CAT 2023 Slot 1 Exam Analysis: Paper Review, Difficulty Level, Good Attempts

CAT Exam Analysis 2023 Slot 1: IIM Lucknow successfully conducted the CAT 2023 slot 1 exams on November 26, 2023. Candidates who appeared for the first slot of the exam have mentioned that the exam was moderate to difficult in terms of difficulty level. The exam pattern was as expected. Students can check the details of the slot 1 analysis below.

Since the CAT 2023 examination has concluded, students are eagerly waiting for the announcement of the CAT 2023 answer key. It must be noted that the CAT answer key is expected to be released by the first week of December 2023. Candidates are advised to keep visiting the official website for details regarding the announcement of the answer key and the CAT 2023 results. 

Also Read: CAT 2023 Exam Analysis: Paper Review, Difficulty Level, and Expected Cut Off Here

Following the conclusion of the CAT 2023 first slot exams, the CAT Exam Analysis 2023 Slot 1 will be made available. Experts from the field will provide the complete analysis of the exam, the types of questions, difficulty level, and based on the analysis and the response of the students the expected cutoff to clear the CAT exam. 

Keep Visiting this page for initial responses from candidates and CAT slot 1 analysis

CAT 2023 Slot 1 Analysis

CAT 2023 Slot 1 Analysis provided below by Time Institute

Students who appeared for the CAT 2023 slot 1 exam stated that the paper while being tougher than last year, did retain the overall structure of the exam as was seen in the last couple of years. No noticeable surprises were seen as far as the pattern goes in this slot. 

The following was the pattern of examination in the first slot:

The evaluation scheme was the same as that of the earlier years - Three marks for a correct answer and a penalty of a mark for a wrongly marked MCQ. Non-MCQs had no negative marks.

The difficulty, overall, for CAT 2023 in the morning slot was slightly on the higher side compared to that of all of the slots of the two previous CATs.

Section-wise analysis

Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension:

The VARC section had 24 questions in the morning slot, 16 from Reading Comprehension and 8 from Verbal Ability. There was no major change in the pattern or number of questions from the previous year.

The RC passages were four in number, with four questions per passage. There were a good number of questions based on strengthening/weakening of arguments. Just like last year, the 1st slot paper this year also had a good number of questions of the nature of “Which of the following are true EXCEPT”?

The passage on Postcolonial and “Indian Ocean” Novels, was a moderately difficult read. There was one question in this passage, in which the student was expected to identify the odd pair from the set of keywords from the passage.

The passage on Return of Wolves was deceptively easy to read, but the options in a couple of questions were quite close and difficult to eliminate. Students who attempted this passage first may have ended up losing time on these questions.

The RC passage on Geographical vs Cultural influences on human history was analytical and not so tough to read. However, the questions were on the difficult side, with multiple negations and exclusions (“all…EXCEPT”) in some of them. An ideal approach would have been to omit this passage, which would have been difficult given the attractive readability of the passage.

The RC Passage on the book “Affluent Society”, was a moderate-difficult read. The questions for this passage were moderate-difficult with some typical question types usually encountered in CAT. This too was an analytical passage and most students would have been able to attempt at least 2 questions correctly.

In the Verbal Ability section this year, there were two questions each on Para Formation, Para Odd Man Out, Para Summary, and Sentence Placement. Overall, the VA part was of moderate difficulty level, with a few easy questions. All the Para Formation and Para Odd Man Out questions were non-MCQs.

The Para Formation questions were moderately difficult, and students should have strategically attempted both, as they were both non-MCQs.

The Para Odd Man Out questions were of moderate difficulty, where students could figure out the right answer by trying to solve the sequence of the contextually connected sentences. Even if students did not find the exact sequence, the odd statement was relatively easier to find.

The Sentence Placement questions were moderately difficult. An ideal approach would be to have attempted one of them accurately. The Para Summary questions were moderately difficult, with the themes being not too difficult to read.

The distribution of the questions in the Verbal Ability area is as below –

A net score of 15–17 would be a decent score for a test-taker to be able to get 85 percentile (sectional cut-off).

Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning:

The DILR section of the morning slot was distinctly higher in difficulty level, overall, compared to the overall difficulty of DILR of the last year. There was no change in the pattern. Just like last year, the number of sets remained at four with each set having 5 questions. As all the sets had the same number of questions, it was now the type of set and the amount of data that students had to look for, before attempting the set. One could also have taken the easy way out by checking the sets in the order of appearance, provided one was more or less equally well-versed with all the set types.

Like last year, this year’s paper also did not have that one definitely-easy and must-attempt set. Even the easiest set in the section required students to have a basic understanding of Statistics beforehand, not so common an expectation for DILR sets in general.

This contributed to pushing the difficulty level up by a notch this year.

The set-wise details are as follows:

The set on ‘Houses for sale’ was a Quant-based reasoning set that involved the concepts of special equations in a major way. The set was challenging due to the context being unique and the rather elaborate nature of the information provided. This should not have been the first set to attempt as this would have eaten up a lot of time that could have been better spent on other comparatively easier sets in the section.

The set on ‘Professors voting to elect a Dean’ was a tough set to get a hang of, given the intricate nature of the information provided. Students would have had to spend a lot of time trying to understand the information before they even put pen to paper. Even after understanding the details, the reasoning required to solve the set provided an additional hurdle that would have had to be surpassed to crack the set.

At the outset, the set on ‘Restaurants and Gigs’ looked to be simpler to solve. However the statistical concepts and terminology integral to the set would have been a major deterrent to students who were not well-versed with these concepts. However, those comfortable with statistics would have found this set to be well within their reach, making this set a must-attempt for such students. The difficulty level of this set can be said to be ‘Moderate-Difficult’.

The set ‘Visa Processing’ involved counters for multiple countries which had different processing times. This set also had a lot of information to process and many students would have dropped this set given the daunting length of the information of the set.

While the set was not undoable, the amount of information to be processed would have taken up a lot of time, pushing this set back in the order of sets to attempt.

Students who took a good number of AIMCATs would have come across such sets multiple times, which would have definitely helped in reducing the novelty/surprise factor of these sets.

A net score of 9–11 would be a decent score for a test-taker to be able to get 85 percentile (sectional cut-off).

Quantitative Ability Section

The Quant section retained the exact structure from last year, including the non-MCQs. The paper had 22 Questions, with 7 non-MCQs. However, based on the student feedback, this year’s paper was tougher than last year’s.

While a good number of questions in the section appeared very doable at the outset, they turned out to be much tougher than expected in most of the cases. Compared to last year, the number of easy questions significantly came down. Almost all the questions required the student to go beyond simply substituting values in formulae. Most of the questions came from Algebra and Arithmetic. The questions from Algebra in particular were difficult, with the approaches being either not straightforward or time-consuming. This may have prevented students from reaching the end of the section. Even those with a lot of practice in QA would not have found it easy to score high, given the tediousness involved in some of the questions.

The distribution of questions in this section across topics is as below:

A net score of 8-10 would be a decent score for a test-taker to be able to get 85 percentile (sectional cut-off).

Overall, a net score of 47-50 should be sufficient to fetch at least one IIM call.

Inputs by Ramnath Kanakadandi, Senior Course Director, T.I.M.E

The CAT slot 2 analysis provided below is from experts at IMS India

The structure of CAT 2023 remained largely the same as in 2022, with 66 questions in all.  However, the DILR and Verbal sections saw some changes in segmentation and the number of  MCQs and TITA. Verbal Section saw a minor change in segmentation with the Odd Sentence  Questions coming back after 2021. The VA Section had 2 questions each of Summary, Paragraph  Jumbles, Paragraph Completion, and Odd Sentence questions.  

The marking scheme was +3 for every correct and -1 for incorrect. There was no negative marking
for TITA Qs.

Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension

The VA-RC section consisted of 16 Reading Comprehension questions and 8 Verbal Ability questions. As in the past several years, there were no direct Grammar or Vocabulary questions. The passages were mainly Easy except for the one on Modern Materialism. About 12 RC questions could be attempted with high accuracy. The out-of-context-sentence (Odd Sentence) questions made a comeback this year, replacing one each of Summary and Paragraph Jumbles. So, the section had 2 questions each of Summary (MCQ), Paragraph Jumbles (TITA), Paragraph Completion(MCQ), and Odd Sentence questions (TITA). In VA, 6 or 7 attempts with high accuracy were possible. Overall, the section was Easy.

An attempt of 16 to 18 questions with an accuracy of approximately 70% will be a good performance  in VARC.  

Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning  

Last year, there were a total of four sets, each comprising five questions. This pattern has been  maintained in CAT 2023.  

Overall, the Level of difficulty of the section was Medium to Difficult.  

Overall, the level of difficulty of this section was on par with the DILR Section of Slot 1 of CAT  2022.  

Overall, an attempt of 9 to 11 questions with accuracy of approximately 75-80% will be a good  performance.  

Quantitative Ability  

This section was tougher in terms of level of difficulty compared to last year’s slots and was  dominated by Algebra (8 questions), followed by Arithmetic (7 questions). There were 4  questions on Geometry, 2 questions on Modern Math and one on Numbers. In Algebra, the  questions were dominated by Quadratic equations, Linear Equations, Modulus Functions &  Polynomials etc. In Arithmetic, the questions were on SICI, Time and Work, Time-Speed-Distance,  Clocks, Averages, Mixtures & Allegations and Profit & Loss. In Modern Math, the questions were  on Logarithms, Sequences etc. In Geometry, the questions were on Triangle, Coordinate  Geometry, Cyclic Quadrilateral etc. There was a question on Indices.  

Number of TITA (7 questions) and MCQ (15 questions) in this section.  

Overall, an attempt of 9 to 11 questions with accuracy of approximately 75-80% will be a good  performance.

The analysis for CAT Slot 1 has been provided by experts from CATKing

According to experts, the CAT had no element of surprise,( 66 Questions, same as  CAT 2022). VARC Section was Moderate, Reading comprehension dominated the exam, the comeback of the Out of Context Questions; DILR Section was on the Difficult side with 2 /4 sets Doable, In the Quants section, Algebra, and arithmetic dominated the exam,  Some Element of Statistics was seen in the exam.

Sectional Break up

Verbal ( 24 Qs )

DILR ( 20)

Quantitative Analysis (22)

CAT 2023 Slot 1 brought forth a mix of familiar patterns and intriguing challenges, with a total of 66 questions divided among Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC), Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR), and Quantitative Aptitude (QA). Let's delve into the insights and nuances of each section.

The VARC section presented a mix of inference-based questions, with a focus on reading comprehension from diverse topics such as philosophy, history, languages, and knowledge perception. The Verbal Ability segment included a variety of question types, challenging candidates with parajumbles, paragraph summaries, and paragraph completion exercises.

This breakdown gives a clearer understanding of the perceived difficulty levels for each set in the DILR section, ranging from moderate to difficult and easy. Candidates needed to strategize their approach based on these difficulty levels to optimize their performance in this section.

The QA section included a significant focus on algebra, which was described as tough for the majority of students but basic for those well-prepared. Arithmetic questions covered various topics, with a mix of difficulty levels, more or less easy to moderate. Geometry and Number System questions were also part of the section. Overall, the section required candidates to navigate through a diverse set of questions with varying complexities.

Overall the exam was doable and not very tough when compared to 2022. VARC was more inference-based but had Reading comprehension passages all from the predicted Topics. DILR was Moderate in difficulty terms but felt a little time-consuming and lengthy. 

Negative marking will be applicable for multiple choice questions; 1/3rd ie 0.33 negative marks. Type in the answer questions do not have any negative marking similar to the CAT 2022. 

Navigating the Verbal, DILR, and QA Challenges

Sectional Analysis:

Overall Difficulty: Easy to Moderate 

VARC 24 Questions

Reading comprehension was dominated in the verbal section. There were 4 passages with 4 Questions each. More inference-based questions and not factual, there were close options too so it needed little focus while solving. 

TITA Verbal ability was overall Moderate.

2 Out of Context (OOC) Questions, involving 5 statements with tricky connections.

2 Parajumbles Questions, each with 4 statements.

2 Parasummary Questions, with options that were easy but closely related.

2 Paragraph Completion Questions, which were very easy to solve. 

Summary of Questions

Reading Comprehension 16 Questions

The Reading comprehension was based on the following themes:

Passage 1: Jungle and Economy, Hunter-Gatherers, Wolf Conservation

Passage 2: Oceans and Territories

Passage 3: Lifestyle Comparison of Old and New Generations

Passage 4: Comparison of South and North Korea, with a focus on clothing differences

Ideal Attempts in VARC Section: 15 Questions

DILR 24 Questions

The DILR section presented a challenging set of questions, emphasizing the importance of selecting the right set for maximum efficiency. Most candidates found two sets doable. The REAL CAT mocks had very similar sets. 

Summary of Questions

Set 1: Professors and Departments - Candidates were required to choose a candidate to vote for, with constraints such as not selecting more than two candidates.

Set 2: VISA Office - Ten applicants until 2 pm with 15-minute slots, and two booths processing visas for three countries. Questions focused on slot distribution and the number of visa processes possible for each country within the given slots.

Set 3: Similar to Slot 1 of CAT 2022 Routes - Involving a colony with six houses, pricing conditions, and road allotment. This set was of moderate difficulty.

Set 4: Statistics-based set on restaurant table set ratings, involving average-rated tables.

Quantita 22 Questions: (TITA 8)

The QA section was rated as moderate to tough, with a higher level of difficulty compared to CAT 2022. Even candidates with weaker quantitative abilities managed to attempt around 8 questions, while those with a stronger background could answer 10-12 questions.

• Arithmetic covered questions on profit and loss, mixtures, simple interest, and compound interest (SICI), time-speed-distance, and time and work.
• Algebra posed tougher challenges, including questions on algebraic expressions (3-4 questions), logarithms, and geometry.
• Geometry included questions on right-angle triangles, coordinate geometry and an area-finding scenario in an arithmetic progression.
• Modern Maths introduced permutation and combination, while probability was absent.

The algebra section (7 questions) was more basic and not considered tough.

Mixture and Alligation: 1 question.

Venn Diagram (VPAR): 2 questions.

Time, Speed, and Distance (TSD): 2 questions (1 easy, 1 lengthy).

Modern Maths & Percentage mixed question: 1 question.

Clocks & Calendars: 1 question.

Geometry questions and Number system questions were present.

Experts suggest that considering the difficulty level of the paper, aiming for a 99 percentile would ideally require attempting 45 or more questions with a strong 90% accuracy.

Inputs from Sumit Singh Gandhi (Rahul), Founder of CATKing

CAT 2023 Slot 1 Analysis - Initial Response

Students who attempted the CAT 2023 slot 1 exam have mentioned that the DILR section was a little difficult. The overall exam was good and the difficulty level was easier as compared to the previous year exams, a few students commented.

CAT 2023 Exam Pattern for Slot 1

CAT Slot 1 Analysis- VARC section

The CAT 2023 exams have a total of three sections. According to the initial response given by students who attempted the first slot of the exam, the overall difficulty level for the VARC section is moderate which is similar to last year. Aspirants claimed that the VARC section was doable and questions were asked from Para Jumbles, Sentence filling, summary, etc. A complete analysis of the first slot is expected soon.