Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad conducted its Entrance Exam - MICAT 2- for admission to its 2 Year Post Graduate Diploma in Management Communications (2017-2019) on 12 February 2017. Just like last year, MICAT was conducted twice this year too. Students could have chosen either or both the exams. Since 2015 MICAT has been conducted online. The test comprised 3 parts: Descriptive, Psychometric, and the last part which had four sections namely Logical Reasoning, Verbal Ability, General Awareness, and Quantitative Ability. Each part had an individual time limit of 35 minutes, 25 minutes and 110 minutes respectively. However, there was no sectional time constraint in the last part. There was no review button available for the first two parts either.
MICAT 2 threw in a few surprises. The QA section was tougher than that of last year. The GA section was similar to MICAT I (Dec 11, 2016) as it focused mainly on brands and taglines. The VA section was a mixed bag. The LR section was moderate in nature as the word association questions were slightly tricky and there were a few Data Sufficiency questions.
This section had four writing tasks pertaining to two questions. The questions were descriptive in nature. This section tested the critical and creative writing skills of the test-takers. The total time given for attempting the entire section was 35 minutes.
The first three writing tasks were based on the topic: 'Public opinion is vital for policy making". Firstly the student was to write three points IN FAVOUR of the topic. Then he/she were to write three points AGAINST the topic. These two tasks had a word limit of 250 words each and the screen didn't allow one to exceed the time limit. The third task asked the candidate to present his/her views in about 200 words in response to a request from a leading newspaper editor. This response could NOT BE NEUTRAL and a candidate was required to take a stance on the topic. As the topic is related to a burning issue in the global sphere, a serious candidate is expected to write coherently citing relevant examples. For example, Trump and Brexit will be two issues one could have cited to present one's stance effectively.
The last writing task was the story writing one which is a staple feature of MICAT. It had four images and test taker had to frame a story around the pictures and the pictures had to be sequenced as per the writer's storyline. You had to type in the sequence too. The pictures were inter-related and writing a story revolving around a mother-daughter duo would have been an easy task.
Overall, this section threw no surprise. It was on the expected lines.
The psychometric test had no negative marking. It was compulsory to attempt all the questions in this part. The instruction sheet clearly said that failure to attempt all the questions in this part would lead to disqualification.
The section had 36 questions. The first ten questions asked the student to select one of the three given statements which was "closest to one's personality". These were "personality - trait" based questions. The next 16 questions had two statements each describing two different personality traits. A student was supposed to select the statement which best reflected his/her personality on a scale of "Strongly - agree to moderately-agree". The last ten questions consisted of six statements each. Here, a candidate was supposed to rank the statements according to one's choice. The questions were pretty standard as per the psychometric evaluation is concerned. MICAT threw no surprise this time. However, unlike the last year's MICAT I and II, this year Psychometric test was an individual section and had a sectional time limit of 25 minutes.
As per the MICA declaration, a candidate with choices that reflect strong leadership skills will have a better chance of receiving a call. A candidate should have answered these questions honestly so as to have the best chance of being shortlisted.
Part II had four sections: Reasoning, General Knowledge, Verbal Ability, and Quantitative Ability. The total time allocated for Part III was 110 minutes. A test taker could navigate through the 4 sections as per his need. The test automatically got submitted once the time was over. Each wrong answer in this part carried a penalty of 0.25 marks. Un-attempted questions carried no penalty.
This section had 30 questions. As expected, Verbal Logic dominated the section with 19 questions. The rest were from Data Sufficiency and Visual Reasoning. The word association questions were quite tricky and required a little time and effort. The statement-assumption questions were moderate as one question was really vague. The Data Sufficiency questions were moderate in nature. The Visual Reasoning questions easy-moderate and hence these were crucial to one’s overall score. Overall, a student should have attempted 24-26 questions with 17-18 correct answers.
|
S.no |
Topic |
Number of questions |
Level of difficulty |
|
1 |
Word Association |
15 |
Moderate-Difficult |
|
2 |
Statement-Assumption |
4 |
Easy - Moderate |
|
3 |
Visual Reasoning |
7 |
Easy-Moderate |
|
4 |
Data Sufficiency |
4 |
Easy - Moderate |
This section had 22 questions. As always, most of the questions were from Business Awareness which asked a candidate to select the brand logos, taglines, and CEOs. MICAT persisted with the match the column questions too and the options were very easy to eliminate in most of these. Quite a few questions were from current affairs like the questions related to the current VP of the USA and the origin of plastic money facility. Any serious candidate is expected to know these answers. There was just one question related to static GK. There were no questions on book-authors or History. Overall, one can call this section a sitter as getting 16-18 correct answers looks extremely feasible.
|
S.no |
Topic |
Number of questions |
Level of difficulty |
|
1 |
Current Affairs |
9 |
Easy - Moderate |
|
2 |
Brand and taglines |
5 |
Easy - Moderate |
|
3 |
Company & Owner |
4 |
Easy |
|
4 |
Brand and logo |
2 |
Easy |
|
5 |
Miscellaneous GK |
2 |
Difficult |
This section was a mixed bag owing to a few tricky questions. There were 25 questions in total.
Vocabulary and Grammar dominated this section with a few Sentence Jumble questions sprinkled here and there. Vocabulary was moderate in nature. A few words like prattle and vicissitudes might have been unfamiliar. Even the reading comprehension passage had a vocabulary based question. Grammar questions came from familiar areas like antecedent of pronoun, tense, and common errors. These questions were tricky. The Sentence Jumble questions were very easy.
The Reading Comprehension passage was an easy-read with 5 questions. The question where one had to match the words to their meanings was tricky. Three questions were sitters. The last question on central idea was tricky as it had an extremely close option which was deceptively wrong. Overall, a student could have attempted all the questions with 19-20 correct answers.
|
S.no |
Topic |
Number of questions |
Level of difficulty |
|
1 |
Synonym (Contexual) |
5 |
Moderate - Difficult |
|
2 |
Fill in the blank (2 blank) |
5 |
Moderate |
|
3 |
Spot the Error |
7 |
Easy - Moderate |
|
4 |
Sentence Jumble |
4 |
Easy |
|
5 |
Reading Comprehension |
1 Passage (5 questions) |
Easy- Moderate |
This section had 25 questions. It was dominated by Arithmetic. There were a few questions from TSD and Higher Order Equation. Data Interpretation had two sets. The first one had both bar graph and pie chart. It had three questions. The other one was based on bar graph and had three questions. Overall, this section was the toughest as the level of difficulty increased sharply as per MICAT standard. A student should have attempted 15-16 questions with 90 % accuracy. The trick was to leave the difficult questions.
|
S.no |
Topic |
Number of questions |
Level of difficulty |
|
1 |
Data Interpretation (Bar Graph) |
3 |
Easy |
|
2 |
Data Interpretation (Bar graph and pie chart) |
3 |
Moderate |
|
3 |
Ratio |
1 |
Easy |
|
4 |
Series |
3 |
Difficult |
|
5 |
Set Theory |
2 |
Moderate |
|
6 |
Quadratic, trigonometric and higher order equation |
4 |
Difficult |
|
7 |
Rectangle |
1 |
Moderate |
|
8 |
Profit and loss |
2 |
Easy |
|
9 |
TSD |
2 |
Easy- moderate |
|
10 |
Function |
1 |
Moderate |
|
11 |
Percentage and fraction |
3 |
Easy |
* Cutoff for General category students is most likely to be in the range of 59-62 marks.
Disclaimer:All the information in this analysis is based on independent analysis and evaluation made by Career Launcher. We do not take responsibility for any decision that might be taken, based on this information.
All the best!!
Team CL