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NMAT 2014 Exam Analysis

Narsee Monjee Aptitude Test 2014 for admission to its various post graduate programes was flagged off on October 7, 2014. Students will be able to take the test,on any day of their choice, till December 20, 2014. Here are some important instructions that you should keep in mind.

First of all, please ensure that you carry two different ID proofs (as mentioned by you while applying for NMAT) along with their photo copies to your test centre. You are supposed to carry your Appointment Confirmation Letter along with your Admit Card.
Do not take this lightly as even if they allow you to appear for the exam (without any of these), you would lose your peace in the process just before the exam. Also, the time mentioned in the Admit Card is NOT the reporting time; it is the time the test is supposed to start at. Please ensure that you reach the centre at least 30 minutes prior to this given time. Please call the centre people at the given telephone number (in your Admit card), if you encounter any difficulty in locating the centre.

Now the exam...

The most important thing is that we are habituated of not marking unattempted questions in any of the management entrance exams. Please do not forget that there is NO negative marking in this test and hence all 120 questions have to be attempted. The sections are timed in this test (e.g. 22 minutes for Language Skills etc.) and when you are left with exactly 5 minutes in any of the sections, a pop-up appears to tell you that you are left with exactly 5 minutes in the section. You cannot proceed further without shutting this pop-up. Please ensure that you mark all the unattempted questions (barring two or three for which you would still have some time to solve) at this stage. Please bear in mind that NMAT has sectional cutoffs too.

You get to select the order in which you would want to attempt these sections, utilize this feature judiciously. Within a section, you CANNOT go to any of the questions directly; if you are at question no. 1 you cannot reach question no. 4 without going through question nos. 2 and 3. Keeping this in mind, you should not waste much of your time in navigation. Please bear in mind that you may attempt NMAT 3 times (with a gap of at least 15 days between two consecutive tests). It is recommendedthat you take at least one repeat of this test (assuming you have scheduled your first go at NMAT at least 15 days before CAT) before you appear for CAT (on November 16 or 22). Appearing for this test will fine-tune you for CAT.

NMAT – October 8. 2014
The paper, except for the Quantitative Skills section, was more or less along expected lines. The QA section saw new type of questions this year. The difficulty levels of Logical Reasoning and Language Skills sections were more or less the same, but that of Quantitative Aptitude stands out.

Overall, one should have solved close to 75-80 questions (across the sections) in 120 minutes.

The pattern of the paper was as follows:
S. no Section No. of Questions Time (in Minutes) Difficulty Level Possible Attempts
1 Language Skills 32 22 Easy 24
2 Quantitative Skills 48 60 Moderate-Difficult 25-28
3 Logical Reasoning 40 38 Easy-Moderate 22-24
  Total 120 120   71-76

There were 5 options for every question.

 

Language Skills
There were two Reading Comprehension (RC) passages of 4 questions each. Remaining 24 questions were all independent. There were around 3 questions on Para Jumbles. Only RC and to an extent Para-jumble questions could be considered time consuming (relatively) in this section. RC passages were small and most of the questions based on them were factual in nature. In Para-jumble, it proved beneficial to look at the options before starting putting these sentences in a sequence as in most of the cases the options helped in finalizing the answer in a jiffy. There were about 3 questions each on Antonyms and Synonyms; these questions did not follow any sequence (e.g. one might get a question on Antonyms followedby two questions on Synonyms, followed by a question on Antonyms again) and hence one should be very careful in marking their answers. One must know for each of these questions whether one is looking for an Antonym or a Synonym. Again around 3-4 questions were on Prepositions. 3-4 questions each were based on Sentence Correction and Cloze Test.

There was just adequate time (22 minutes) to do these 32 questions. Doing RC in the last 2-3 minutes could have been injurious as one might just have finished reading the passage and realized that they do not have any time to mark the answers (despite knowing them). And, the independent questions should not have been missed at all. Keeping these things in mind, the order in which you attempted these questions became extremely important. This can be said to be the most scoring section in NMAT. One should have been able to solve (not merely attempt) at least 24 questions in this section.

Quantitative Skills
This section has come as a big surprise this season. There were a good number of questions which were quite new to even a very seasoned test taker. These were from DS, Geometry, Number System, etc. It is primarily because of this section that it is recommendedto take at least two servings of NMAT before CAT.
This section comprises questions on Quantitative Aptitude (QA), Data Interpretation (DI) and Data Sufficiency(DS). There were around 25-30 questions on QA, 8-12 questions on DS and 7-8 questions on DS. Someone who would have practiced a good number of DS questions before the actual test would not have found the topic difficult to deal with. Number system, Permutation and Combination, Algebra, Modern Math and Geometry dominated this section.  Many complicated questions in this section could be done by just looking at the options (the people preparing the test have either put the options brainlessly or they want you to assert your smartness). Those who are yet to give the exam, it is recommended to practice DS questions for GMAT (available on MBA.com and other such sites) in order to prepare well for this section. Also, it is advisable to be very thorough with your concepts in Geometry. One might get some good questions on Number System as well here. One should have been able to solve around 25-28 questions here and the remaining questions couldhave been marked randomly.

Logical Reasoning
This section had questions on Verbal as well as Analytical reasoning. Questions on Linear and Circular arrangement, Syllogism, Assumptions, Conclusions, Family Tree, Coding, Series, Direction Sense, Syllogism andArrangements constituted this section. Some questions, in this section, had some fundamental errors which made it impossible to reach to a conclusion. Most of the questions (barring the erroneous ones) were doable. One could easily solve some 22-24 questions in the given 38 minutes.

Disclaimer: All information on cut-offs, analysis, answer key and scores are 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