CAT is conducted by the Indian Institute of Managements (IIMs) every year. This entrance test is held for admissions to Master in Business Administration programme. CAT scores are considered in over 80 B-schools across the country.

One thing about the CAT is that it is unpredictable. One is never sure about the time or the question pattern of the test. Last year, the questions were reduced to 75 and the duration was increased to 2.5 hours unlike the previous year, when the questions numbered 90 and the duration was 2 hours.

The change in the pattern clearly shows that the IIM’s are not looking at how fast students can solve their problems but how well the students can solve them.

This unpredictable pattern has prompted coaching centres to initiate various methods to help the students to develop logical reasoning and analytical thinking. One such centre to introduce innovative methods is IMS Learning Resources Pvt Ltd. It has introduced a novel called 'Nautical Miles' to encourage the students to read.

"The reading habit is essential in students as it helps to improve their vocabulary and grammar. Unfortunately, many students do not read. Therefore, our IMS wing introduced a novel, which also contains meaning of the words besides idioms and phrases," said IMS head for Mangalore and Mysore centre G Gopinath.

He said that the novel comprised of various sections and each section would have questions. "This will give them an idea of the kind of questions asked in the entrance exam," he added. The novel also contains about 2,000 commonly used words, which often appear in CAT. In addition to this, students would also be introduced to various case studies.

In Career Launcher, another coaching centre, reading material covering a wide array of topics such as philosophy, literature and paintings is introduced as "not many students prefer to read these subjects."

Amrita Datta, Centre Head for Career Launcher said that the centre also brings out a monthly magazine which covers topics such as business, general knowledge and current affairs in order to update the knowledge of the students.

On the CAT pattern, Gopinath said that emphasis is now more on analytical reasoning. "IIM wants to have the right candidate with managerial aptitude, problem solving and communication. In the last two years, if one observes the paper pattern, the number of questions has been reduced. This means, IIM is not looking at candidates solving the problems faster but more on reasoning skills," he said.

Further, he said that in the last year’s CAT, there were 75 questions and the duration was of 2.5 hours with equal number of sections (data interpretation, verbal questions and maths) and markings. "In 2004 and 2005, the number of questions was 123 and 90 respectively, with two hours of time. This indicates that CAT prefers candidates with intensive reasoning skills and technique based questions are disappearing," he explained.