CAT 2024: How Normalisation Of Scores Is Done For Common Admission Test

The Common Admission Test (CAT) 2024 will be conducted on November 24, 2024 in three sessions. The sessions will have three different test forms. The scores of candidates will be subjected to a process of Normalisation to ensure fairness and equity in comparison of performances of candidates across the different test sessions.

The Normalisation process will adjust for location and scale differences of score distributions across different forms. After normalisation across different forms, the scores will be further normalised across different sections. The scaled scores obtained by this process will be converted into percentiles for purposes of shortlisting. 

For reporting purposes, Scaled Scores for each section (Section I: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC), Section II: Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR), and Section III: Quantitative Ability (QA)) and Total along with the percentiles shall be published.

The process of Normalisation is used for comparing candidate scores across multiple test forms and is similar to those being adopted in other large educational selection tests conducted in India, such as the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE). 

CAT 2024 is conducted as a prerequisite for admission to various postgraduate and fellow/doctorate programmes of IIMs. CAT 2024 scores are also allowed to be used by listed non-IIM member institutions. 

The exam is scheduled to take place on November 24 in various cities across India.

There are 21 IIMs and over 1,000 other MBA institutions that accept CAT scores. Notable non-IIM B-schools include FMS Delhi, SJMSoM IIT Mumbai, MDI Gurgaon, DoMS IIT Delhi, and SPJIMR Mumbai.