Common Admission Test, most popularly known as CAT, is one of the most sought after entrance exams by students aspiring to join management programs in some of India’s top business schools. After so many months of stringent preparation, the CAT exam day bursts in with a final crash. But when the exam goes by, immense anxiety and anticipation in the minds of such candidates. There are expectations for getting the answer key to assess their performance. The CAT 2024 answer key is one of the most critical materials that enable participants to verify their answers, estimate their potential scores, and, therefore, predict their eligibility to get admission to a top institution.
What is the CAT 2024 Answer Key?
CAT 2024 answer key is a response sheet issued by IIMs immediately after conducting CAT examination. It will also carry the correct responses to all the questions asked in the test. The answer key helps the candidates to cross-check their response with the answer key and estimate their score until the actual result is declared. The IIMs simultaneously release the answer key and the response sheets of individual candidates, indicating their marked response to all the questions that were asked during the test.
Significance of the CAT 2024 Answer Key
The final count for the candidates is done with the help of an answer key. It is very crucial for the candidates for a lot of reasons:
1.Self-Assessment: Primarily, the answer key helps the candidates to analyze their own performance. Candidates would have to compare the correct answers with their respective ones and get a clear idea of how well they have done in different sections—VARC, DILR, and QA.
2.Score Calculation: CAT has a marking scheme wherein every correct answer gets 3 marks. However, there’s a penalty of one mark for every wrong answer (for MCQ). According to the answer key, the candidate can calculate his or her total score based on the number of correct and incorrect answers provided to them.
3.Error Zones: Going through the key presented would enable examinees to know how they went wrong, and this may prove helpful to the students who are planning to appear for CAT or other entrance exams in management in the future.
4.Transparency in Process: Releasing the answer key brings in transparency to the process as the examinees can go through the method of evaluation and be reassured that their performance is not being judged wrongly.
- Objection Window: Beyond the answer key, the IIMs also provide an objection window. There may be instances when a candidate feels that the answer is incorrect or a particular question has not been evaluated correctly. For such questions, they can raise their objections to it. The examination authority will scrutinize these objections and, if found valid, will rectify the same in the final answer key provided.
 How to Check CAT 2024 Answer Key?
Once the answer key is declared, candidates would be able to download it by following these steps:
1.Visit Official Website: The candidate needs to visit the official website of CAT-iimcat.ac.in-for the answer key.
2.Download Answer Key and Response Sheet: After login, they would be able to download both the answer key and their personal response sheet.
3.Compare and Calculate: The candidates will then compare his or her marked responses with the answer key to calculate the estimated score .
How to File Objections Against the CAT 2024 Answer Key
The CAT 2024 answer key has the provision for raising objections if the candidates have any discrepancies. Candidates can raise objections as follows:
- Confirmation of Discrepancies: Candidates must check the questions that were wrongly graded by them. For instance, if a candidate is sure that the correct answer has been provided by them, but it does not match the key, then an objection must be raised.
2.Objection to discrepancies: Candidates after finding the discrepancies would have to make an objection on CAT’s official portal through a form for lodging objections. Most of the objections carry a fee, but in case such an objection goes correct, then the fee amount is given back.
- Relevant Documents to be Filed: Objection forms along with supporting documents or objections are highly encouraged. This may comprise logical explanations, reference letters from academia, or other valid sources.
- The IIMs will examine all objections filed through the window of objection and announce revised or final answer keys if any objections are valid.
5.Final Answer Key: In contrast to the provisional response keys, the final answer key is released following objections. Once the final answer key has been put up, no more objections will be considered and, instead, the result would be declared based on it.
 Expected Dates for CAT 2024 Answer Key
The accepted timeline in which the CAT answer key may be released in the wake of the exam is one or two weeks. For CAT 2024, candidates may expect the following timeline:
– CAT Exam Date 2024: November 2024
– Publication of Answer Key: First or Second week of December 2024
– Window for Objection: Usually opens for 3-4 days after publishing the answer key
– Final Answer Key: Usually published in the last week of December 2024 or Early January 2025
– Result Announcement: Usually after the final answer key. All odds are, this will be in January 2025.
Conclusion
The CAT 2024 answer key is one of the critical resources on which various examination aspirants rely to be able to evaluate performance and take the right decision about their next course of action. With a calculator on score and an opportunity to lodge an objection, the candidate is empowered by making it transparent and fair during the process of an examination. The answer key accessed and used may help the student realize where he stands in the scheme of things and, for many, perhaps even peep into their future-being in a top business school.
Reviewing the answer key is an invaluable step in the CAT journey for someone who wants to take improvement scores from successive attempts at CAT or wishes to analyze performance.
