The Official Cat Ninja Blog

Unlimited Weapons for first 500 users

2010-10-22T23:21:00.001-07:00

Yes, you read that right. For the first 500 people who join the Catninja application, the weapons count does not decrease on using weapons. This means you have an unlimited supply of weapons. Pretty cool. So what are you waiting for. Join now if you have not already done so.

What do levels in CAT NINJA mean?

2010-10-21T06:26:00.001-07:00

There is some confusion around what do the levels in CAT NINJA mean. The normal approach taken by people is to associate the level with a percentile. This makes sense when the number of users answering those questions is huge. The percentile then is more accurate.

But CAT NINJA is a new application and there are not many users as of now (you can help by inviting your friends). So how is the level calculated and what does it mean? We have taken a slightly different approach to calculating levels because we want that to be an indicator of your performance and hopefully your percentile in CAT. But while we are attempting to do that, I want to make it clear that the Level cannot be used as an accurate indicator of your actual CAT percentile. Now lets understand how are skill levels calculated in CAT NINJA.

Every question in CAT NINJA is assigned a difficulty level. Typically there are 3 difficulty levels but this number shall be increased in the future to provide more accurate assessments. Now suppose you have played 3 matches in q-jutsu (quant). Most of the questions in these matches were easy and there were some questions of medium difficulty as well. You answered all the easy ones correctly, but answered all the medium ones incorrectly. This will result in a skill level somewhere between 70-85, depending on a whole range of factors like the number of question you actually attempted, their levels, others performance in those questions, weapons used etc. But roughly it will be in that range. Why not more? Well typically all the easy questions will be answered by most. In CAT, if you are asked 20 questions in Quant and 6 questions are considered easy, solving any 6 questions will typically bring you a percentile in that range.

If you answer all tough questions correctly and answer all easy questions incorrectly, your skill level will be lower. Why? After all you answered the tougher questions? True, you did. But in the direction CAT is headed, answering the tougher questions does not earn you any extra marks. The weightage is the same for all questions. So it is important for you as an aspirant to be able to answer the easier questions as well. And this is a philosophy built into the CAT NINJA application. We do not want you to be the person who solved the three toughest questions that came in CAT, but were unable to do the rest because of lack of time. No. The objective of writing CAT is to get the highest possible percentile in all the sections and to do that you should be able to solve all the easy questions as well. And that is the funny thing with easy questions. You don’t practise them thinking ah I will be able to solve this and then in the actual exam you end up making a silly mistake.

A huge chunk of your skill level depends on how you answer easy questions. But that will only take you to 85/100. To move higher you have to be able to answer the tougher questions as well.

As I said before, the skill level is not an accurate indicator of a percentile but you should try and be around the 80 mark. As more and more people answer questions on CAT NINJA, the skill level calculations will change. The difficulty level of the questions will be adjusted and so on. If you have any suggestions or doubts do drop a mail to support@catninja.in or connect with us on our facebook page http://bit.ly/fbninja . Wishing you the best.

Understanding the CAT NINJA weapons

2010-10-21T01:59:00.001-07:00

In the previous post, I introduced the new CAT NINJA and talked briefly about the weapons that you can use. Today I would like to share a video where you see these weapons in action.

Weapons Demo of CAT Ninja

The match in this video is the the demo match which you can use to familiarize yourself with the weapons and develop your own strategies.

If you have any questions/comments, please do shoot a mail to support@catninja.in

The New CAT Ninja

2010-10-15T23:52:00.000-07:00

This blog post is pretty late as the new version of CAT NINJA has been live for quite some time now. We apologize for that. Our attention has been completely on the product and ever since people started using the app, or in some cases not using the app, we have been trying to understand what can we do more to make the CAT Ninja experience a WOW experience.

So what is new about CAT NINJA? Firstly, CAT NINJA is no more an application within facebook. An important feedback that we received last year was that something such as CAT Ninja does not really fit within facebook. Users complained of distractions such as facebook notifications, chat popups etc. while solving questions. Also the screen area for the questions was small as a sizable chunk was used by the facebook canvas itself. Owing to these and other factors, we decided to move CAT NINJA from a pure facebook app to a facebook integrated website. Thus, CAT NINJA is now available at http://catninja.in/ and is completely integrated with facebook to provide for a social learning experience. The app within facebook is unavailable right now and shall remain unavailable in the near future.

Secondly, the whole product has been revamped to provide a more engaging experience. The idea behind CAT NINJA always was to engage its users and provide a fun experience while doing something as serious as preparing for MBA entrance examinations. With the revamped product this year, we believe we have taken not one, but quite a few steps in that direction. Or as one of our users from last year, Anil Kumar put it. “CAT NINJA definitely SUCCEEDS in making practising questions an engaging experience.” Anil is presently a student of the PGP program at IIM Indore.

The theme of CAT NINJA is that you enter the CAT NINJA village to become a CAT NINJA. To do that you have to play matches and earn achievements. However, to aid you in your quest you now have weapons which you can use in the matches. Currently, there are three weapons which you possess.

1)The Shuriken: When you use a shuriken on a question, the referee gives you a hint which helps you solve the question. However, hints may not be possible for all questions, in which case you are told, “The armor of this question is too think for your shuriken”

2)The By2Bomb: The by2bomb does exactly what its name says. It eliminates two incorrect options. Ever stuck in a dilemma between two options. This weapon is very handy for those situations.

3)The Shinobi: The Shinobi is a very handy weapon for it increases the time remaining by 90 seconds. So many times one comes across a situation where one is close to solving a question but is running short of time.. Use a shinobi in such situations and you get just that extra time you may need to solve a question correctly.

According to the rules, all the weapons can be used only once on a particular question. Thus, on q1, you can use a shuriken, a shinobi and a by2bomb, but all just once.

Using weapons leads to deduction in points, however if you are able to answer a question correctly, the net points is still positive. The best way to maximize points is to answer all questions correctly without using any weapons and as fast as possible. But that is easier said than done. So do use weapons where required to maximize your points.

We have put a demo match where you can easily understand what each weapon does. Try out the weapons and familiarize yourself with matches and gameplay. Lastly, all your attempts are tracked so you can always visit the ninja temple to have a look at your past performance.

One last thing : Just because the name of the application is CAT Ninja does not mean it is not meant for those preparing for other MBA exams. We are constantly reviewing and updating our content to also include questions which are asked in other MBA exams. Using the app will help you practice questions and revise on concepts asked in other exams such as XAT, FMS, NMAT, MAT etc. So all you have to do is get cracking.

We hope you find the app useful and it helps you get into your favorite B-school. Do write in to us at support@catninja.in with your queries and feedback .

We will be back shortly

2010-07-06T07:16:00.001-07:00

Work is on at full steam here on the next release of CAT NINJA. Quite a few changes to the app and a whole lot of content will be added.

We have taken the application down to incorporate these changes. As these shall be happening everyday over a period of time, the app will be unavailable till the time we are satisfied we are providing the right experience to you.

Do subscribe to the RSS feeds of this blog for regular updates. A lot is in store. Stay Tuned.

Server Migration and Downtime

2010-01-20T11:01:00.001-08:00

We will be having a server migration and the application is going to be down for a week. Support will also be unavailable during this time. CAT NINJA on facebook will be back in February. We will be going through upgrades to accommodate changes to the facebook platform.

We have also looked at feedback from users and are planning a complete revamp of the application to make it a more interesting and engaging experience. Updates will be posted on this blog.

CAT NINJA Season 1

2009-11-22T16:38:00.001-08:00

Yup! We are calling this CAT NINJA Season 1. The season of B-school exams in India has begun and is going to continue till January. So we thought we shall have a contest here to keep the ninjas in form for every exam.

Lets see who remains the top ninja at the end of season 1. Meanwhile a small request. We want to know your opinion about CAT Ninja, so we have put together a set of questions. It would be great if you could answer them. You can access the survey here.

As always, for any specific queries, mail support@catninja.in

And lastly, all the best for CAT!

Cheers!

Make Way – The CAT Ninjas are coming!

2009-10-22T02:15:00.001-07:00

It’s been a while since the last post and things have been eerily quiet! Perhaps it was the lull before the storm. Well I certainly hope in the next few weeks the application takes the world like a storm.

Friends, we are removing the preview code and finally opening the application to general users. In the past few weeks since the last post a lot of features, which were planned, have been added. While there are a few planned features that are missing from the current release, these will be released on an incremental basis in the coming days and weeks. For now, the team feels the application has sufficient features for you to start exploring.

So what is it that you can do currently in the application? Lets start with the home page.

Important Note: If at any point of time you face any error or issue, please use the Contact link at the bottom of the page to contact support. We will get back to you as soon as possible.

Of the various skills tested for you to be a Grandmaster CatNinja, we are starting off with Quantjutsu - the Quant part tested in CAT and other MBA exams. Tests for the Verbal and DILR sections will be uploaded shortly. You can start attempting Quant tests. You can attempt a maximum of 5 different tests in a day. New tests are added at the end of each day, so keep checking everyday for more questions.

When you click on Take a Test in the home page, you are brought to the Test Selection page. Select any of the available tests to start. As you may see above, not all the topics are enabled at this point. Each topic will be enabled when any test for it is available. You can choose to give a test from any of the available topics.

I just gave a test and got all the answers correct and did this in half the time. I earned three achievements after giving this test, which you can see below.

You can flaunt your achievements to your friends by clicking on the Flaunt It button and see the analysis of your test by clicking on the Test Analysis button. The important point here was that I scored 33 points for this test. This was because I scored bonus points for all correct answers and also answering all the questions correctly as quickly as possible. The second set of bonus points depends upon the number of seconds you took to answer the test. The less time you take, the more points you earn – but all the answers should be correct. There is no point in being fast if you are not accurate. Also, only the scores of your first attempt are added to your overall points.

Earning more points gets you in the hall of fame as shown above. So while you are practicing your quant and verbal skills, you are also competing with the people who are using the application.

Concepts and Forums will be added in the coming weeks. With Concepts, you can review the concepts before you attempt any test and you discuss on a whole range of issues in our forums.

Well that’s it folks! A brief on what the application contains right now. There are very interesting features that are planned to make the game more interesting and competitive. These should be ready in the coming weeks.

The application is new and its the alpha version. This means that there may be bugs and errors which you may face while using the application. Please mail support@catninja.in for any queries/issues. We will get back to you shortly.

For any feedback,suggestions on the level of difficulty of the tests, questions or the application as a whole, please mail shashi@catninja.in

Looking forward to your feedback and suggestions.

Let the games begin!

Hello World

2009-10-07T04:20:00.001-07:00

Hi! Being a geek, I would have done gross injustice to all the programming books that I have ever read if I did not title the first post as Hello World. The first thing that you learn in any programming language is how to say(print) “Hello World”. It’s the first step leading to a world of programming full of possibilities. Similarly, I hope that this post titled ‘Hello World’ is the first step leading to times full of possibilities and opportunities.

As some of you may have known, for the past several weeks we have been working on an application called CAT-NINJA. Many of you must have seen the “Coming Soon…” page below:

So what is CAT NINJA? Well, it is a game designed to help you prepare for CAT and have fun while you are doing that. At the start of the game you have zero points. There are three areas where you test your skills – Quant, Verbal and DILR. You start as a Trainee Ninja. You answer short tests and earn points. As you earn points your level increases and so does the difficulty of the tests. Just as one had to master different skills to become a ninja, you have to master certain skills to become a CAT Ninja. You should be accurate, fast and be able to judge which questions to attempt. Accuracy is the most important aspect over here. E.g, If you answer all the questions of a particular test correctly, you get bonus points based on how quickly you were able to solve them.

Interesting..? The part I like about the game is that it is a facebook application. Challenge your friends, Flaunt your achievements and practice questions for CAT and other MBA exams at the same time.

I am glad to announce that we are ready for a private preview of the application and would be opening it up to the public shortly. The whole idea behind keeping a preview is to get some feedback on the application, find the tiny bugs that are hiding in there and test to see if the rules of the game need any fine tuning to make it more exciting and challenging. If you are interested in the preview of the application, send a mail to support@catninja.in

In the coming days, I will be posting more about the game and how to play it. Meanwhile, do become a fan at the facebook page to get to know the latest announcements and provide any feedback.

Cheers!