How Scaled CAT Score will be Calculated for Three Slots?

CAT 2022 exam has been conducted in three slots. With no changes in CAT exam pattern from last year, the total marks of the paper are 198. 

While illustrating the scaling process, CAT chose QA section as an example. Similar process will be valid for the other two sections, i.e. DILR and VARC.

• Step 1: Calculate the mean and the standard deviation (SD) of the raw scores in QA section for all candidates appearing in the morning session. Let Mean = M1 and SD = S1 and G1 = M1 + S1.
• Step 2: Calculate the mean and the standard deviation (SD) of the raw scores in QA section for all candidates appearing in the afternoon session. Let Mean = M2 and SD = S2 and G2 = M2 + S2.
• Step 3: Calculate the mean and the standard deviation (SD) of the raw scores in QA section for all candidates appearing in the evening session. Let Mean = M3 and SD = S3 and G3 = M3 + S3.
• Step 4: Calculate the mean and the standard deviation (SD) of the raw scores in QA section for all candidates appearing in CAT (i.e. including all the three sessions). Let Mean = M and SD = S and G = M + S.
• Step 5: Calculate the mean raw score in QA section of the top 0.1% of candidates in the morning session and denote it by 
• Step 6: Calculate the mean raw score in QA of top 0.1% of candidates in the afternoon session and denote it by 
• Step 7: Calculate the mean raw score in QA of top 0.1% of candidates in the evening session and denote it by 

Suppose now XYZ is a candidate who appeared in the morning session and the raw score in QA section is R. Then the scaled score of XYZ in QA, say is given by:

:

In case XYZ is a candidate who appeared in the afternoon session and the raw score in QA section is R. Then the scaled score of XYZ in QA, say is given by:

In case XYZ is a candidate who appeared in the evening session and her raw score in QA section is R. Then the scaled score of XYZ in QA, say given by:

Similar Methodology is applied for computation of scaled scores for other sections. If this formula yields any scaled score as more than 100, it will be rounded down to 100.

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CAT 2022 Percentile Score Calculation

Keeping Quantitative Ability (QA) as an example, the stepwise procedure for the calculation of overall score and percentile score is as follows:

• Step 1: Calculate the total number of candidates (N) who appeared for CAT in all sessions.
• Step 2: Assign a rank (r), based on the scaled scores obtained in the QA section, to all candidates who appeared for CAT 2022. If two or more candidates obtain equal scores in the QA section, then identical ranks will be assigned to those candidates.

For example, if two candidates obtain the highest scaled score in the QA section, then the assigned rank of both the candidates will be 1. The candidate(s) obtaining the second highest scaled score in the QA section will be assigned Rank 3 and so on.

• Step 3: The percentile score (P) of a candidate with rank(r) in the QA section can be calculated using the following formula: 

P = ((N-r) N) x 100

• Step 4: Finally, round off the calculated percentile score (P) of a candidate up to two decimal points. For example, all percentile scores greater than or equal to 99.995 are rounded off to 100, all percentile scores which are greater than or equal to 99.985 but less than 99.995 are rounded off to 99.99 and so on. 

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CAT Normalization Process

• Exam creation is a set of statistically profiled questions. These questions of same difficulty levels are used in re-scaling candidate’s score to the metric of item bank. 
• The questions are properly analysed and their difficulty levels is assessed according to a standard metric.
• The normalization carries a base assumption that “in all multi session CAT papers, the distribution of abilities of candidates is the same across all of the sessions”.
• Then, the raw score of the candidate is scaled, and scores are established accordingly. This helps in awarding ranks to the candidates.
• The percentile rank is equated based on percentage score that falls below a certain specified score.
• With the total scale scores arranged in rank order from the lowest to highest in 100 equally sized groups, a table with the total scale scores to percentile ranks will be created.
• After the scores are identified and arranged, high scoring candidate’s name will be determined from the top among high scorers and subsequent list of low scorers.
• CAT percentile decides the rank of a management aspirant, relative to the rest of the aspirants who appeared for the same MBA entrance exam. The basic idea of the CAT percentile is to tell you what per cent of the students have scored less than you in the examination.

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How is CAT Score Equated?

Equating CAT follows a psychometric process to adjust differences in difficulty level. The process is followed to keep a tab on comparable metric and be justified to candidates who test across multiple days. There are three phases in equating the CAT Exam

• ​Raw scores are calculated where three marks are awarded for a correct answer, and one mark is deducted for every wrong answer.
• Through an equating process, raw scores are adjusted for variances in difficulty levels across the different test forms. Then through statistical properties, candidates’ performance is judged on the same questions asked in two or more different forms. These equating measures help to adjust raw marks accordingly. 
• Equating helps in placing the scores on a common scale and create a range of scores which help in creating percentile rank.

Read CAT Marks vs Percentile

CAT Raw Score Vs Percentile: Accuracy Levels and Attempt

What accuracy level is needed while attempting CAT answers? Find out from the tables below

CAT Score, Attempts, and Accuracy for 99 Percentile

CAT Score, Attempts, and Accuracy for 95 Percentile

CAT Score, Attempts, and Accuracy for 90 Percentile

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Overall CAT Percentile and Marks