d primes. 22 x 32 has to be there and to minimize the LCM; the numbers must have been minimum. So, the numbers should have been 23 x 32 x 52 and 22 x 33 x 72 their LCM was 23 x33 x 5 2 x 72
Q. 80 was a relatively problem wherein one could have converted the base 8 numbers into base 10 and added them and just compared to the RHS which was already in base 10.One could have found P=2 and Q=3 and so, P+Q=5
In Q. 85, it was worth noting that one had to multiply all the perfect squares from 49 to 289 and check the powers of 22 and 3.The power of 22 was 11 and that of 3 was 8. Hence, the highest power of 12 was 8 in the product.
For Q. 90, the best way was to take a value of ‘a’ and then find corresponding value of b and then substitute both in the required expression. A =1 would have led to b=1/(3)1/2 and the expression becomes 20+8(3)1/2
This translates to an attempt of about 12 questions. For a realistic accuracy of 75%, a score of 36 could have been achieved.
All the best!!
Career Launcher Team
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Answer Key and Explanations Corrections:
Q. 65 Explanation: Read the case I and case IV as:
Case I: If units digit of N is 3, then units digit of M will be 9.
Then, N = 13, 23, 43, 53, 73 or 83 and M = 19, 29, 59, 79, 89
So, number of distinct products = 6 × 5 = 30
Case IV: If unit digit of N is 9, then unit digit of M will be 3.
Then N = 19, 29, 59, 79 or 89 and M = 13, 23, 43, 53, 73 or 83
So number of distinct products = 5 × 6 = 30
Total number of distinct products = 55.
Q. 85. Correct answer is (4) in place of (5).
Explanation: Only perfect squares have odd number of factors
P = 49 × 64 × 81 × 100 × 121 × 144 × 169 × 196 × 225 × 256 × 289
Where N is neither a multiple of 2 nor a multiple of 3.
Here highest power of 3 is 8, and highest power of 2 is more than 12. So the highest power of 12 is 8.
Q.86 Correct answer is (2) in place of (5).
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