Wednesday, October 16, 2013

CAT 2013 First Day - 16th October Analysis and Estimated Cut Offs - Morning Paper



CAT 2013 First Day - 16th October Analysis and Estimated Cut Offs - Morning Paper


Finally the exam window of CAT 2013 started from today (16th October). As this was the first day of CAT 2013 the number of test takers were very less as serious CAT takers avoid taking CAT on the first day as they are wary of some last minute changes.

So finally the First Day Morning Shift paper of 16th October CAT 2013 is over and loads of candidates who are having their paper lined up in upcoming days of CAT 2013 window would be vigorously searching the internet trying to know about the difficulty level of this paper. So below I am quoting down a detailed analysis of CAT 2013 First Day Morning Shift Paper - 16th October.



Analysis of CAT 2013 First Day Morning Shift Paper - 16th October-

1st Section  - Quantitative Aptitude and Data Interpretation of CAT 2013 16th October Morning Shift Paper

The pattern of this section was similar to the previous year pattern of 30 questions to be attempted in 70 minutes. 9-10 questions were from Data Interpretation and 20-21 questions were of Quantitative Aptitude. An important thing to notice in this window was that some questions of Venn Diagrams were seen. Venn Diagrams is a very important topic to cover and the most peculiar thing about this topic Venn Diagrams is that it can appear in any one of the three sections - be it Quantitative Aptitude, Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation. 


Coming to the difficulty level of the questions that were encountered by the students in this section, the difficulty level of the questions was very evenly distributed across the paper. By saying this, I mean that you can not say the paper to be extremely easy or easy and at the same time you can not say the paper to very hard or even hard. So if I want to define the difficulty level of this paper in a phrase I would say that the paper was "Moderately Difficult But Totally Doable". Their were no such questions that were based on very tough and complex theorems such as Wilson Theorem, Euler Theorem and others. All the questions would be easy for you if you have developed an aptitude approach towards questions during your preparation. Mathematical approach would not help you a lot in this sort of paper but if you have done your preparation in a way in which you have looked for concepts and shortcuts involved in different questions you can give a very good shot at this paper. Many of my students who have attempted this question paper say that found the paper to be very easy and they were able to attempt even 25 questions out of 30 with full accuracy. But I have also heard reviews of some other aspirants who say that they wasted too much of time in questions that were tough and thereby ended up not attempting the easy ones and sitters. 

How many attempts in Section 1 (Quantitative Aptitude and Data Interpretation) of CAT 2013 can be considered good - 

(a) If you have attempted 25 questions with a possibility of not having more than 2 or 3 questions wrong than you will score a percentile in excess of 99.62 in Section 1 

(b) If you have attempted 20 questions with a possibility of not having more than 2 or 3 questions wrong than you will score a percentile in excess of 98.30 in Section 1 

(c) If you have attempted 15 questions with a possibility of not having more than 2 or 3 questions wrong than you will score a percentile in excess of 94 in Section 1

Analysis of CAT 2013 First Day Morning Shift Paper - 16th October-

2nd Section  - Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning of CAT 2013 16th October Morning Shift Paper

The break up of the questions that appeared in Section 2 of CAT 2013 is as follows - 

1. 9 Questions of Logical Reasoning

2. 10 Questions of Reading Comprehension

3. 11 Questions of Verbal Ability that includes Vocabulary Questions, Fill in the Blanks Questions, Para Completion Questions, Para Jumbles, Wrong Usage Questions.

This Paper was also evenly distributed in terms of difficulty level. Of the three Logical Reasoning Case-lets that were encountered by students one was very easy, one was moderately difficult but doable but one was lengthy and tricky and was said to be tough. The students who would have solved all the three case-lets correctly definitely have sought an upper hand in this section of CAT 2013. However this pattern is the same general pattern of difficulty level of Logical Reasoning Case-lets that was seen in last year exam(CAT 2012).

Same pattern was seen in case of Reading Comprehension Passages. There were three passages in which one was easy, one was moderately difficult and one was very tricky. 

11 questions of Verbal Ability - some were difficult and some were easy. My students discussed some questions that were present in their question sets and I found that those questions were not very difficult, they were definitely doable. Unfortunately I can not post those questions here as that would be unlawful, but by totally analyzing the paper in deep, I can sum up that if you have done enough practice of questions of English in Mocks and in your study material you would be able to do a fair amount of questions with good accuracy.

How many attempts in Section 2 (Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning) of CAT 2013 can be considered good - 

(a) If you have attempted 30 questions with a possibility of not having more than 4 or 5 questions wrong than you will score a percentile in excess of 99.82 in Section 2

(b) If you have attempted 25 questions with a possibility of not having more than 4 or 5 questions wrong than you will score a percentile in excess of 99.17 in Section 1 

(c) If you have attempted 20 questions with a possibility of not having more than 4 or 5 questions wrong than you will score a percentile in excess of 97 in Section 1 

(d) If you have attempted 15 questions with a possibility of not having more than 1 or 2 questions wrong than you will score a percentile in excess of 95 in Section 1 


CAT 2013 Estimated Percentile Score -

(a) If you have attempted 45 questions out of 60 with a possibility of not having more than 4 or 5 questions wrong than you will score a percentile in excess of 99.50 in CAT 2013

(b) If you have attempted 50 questions out of 60 with a possibility of not having more than 4 or 5 questions wrong than you will score a percentile in excess of 99.80 in CAT 2013

(c) If you have attempted 55 questions out of 60 with a possibility of not having more than 4 or 5 questions wrong than you will score a percentile in excess of 99.92 in CAT 2013

(d) If you have attempted 60 questions out of 60 with a possibility of not having more than 4 or 5 questions wrong than you will score a percentile in excess of 99.97 in CAT 2013

(e) If you have attempted 40 questions out of 60 with a possibility of not having more than 4 or 5 questions wrong than you will score a percentile in excess of 99.10 in CAT 2013

(f) If you have attempted 35 questions out of 60 with a possibility of not having more than 4 or 5 questions wrong than you will score a percentile in excess of 97.5 in CAT 2013

(g) If you have attempted 30 questions out of 60 with a possibility of not having more than 4 or 5 questions wrong than you will score a percentile in excess of 95 in CAT 2013

At the end guys to quote it simply, paper was easy for aspirants who have done hard work for the whole year and was difficult for those who were not well prepared. So if you have worked hard and have made decent attempts(around 40) with accuracy, you will score good percentiles definitely and one more thing. Nowhere in this article I have mentioned that you have to maximize your attempts. In your CAT paper only attempt those questions of which you know the answer. I do not take the responsibility that what I have written would really happen, no body can take this responsibility, even the biggest coaching institutes say that the cut offs released by them are their tentative guess. It is only an effort from my side to help you guys.  BEST OF LUCK.....

All of the above analysis is my personal experience and also by the knowledge that I have gathered by interacting with Test Takers of the last 3 years online CAT. If you think that their is some genuine issue in this analysis please post your opinion below in the comments.

IF YOU HAVE ANY DOUBTS PLEASE POST IT IN THE COMMENT SECTION BELOW....

76 comments:

  1. n also di types n no of arithmetic q too

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  2. Thanks a lot...Can you please share the types of caselet you had for DI and LR?

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  3. Ashutosh the exact information about those can not be disclosed...however I can tell you that Data Interpretation is calculation intensive....and if you have attempted and analysed questions of lr in mocks of CL AND TIME properly you would be able to do them here also....

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  4. Aniket as you can see in my previous comment the DI are calculation based and LR are most of arrangements typesss....

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  5. thanks a lot for the analysis! do you remember how many questions were from algebra and geometry and other topics?

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  6. As far as my students remember 2 questions from geometry and only 1 from algebra.....but this information is totally on the basis of what I have heard from students who appeared in this paper.....

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  7. Was Logical Reasoning easy like last year or was difficult compared to last year ?

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  8. last year the difficulty of Logical reasoning case-lets was different in different slots....In some slots CAT 2012 the Lr sets were easy and in some they were very difficult....This year in CAT2013 the difficulty level was evenly distributed.....One set was very easy and one was tricky.....

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  9. You are most welcome Ashutosh.....

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  10. Hello Harshit , thanks a lot for the analysis , I had one query ( not related to the analysis ), I have entered my graduation %age as 74 , however it is 73.9 while filling CAT form, would that create issues for me during final selection ?

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  11. No the difference is not too big only of 0.1....so it is less likely to create a problem for you....but in the worst of cases if you have been selected over someone else on the basis of this much difference....i.e. that all of your other credentials match with someone and he also has scored in the same range and is below you and not selected.....and if during document verification authorities see the difference and if due to this difference you come below that not selected candidate then this thing can create a problem....but this much amount of bad luck is highly unlikely....SO CHILL.... NO PROBLEM WOULD BE THERE...

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  12. Thanks a lot sir , I was so much worried , by your comment I am very much relaxed :) :)

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  13. Sir , how much can I expect by doing 9 LR questions correct ( as in the mocks of CL I am generally doing all 9 correct ) and by just attempting a couple of questions of parajumbles and paracompletion in Section - 2 ? ( because I am bad in Verbal and RC's but good in sec 1 and has always managed to get around 90%ile in mocks in Sec 1 ) , Just an approximate %ile so as to get an idea , Thanks in advance

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  14. The Answer of your Question totally depends on the fact that which colleges are you aspiring for....If you are aspiring for top 5 IIM's than even if you score in excess of 99 percentile in first section you have to score at least 97 plus percentile in the second section.....Take my example, last year when I appeared for CAT 2012 i took the same strategy that you are taking this year....i scored 99.62 percentile in section 1 while in section 2 it was not even 75 percentileee...overall percentile 97.....i did all Logical Reasoning questions correct but verbal and rcs questions went wrong.....

    So if you have done your first section quite well and have correctly attempted LR questions in second section then go for accuracy on verbal and RCs questions....The questions of Verbal and RCs that we are going to see in original CAT would be much easier than what we see in CL Mocks and TIME Aimcats....So it is possible to maintain accuracy in Verbal and RCs questions but for doing that you have to believe in yourself...in whatever days left practice more and more verbal and rcs and go for accuracy not for more attempts....

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  15. Sir thanx a lot for ur analysis. I just have 1 question is accuracy taken in to account for normalization or only raw score is considered?? I knw its very difficult to answer it coz the process isnt disclosed but just based on ur experience and interactions what r ur thoughts on it??

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  16. What was the length of the RC passages? were they as long as those in TIME mocks? or were the comparatively shorter like in CL mocks?

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  17. Harshil this a very difficult question to answer.....many CAT experts like Arun Sharma say that negative answers make a lot of impact on our percentiles but at the same time many experts have said that they do not... Nobody has the answer of this question....So from my perspective and experience of being in the teaching business from the last 2 years I would say that test takers should maintain full accuracy in 1st section and try to maintain high accuracy in second section as maintaining 100 percent accuracy in English is almost impossible......

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  18. Sir,plz help..I have been scoring around 80 marks in Mock exams consistently with 75 percent accuracy.Most of my English answers except LR are probable guesses .Sir by this method if we just look at the total scores (according to your analysis) I should score around 94 percent.Will the accuracy play a very big role and I may get below 85 percentile just because of the accuracy of my attempts.Help

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  19. If you are able to attempt all questions of LR correct and your first section has gone good....in this case minimize your attempts in verbal and rc with 90 percent accuracy...No matter how hard the English section is there would be 10 questions that can attempted with 90 percent accuracy... your job is to identify those 10 questions....this must be your objective....there is no point attempting difficult questions when you leave the easy ones....spot on the easy ones....CAT 2013 is not CL OR TIME mocks where all questions are tough....10 questions of va and rcs are definitely going to be manageable.....and you can also do them with accuracy....

    So if you do the calculation if you are doing 9 questions of LR correct and out of 10 attempts of VA AND RC 9 goes correct then it will be 18 correct attempts and 1 wrong which will easily give percentile more than 97 or even 98.

    And these 10 attempts is only a base figure...if the paper is easy may be you would be able to attempt more than 10 questions in VA AND RCS......

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  20. Thanks Harshit your analysis relieved me a lot. I was too tensed about the pattern and all...
    I appreciate your help..

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  21. Thanks Harshit your analysis relieved me a lot. I was too tensed about the pattern and all...
    I appreciate your help..

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  22. Thanks Harshit your analysis relieved me a lot .. I was too tensed about the pattern and all..
    I appreciate your help..

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  23. You are welcome Nirav.... and Best of Luck for your CAT 2013 Exam.....May your dreams come true.....

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  24. thanx a lot sir ....such filtered n vivid analysis is a respite for the nervous aspirants like me ....kudos for ur wrk !! :)

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  25. thanx a lot sir ...such filtered n vivid analysis is what gives respite to the nervous aspirants like me ...kudos for your work .... !! n wish me luck for my CAT on 19th ....ur suggestions were an eye opener ....

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  26. Thank you sir for a wonderfully laid out analysis. I am amazed at the fact that one can score almost 95 percentile by attempting 30 odd questions with a good accuracy rate. The attempts are not even half of the questions available. Does it actually happen that way?

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  27. Thank you sir for a wonderfully laid out analysis. I am amazed at the fact that one can score almost 95 percentile by attempting 30 odd questions with a good accuracy rate. The attempts are not even half of the questions available. Does it actually happen that way?

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  28. You are Welcome Ashu...n best of luck for your cat on 19th....Whatever your strategy for CAT is implement it but always remember to focus on accuracy.....

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  29. well if your accuracy is high you can score 95 percentile....if your 30 attempted questions are correct and the paper in your slot in difficult.....you can definitely score 95 percentile but accuracy should be high....but try to maximize your attempts with accuracy but not at the expense of accuracy.....

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  30. can u pls tell me... if i need a percentile score above 90, wat shuld be the total number of question attempt dat wud make it up?

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  31. Dear Unknown, it is almost impossible to answer this question as the difficulty level of your slot paper is unknown....it is totally dependent on the difficulty level of questions in your slot paper....don't make any pre conceived ideas in ur mind...attempt that much which u r able to solve....BEST OF LUCK

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  32. Sir,was there any questions from TIME SPEED DISTANCE,PROFIT AND LOSS,PRCENTAGE,TIME AN WORK??

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  33. Can you breakup the qaunt section and specifically were any question of Probability and SI/CI in your set?

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  34. Sir was there any ques from numbers.?

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  35. thanx a lot sir ...such filtered n vivid analysis is what gives respite to the nervous aspirants like me wish me luck for my CAT on 18th ....ur suggestions were an eye opener ....!!!

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  36. Dear Sir,
    Plz tell us more detail about section 1.
    from which topic most questions came??

    In Section 2,how many questions are from Synonyms/Antonyms
    and para jumbles??

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  37. Dear Sir,
    Plz tell us more detail about section 1.
    from which topic most questions came??

    In Section 2,how many questions are from Synonyms/Antonyms
    and para jumbles??

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  38. In Section 1 many questions were there from number system, functions, algebra, geometry and graphs...Inequality and questions of range and modes were also present but there is no need to panic are they were not very difficult...If you have an elementary knowledge of these topics you will be able to solve those questions.....

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  39. From Para Jumbles there were around 3 questions and 2 questions each of word usage and fill in the blanks.As far I have analysed no direct quest. of antonyms and synonyms....

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  40. First of all thank you for such a detailed analysis, Its really helpful.You have given a lot of info about the algebric questions.But how about arithmetics? How many questions were there and what was the diffculty level in general?

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  41. Sir , In the VA section , was there any questions on PHRASAL VERBS i.e., Incorrect usage ??
    And was there anyy direct q on vocabulary like confusing word pairs etc. ?

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  42. so far as algebra goes, just wanted to get a sense whether the mould of question is something that CAT has been historically asking - mostly solvable through option elimination and assuming values? or is there a shift towards questions where you need to be excellent at algebra? also, wrt to DI - i pick up that most sets were is the typical CAT style where command over ratios, percentages etc can save time. could you please let me know if i'm missing something wrt to these specific areas, they've like batting powerplay for me :)

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  43. so far as algebra goes, just wanted to get a sense whether the mould of question is something that CAT has been historically asking - mostly solvable through option elimination and assuming values? or is there a shift towards questions where you need to be excellent at algebra? also, wrt to DI - i pick up that most sets were is the typical CAT style where command over ratios, percentages etc can save time. could you please let me know if i'm missing something wrt to these specific areas, they've like batting powerplay for me :)

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  44. Sorry Darshan your questions are specifically questioning me regarding the exact type....which in English at least I do not know..... Word usage questions were there but is the involvement of phrasal verbs was there or not, I can not tell as I have not seen those exact questions....Fill in the blanks were there and all were of the contextual type and when contextual questions are there some amount of confusion is always there...But the options given in the questions of fill in the blanks were not very tricky...So you can say that in fill in the blanks even if you know the meaning of the words given in options still you need to use some logic regarding the context in which the answer is to be given....

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  45. Maverick getting excellent in a topic as vast as algebra is a very tough task and it is not that if you are not excellent than you can not solve questions of Algebra...As I have told in my Analysis questions on Algebra were moderately tough - which means neither too easy nor too difficult..and definitely solvable if you have a fair amount of practice in this topic.....

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  46. Maverick as far as DI is concerned.. If you have a command over Ratios and Percentages than you will feel comfortable in DI section and can solve questions faster and even if you do not have a command on these topics than also you can solve the questions of DI but in that case may be you will take a bit of more time but still questions are definitely solvable.....

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  47. rahul sethi

    thanx a lot sir! :)

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  48. sir,if i solve 30 questions out of 60 with 100% accuracy what would my estimated percentile be???

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  49. It is impossible to predict how much you can score by attempting 30 out of 60 as it totally depends on the difficulty level of your paper.....very frankly please do not keep any preconceived attitude in your mind that you are going to attempt this much questions....Attempt only those ques. which you can solve their....Post you experience of CAT at this URL http://gs-india.blogspot.in/2013/10/cat-2013-analysis-and-expected-cut-offs.html and after that may be I could help you in predicting your percentile score.... ALL THE BEST!!!!

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  50. Sir i m a sc candidate & i m going to write my cat exam on 11 november..so if i do 10 questions in each section with 90% accuracy..then what percentile score can i expect and may i get a call from IIM with that percentile score.....

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  51. Sir i m a sc candidate & i m going to write my cat exam on 11 november..so if i do 10 questions in each section with 90% accuracy..then what percentile score can i expect and may i get a call from IIM with that percentile score.....

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  52. Naba this question can not be answered until the difficulty level of the paper is known...when the paper comes in front of you on basis of your gut feeling and practice you yourself have to decide about whether the paper is difficult or not...and only you have to decide how much you need to attempt....there is one good news for you...last year a student of mine of sc category got calls from all new IIMS at 68 percentile...so at any cost do not compromise on your accuracy.....

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  53. Thank u for ur valuable suggestion..but sir as u told that one of ur sc student got call from iim by having 68%. So my question is in a worst case for a moderate difficult level paper how many question may i need to attend with 90% accuracy..just giv me an aprox idea so that i wil get some courage..and one more thing some of my friend used to tell me that the last day exam paper will be thougher than other...is it true as i m going to giv my exam on d last day...

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  54. Thank u for ur valuable suggestion..but sir as u told that one of ur sc student got call from iim by having 68%. So my question is in a worst case for a moderate difficult level paper how many question may i need to attend with 90% accuracy..just giv me an aprox idea so that i wil get some courage..and one more thing some of my friend used to tell me that the last day exam paper will be thougher than other...is it true as i m going to giv my exam on d last day...

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  55. Naman very less questions of P and C have been reported.....

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  56. Naba 30-34 questions with 95 percent accuracy in SC are enough to get you through......

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  57. Hello sir,

    How many questions should be attempted in section 2 with 80% accuracy to get 99%ile in that section.

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  58. Hi sir,

    If I get all LR questions correct and I get 9 out of 15 other questions correct in section 2.

    What are the expected percentile scores in that particular section.

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  59. Abhishek At least 25 questions need to be attempted so that if an accuracy of 80 percent is there then you will get 20 correct and 5 wrong which will get you somewhere near 99 percentile going by the difficulty level of this years paper....

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  60. this means doing 18 correct out of 24 which means you will score anything in the range of 95 to 98.5 .....No Guarantee Only tentative guess.....

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  61. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  62. Sir i have done 32 questions 14 in which I'am sure of 13 and 16 in VA with 95% accuracy what is a expected percentile!!! if You could tell it would be a great help.

    Thank You

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  63. 13 in maths and 16 in verbal ability with 1 and 2 wrong respectively can get u somewhere in then range of 95 to 97

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  64. Pls tell me about case-let in 2 section

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  65. sir i have done total 23 question in both the section with 75% accuracy what is the expected percentile...

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  66. sir i have done total 23 question in both the section with 75% accuracy what is the expected percentile..

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  67. sir i have done total 23 question in both the section with 70% accuracy what is the expected percentile

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  68. sir i have done total 23 question in both the section with 70% accuracy what is the expected percentile

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  69. Dear sir....can u please tell me the overall and sectional cut off for sc category for iift 2012...

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  70. vinay pratap your forty six attempts with seventy five per cent accuracy means 36 correct and 10 wrong.....in this performance your wrong attempts are a bit high...so you can expect anything in the range of 92 to 98 percentile.....

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  71. As SSC exam is banging on the gates, start planning instantly. Check for the essential SSC exam query papers and final results on the official website of SSC.SSC coaching in karol bagh

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