SNAP

Intro
Symbiosis National Aptitude (SNAP) Test is a common written test for the admission to all the Post-Graduate Institutes of Symbiosis International University. SNAP is conducted in the month of December and all colleges under SIU only accept SNAP scores to consider candidates for admission into their program.
Pattern

	Time (min)	Good Attempts	Level of Difficulty	Good Net Score
QA	40	30-32	Moderate	23-25
Reasoning	40	20-22	Moderate	34-36
English	28	30	Easy-Moderate	22-24
GK	12	15	Moderate	8-10
Total	120	97	Moderate	92-94

Important Dates
SNAP is conducted in the month of December. It is either on the 3rd or the 4th Sunday of the month. Registrations for SIBM and SCMHRD open 2 months before the exam date and are generally open till the day of the exam. Registrations for the other colleges in the ambit of SNAP open 2 months before the exam, however, it continues till a couple of days after the exam.

Analysis of SNAP 2014
Writing SNAP 2014 was a good distraction for the tens of thousands of students waiting for CAT results, wasn't it?
The overall difficulty level of the paper was significantly above the difficulty level of SNAP papers in the last two-three years as the difficulty level of at least three sections (QA, VA and Reasoning) was above that of these sections in the recent years.
Most of the well-prepared students allot 40 minutes to Verbal Ability and General Knowledge together. Within these 40 minutes, they mostly give 25-30 minutes to VA and 10-15 minutes to GK. Of the remaining 80 minutes most of them tend to allot 40-45 minutes to Reasoning (as all the 30 questions are 2-markers here) and 35-40 minutes to Quantitative Aptitude.

Let's discuss each of the sections one by one now.

Verbal Ability:

Breakup

Topic	Number of questions	Difficulty
Reading comprehension	9 (2 sets containing 3 and 6 questions)	Easy
Vocab	8	Moderate-Tough
Idioms	8	Tough
spellings	2	Tough
FIB	9	Easy-Moderate
Grammar	4	Moderate

This section was vocab heavy with 8 questions on idioms and another 8 on vocab. This section was deceptively simple. Many students found it to be easy initially, but started getting confused soon. An attempt of 28-30 with a net score of 22-23 would be considered good in 25-30 minutes here.

Quantitative Aptitude:

Breakup

Topic	Number of questions	Difficulty
Percentages, SICI	3	Easy-Moderate
PLD	2	Easy-Moderate
R&P	2	Moderate-Tough
TSD, Work	3	Easy-Moderate
Clocks	2	Easy-Tough
Averages	1	Easy
NS	3	Easy-Moderate
Algebra	3	Moderate
Co-ordinate Geometry	1	Easy
Log	2	Moderate-Tough
Geometry, Mensuration	5	Easy-Moderate
P&C	2	Moderate-Tough
Probability	2	Moderate-Tough
Trigonometry	1	Tough
Age Problem	1	Easy
Number Series	2	Easy
DI-Pie Chart	5	Easy-Moderate

How often you appear for a test in which around 60% questions have "None of the above" as one of the options? It appears that SNAP took a cue from NOTA of the Election Commission of India. There were at least 5-6 questions which required some good amount of calculations. There were 4 questions on P&C and Probability!!! There was a difficult question on Trigonometry too. Our students must have observed that SQC techniques could be applied to some 14-15 questions here. A well-prepared student could attempt 28-32 questions and could score around 24-25 marks here.
Reasoning:

Breakup

Topic	Number of questions	Difficulty
Blood Relation-Symbol Based	1	Easy
Blood Relation-Tree Based	1	Moderate
Clocks	1	Easy
Matrix Arrangement	1	Easy
Series	1	Easy
Venn Diagram	4	Easy
Circular Arrangement	5	Tough
Matrix Arrangement	4	Moderate
Linear Arrangement	2	Moderate-Tough
True/False Statements	2	Moderate
Analogy	2	Easy-Moderate
Statement-Assumption	2	Easy-Moderate
Statement-Conclusion	1	Easy
Syllogism	1	Easy
CR	2	Easy

This section had some 5-6 questions which could be put in QA section as well. in fact a set of 4 questions on Set-Theory was one of the easy takes here. You had almost all the typical areas of Reasoning section present in this test. A set on Message-Passing and another on Truth-Lie had the potential to stump many aspirants. An attempt of 20-22 and a score of 34-35 in 40-45 minutes was possible here.

General Awareness:

Breakup
Static

Topic	Number of questions
GK	14
Economy	5
History	4
Geography	5
Polity	1
Total	29

Current

Topic	Number of questions
Current Affairs	9
Economic Affairs	2
Total	11

This section was a good mix of almost all the areas of GK (Current Affairs, History, Geography, Polity, Economics, Ecology etc.). Some choices were quite close here. An attempt of 14-15 with a score of 8-10 was achievable in 10-15 minutes.

Overall:
Suggest time and Attempts:

	Time (min)	Good Attempts	Good Net Score
QA	40	30-32	23-25
Reasoning	40	20-22	34-36
English	28	30	22-24
GK	12	15	8-10
Total	120	97	92-94

Likely cutoffs (Score) for SIBM - Pune and SCMHRD:

	General	SC	ST/DA	Kashmiri migrants
SIBM P	95-97	64-66	44-46	80-82
SCMHRD	90-92	74-76	51-53	75-77

B-Schools under SNAP
SNAP score is accepted by 13 institutes. They are:

Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM), Pune
Symbiosis Centre for Management & Human Resource Development (SCMHRD), Pune
Symbiosis Institute of International Business (SIIB), Pune
Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM) Bengaluru
Symbiosis Institute of Operations Management (SIOM), Nashik
Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management (SITM), Pune
Symbiosis Centre for Information Technology (SCIT), Pune
Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies (SIMS), Pune
Symbiosis Institute of Media & Communication (SIMC), Pune
Symbiosis Institute of Health Sciences (SIHS), Pune
Symbiosis Institute of Media & Communication (SIMC) Bengaluru
Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies & Research (SICSR), Pune
Symbiosis School of Banking Management (SSBM), Pune

Among these SIBM, Pune and SCMHRD are the leading institutes which are regularly ranked in the top 20 B-Schools by CL.
Strategy
With a differential marking scheme it is clear that SNAP lays more weightage on Analytical and Verbal Reasoning, thus, students should try and maximize this section. A score of 45+ out of this 60 will give a student a high chance of clearing the cut-offs for SIBM, Pune and SCMHRD. Quant and verbal are not very difficult either and students can easily score 20+ in both these sections. SNAP has a section on General Knowledge with a good mix of Static and current GK. Students should utilize the GK compendium and GK app that CL has launched pertaining to GK for MBA Exams.
Cuttoffs
The official cutoffs as declared by the institutes this year are:

Colleges	Programmes	Cut Off
Colleges	Programmes	Gen	SC	ST	DA	KM
SIBM Pune	MBA	97.7516	64.6299	24.417	33.4248	89.152
SIBM Pune	MBA(I&E)	66.23	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil
SCMHRD Pune	MBA	96.0069	41.8001	Nil	Nil	53.1303
SCMHRD Pune	MBA (Infrastruture management)	74.5734	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil
SIIB Pune	MBA IB	87.6173	18.1755	Nil	Nil	37.9025
	MBA Agri	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil
	MBA E&E	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil
SIMC Pune		60.22	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil
SICSR Pune	MBA IT	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil
SICSR Pune	MSC CA	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil
SIMS Pune		..	..	..	..	..
SITM Pune	MBA (Marketing and fin)	61.9	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil
SITM Pune	MBA (System &Fin)	33.91		Nil	Nil	Nil
SCIT	MBA ITBM	30.1143	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil
SIOM Nashik		65	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil
SIHS Pune		..	..	..	..	..
SIBM Bengaluru		85.8128	10.4208	Nil	Nil	35.0001
SSBF Pune		68.9596	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil

Note: Nil in the table implies that there was no cutoff for that course.
.. implies that the cutoff was not declared.