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Why it is percentile in CAT..what does it states?


Rizwan Sheikh 21st Dec, 2016
Answers (15)
Ankush Gupta 23rd Aug, 2019

Percentile is a measure of how much you score with respect to the highest scorer irrespective of how much marks you scored. So, you can have a percentile of 50 it can be possible that you actually scored 0 marks out of 300. Also, people can have a positive percentile even if they have a negative score. 

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23rd Aug, 2019
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Suraj Mallick 2nd Jun, 2018

Percentile is a relative thing.

For eg . Who gets highest mark in cat 2017 will get 100 percentile( normally 5 -6) every year.

Those who gets 10–15 less than toppers falls in 99.99 category

All candidates with difference of 0–50 with respect to toppers falls in category of 99.99–99.01 ..(approx) and so .

Percentile depends upon your rank.

In short

170–99 percentile

150- 95 marks

120–90 percentile and soon

Approx calculation based on last year trend.


Percentile of a student refers to the percentage of students below him in the overall test.

The point of having percentile is: Irrespective of the difficulty level of the exam you have the chance to come up with the final percentile as high as maximum.

Paper will remain difficult for all, paper will remain easy for all and therefore the score is dependant solely on your preparation and performance.

I hope this gives you a sensible solution.

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Rizwan Sheikh 23rd Dec, 2016
@Rupal: oh u are welcome rupal :)
Rupal 23rd Dec, 2016
genuine query rizwan. i did not know about it that much
John 21st Dec, 2016
@Priyanka Kaul: Right. So can i get 100 percentile?
None 21st Dec, 2016
@John: Ok. This i can find as a simple example- Let say student X wrote an exam which was written by a total of 1000 students. Suppose X stood 10th in the test "? that is, there were 990 students below him in that test. 990 as a percentage of 1000 is 99.
John 21st Dec, 2016
cool thanks.
None 21st Dec, 2016
@John: No there is not anything like 100 percentile. but rounding off the digits after the decimal point can lead to a score of 100- a bit illogical. As an example , candidate who get the percentile score of 99.995 or more can be rewarded as 100 percentil
John 21st Dec, 2016
is there any other example you can give. cant get it-priyanka mam
Rizwan Sheikh 21st Dec, 2016
@Priyanka Kaul: thank you for clearing the dounbt.
None 21st Dec, 2016
@Rizwan Sheikh: Yes including the test taker and others attempting the test. Not the ones who applied for the test.
Rizwan Sheikh 21st Dec, 2016
@Priyanka Kaul: ok. the percentile which you said includes the number of people attempting the exam at that time frame..right? it includes me as well in the count?
None 21st Dec, 2016
@rizwan: A percentile represents the rank of a candidate in an examination, relative to the rest of the candidates who appeared for the same examination in the same time-frame. You will understand it better when you will understand its calculation part. i
None 21st Dec, 2016
@Akrouni Talam: In CAT, the percentile is calculated up to three decimal places and rounded off. So, people scoring 100 %tile have actually scored a percentile of 99.995 and above; and similarly people scoring 99.99%tile are those who have scored a percen
Akrouni Talam 21st Dec, 2016
basically how is percentile calculated?

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