How do experts from leading test prep companies include Career Launcher and PT Education analyze the test paper? MBAUniverse.com presents MAT analysis by Career Launcher and Mr Sandeep Manudhane, Founder Chairman, PT Education.
MAT February 2009 Analysis
By Career Launcher
An Overview:
MAT sticks to its basics that it has been following since almost 2 years. It presented a combination of jumbled up questions accompanied with numerous challenges. Offering a high scoring section of Logical Reasoning and a moderately difficult Quantitative Ability, Data Interpretation, & Verbal Ability Section, the question paper, on an overall basis, provided sections that belonged to an average level of difficulty. Only concern which student shared after the paper was that it was lengthy. Each section contained a few questions that were easily manageable and hence made the question paper quite scoring.
Section I: Reasoning
This has been the scoring area for many students in the recent MAT papers. So, a bit of shift from last few papers that was observable was lesser number of questions on logical reasoning. In all, about 22 questions from this section could have been attempted. Assuming 75%+ accuracy, a score of 16 + was easily possible in 30 minutes.
Section II: Quantitative Ability
In this section students could easily enhance their scores. The all time favorite arithmetic was very prominent. Assuming an accuracy of 75 % and attempt of 30 questions, a score of 20+ is possible with a time spend of about 40 minutes.
Section III: Data Interpretation
The pure DI sets were lengthy, calculative or difficult to interpret. The easy part was 5 question DS and 7 question on Quantitative comparison. However those who would not have read instructions in DS would have been in trouble. So the total attempt in this section could be about 26 questions and with about 75% accuracy one can score 20+ comfortably in this section in 35 minutes.
Section IV: Reading Comprehension and English Usage
This was again a section of moderate difficulty level. RC’s were comparatively difficult and tricky as compared to previous MAT. An attempt of 22 questions with 75 % accuracy could have yielded a possible score of 14+ in 35 minutes.
Section V: General Awareness Section
There were 40 questions based on Current affairs & some fact based questions. In 10 minutes, a student could have attempted 15 questions and with 70 % accuracy; one could have got 9 marks in GK Section.
MAT on Feb 01, 2009: An Analysis
By Mr Sandeep Manudhane, Founder Chairman, PT Education
The scene outside the MAT examination centers on Ist February, 2009 was in marked contrast to a similar situation on the first Sunday of December 2008. Yes, that was the day of the December MAT and hopes were yet alive, all other tests were yet to be conducted. This Sunday last, the picture had altered considerably for many MAT aspirants. Where earlier in December, they had been considering the MAT as another option, this time around they were possibly more serious in their approach, having tasted failure in the preceding examinations, or what were even worse, near-misses. These near-misses are always, the more bitter to swallow.
For most MAT aspirants, the test conducted on 1st February was, therefore, a make or break situation, if they wanted to gain admission to a moderate to average B-school from the approximate 200 colleges taking part in the examination.
Overall level of difficulty of the paper was moderate to easy, although the difficulty level of GK questions was higher than the December 2008 MAT.
The ideal strategy to solve the paper should be – in first 10-15 minutes scan all the GK questions and attempt 12 to 15 questions on which you are absolutely sure.
After that the student should have started picking up the easy, solvable questions from the start of the paper. The questions from Coding-Decoding, Numbers, Fractions, Arithmetic, Para Jumbles, Fill in the Blanks, Analogies, Data Arrangement, Syllogism and the DI sets containing the Pie Charts etc. could have been included in this round. 15-17 questions from LR, 10-12 questions from GK, 13-15 questions from QA, 13-15 questions from DI & DS and 6-8 questions from EU should have been attempted first.
After the first round of attempts, the student should have attempted the tougher questions like those on DI sets containing tables and Bar graphs, questions from Mensuration, Height and Distance, some questions of mixtures, work and time, the strong and weak argument questions, questions on cubes, reading of RC passages, sentence correction question etc. can be done in this round.
Ideally, a student who was good at "selecting which questions to solve" could have attempted 65 to 70 questions in the first hour itself.
The questions from the topics like Numbers, Fractions, SI and CI, Time Speed and Distance (including Trains), Races, Averages, Percentages, Work and Time (including Pipes and Cisterns), Profit and Loss, Mixtures, Profit and Loss, Calendar, Ratio and Proportion, Mensuration, Height and Distances, Probability, Permutation and Combination, were the representative of QA area. The questions were of moderate level of difficulty. For a well prepared student on an average not more than 1-1.5 minutes would be required to solve each question from this area.
To check the students' logical and analytical abilities there were questions on Direction Sense, Calendar, Relations, Linear and Matrix arrangements, Strong and Weak Argument, Coding-Decoding and Cubes. Excluding some questions based on Direction Sense and Data Arrangement all other questions were of easy level. One could attempt 28-30 questions in a time span of 25 to 30 minutes from this area.
There were four RC passages based on which a total of 20 questions were asked. The themes of the RC passages were: Terrorism, Small and Medium enterprises in economy, Life of Henry Ford and Bird Eggs. The passages were pretty lengthy and 5 questions were asked on each passage. The questions asked were of moderate level of difficulty.
From EU area there were questions on Fill in the Blanks - two blanks (3), Identify the Best way of Writing (4), Analogies (4), Para Jumble (4) and Sentence Correction (5). The questions were not too difficult even for those students who claim they are weak in English.
The GK questions were a mix of easy and moderately tough questions. The questions were on dynamic as well as traditional GK. There were questions on Economics, Current Affairs, Awards and Prizes, and important Days. Since this area was only to obtain minimum marks and that too which are not included in the calculation of the overall score, an attempt of 15-18 questions would have been sufficient (with at least 75% accuracy) to achieve the cut-off marks in this area.
Overall a score of 100+ (out of 160 i.e. excluding GK) should prove good enough in getting admission into some of the top B- Schools allied to the examination.
According to Mr Manudhane. "Overall level of difficulty of the paper was moderate to easy, although the difficulty level of GK questions was higher than the December 2008 MAT."
The pattern of MAT was as usual total 200 jumbled questions with 40 questions from each test area; Reading Comprehension and English Usage (RC and EU), Quantitative Aptitude (QA), Logical Reasoning (LR), Data Interpretation and Data Sufficiency (DI and DS) and General Knowledge (GK). The time allowed to solve the paper was 150 minutes. Four alternatives were provided for each question.
It was declared in the instruction provided in the paper at the last page that each correct answer will carry one mark, while there was a negative marking of 0.25 marks for each incorrect answer. Total thirteen different sets of test booklets were available there.
The ideal strategy to solve the paper should be – in first 10-15 minutes scan all the GK questions and attempt 12 to 15 questions on which you are absolutely sure.
After that the student should have started picking up the easy, solvable questions from the start of the paper. The questions from Coding-Decoding, Numbers, Fractions, Arithmetic, Para Jumbles, Fill in the Blanks, Analogies, Data Arrangement, Syllogism and the DI sets containing the Pie Charts etc. could have been included in this round. 15-17 questions from LR, 10-12 questions from GK, 13-15 questions from QA, 13-15 questions from DI & DS and 6-8 questions from EU should have been attempted first.
After the first round of attempts, the student should have attempted the tougher questions like those on DI sets containing tables and Bar graphs, questions from Mensuration, Height and Distance, some questions of mixtures, work and time, the strong and weak argument questions, questions on cubes, reading of RC passages, sentence correction question etc. can be done in this round.
Ideally, a student who was good at "selecting which questions to solve" could have attempted 65 to 70 questions in the first hour itself.
The questions from the topics like Numbers, Fractions, SI and CI, Time Speed and Distance (including Trains), Races, Averages, Percentages, Work and Time (including Pipes and Cisterns), Profit and Loss, Mixtures, Profit and Loss, Calendar, Ratio and Proportion, Mensuration, Height and Distances, Probability, Permutation and Combination, were the representative of QA area. The questions were of moderate level of difficulty. For a well prepared student on an average not more than 1-1.5 minutes would be required to solve each question from this area.
To check the students' logical and analytical abilities there were questions on Direction Sense, Calendar, Relations, Linear and Matrix arrangements, Strong and Weak Argument, Coding-Decoding and Cubes. Excluding some questions based on Direction Sense and Data Arrangement all other questions were of easy level. One could attempt 28-30 questions in a time span of 25 to 30 minutes from this area.
There were four RC passages based on which a total of 20 questions were asked. The themes of the RC passages were: Terrorism, Small and Medium enterprises in economy, Life of Henry Ford and Bird Eggs. The passages were pretty lengthy and 5 questions were asked on each passage. The questions asked were of moderate level of difficulty.
From EU area there were questions on Fill in the Blanks - two blanks (3), Identify the Best way of Writing (4), Analogies (4), Para Jumble (4) and Sentence Correction (5). The questions were not too difficult even for those students who claim they are weak in English.
The GK questions were a mix of easy and moderately tough questions. The questions were on dynamic as well as traditional GK. There were questions on Economics, Current Affairs, Awards and Prizes, and important Days. Since this area was only to obtain minimum marks and that too which are not included in the calculation of the overall score, an attempt of 15-18 questions would have been sufficient (with at least 75% accuracy) to achieve the cut-off marks in this area.
Overall a score of 100+ (out of 160 i.e. excluding GK) should prove good enough in getting admission into some of the top B- Schools allied to the examination.
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