NMAT 2019 (October 19, 9:00 a.m.) had the usual paper pattern. There were hardly any surprises. There were three sections—Language Skills, Quantitative Skills, and Logical Reasoning with no negative marking and one mark for each correct answer. There was a fifteen-minute tutorial, followed by a choice of deciding the sequence of the sections. The duration of the exam was 135 minutes and the student had 2 hours to attempt all the questions of the 3 sections.The first RC passage was based on Astrophysics and Cosmology with three inference-based and one fact-based question. The second RC passage was based on the causes and effects of the extinction of bees with four inference-based questions. The length of the passages was around 500-600 words each.

The Verbal Reasoning section was fairly easy with a total of fifteen questions. There was only one question of Syllogism with 3 statements, followed by four conclusions. There were two Statement-Assumption questions, three Statement-Conclusion questions, and two questions based on Strong-Weak Arguments. This was followed by four questions on Statement-Inference (where the Statements were of 4-5 lines), two questions on Statement-Argument and one question on Statement-Course of Action. The quant-based Reasoning section contained questions on Coding (4 qs.), Input (3 qs.), Blood relation (1 q.), Seating arrangement (1 q.), etc.

The Quantitative Skills section was of a similar level of difficulty as that of last year. Most of the questions were conceptual and less calculative. Most of the questions were based on arithmetic. Overall, the level of difficulty of this section was moderate. Based on our experience, one should have solved close to 84-92 questions (across the sections) in 120 minutes. The remaining questions should have been calculated attempts (educated guess) because of the marking scheme. Just like last year, the paper pattern varied for different candidates in the same slot. However, the difficulty level didn’t vary drastically. Anyone with a weak reading speed would have faced a tough challenge due to the strict sectional time constraint.

The pattern of the paper was as follows:

Logical Reasoning

The Logical Reasoning section was easy-moderate. Most of the questions were from predictable areas. There were two LR sets in total. The singlets were pretty easy. There was only one question based on Blood-Relation, followed by machine input-output questions which were of moderate difficulty level. Questions based on coding-decoding had varieties as all the three questions were on different pattern, out of which one was very tricky. There were 15 questions from the area of Verbal Logic. The options were not very close and so, the level of difficulty was moderate. Any student with a basic understanding of the fundamentals of verbal logic could have answered these easily. The questions in verbal logic ranged from easy to moderate level of difficulty.

Quantitative Skills

The Quantitative Aptitude section was of easy-moderate level. Arithmetic dominated the section. Number system, too, made its presence felt. The Data Sufficiency questions were from diverse topics such as Number system, Profit and loss, and Average. These questions were of moderate level. One could have solved these by just using the basic concepts. The Time and Work questions were easy. The Arithmetic Progression questions were time-consuming.

Questions from mixed graph were very calculative whereas questions from Pie chart were time consuming. The remaining 3 sets were easy and less calculative. There were a total of 5 DI sets which included pie-chart, line graph, mixed graphs, and tables, each containing 4 questions.

Language Skills

Coming to the vocab questions of NMAT, there was one synonym question, where the students were asked to find the synonym of ‘perilous’ and one antonym-based question, where the students were asked to find the antonym of ‘amenable’. There were six analogy questions, out of which two were fairly easy and four were of moderate-difficulty level. Overall, the vocabulary based questions were easy, with the usage of words like alleviate, aggravate, elusive, dogma, lugubrious, etc. The cloze test passage had 4 questions which were easy, as well.

In the 2 Reading comprehension passages, the questions were mostly inference-based. No vocab based question came from the RCs. There were a total of 4 para-jumble questions. They were easy and could be easily be solved by the student. The remaining questions in the section were based on grammar. The preposition based Fill-in-the-blank questions were quite easy. The sentence-correction questions were easy too and the questions were based on parallelism and subject-verb agreement. The pattern of this section remained on predictable lines. Overall, the section was of moderate level of difficulty keeping in mind the time constraint.

TEAM CL