Here is the analysis of NMAT 2019, of 1st Nov, the second last day of Window 2. As in the previous attempts of this season, the paper pattern was usual and so were the type of questions that came in each section.

The Logical Reasoning section was the most difficult as the questions on Analytical Reasoning were slightly trickier than the Verbal Reasoning questions. The Language Skills section was pretty much straightforward as the words that were a part of the vocabulary questions were not difficult. Yet again, Quantitative Skills section will be the easiest section of today’s paper. 4 out of 5 DI sets were simple. Be wary of the technical glitches that may crop up at your centre. Our slot was supposed to start at 11:30 am but the paper started at 12:10 pm as the center faced internet issues.

This paper yet again establishes the fact that the students should never go in with pre-conceived notions. Based on our experience, one should have solved close to 77-83 questions (across the sections) in 120 minutes. The remaining questions should have been calculated attempts (educated guess) because of the marking scheme. Marking all the unanswered questions as B or C would be smart move.

This does signify that the level of difficulty of the overall exam has gone up slightly due to a difficult Language Skills section. A solid strategy was the need of the hour.

If this paper is taken as a good indicator of this year's NMAT exam, the cut-off will likely remain in the same range (208-210 for Mumbai Campus) as that of last year. An advice for students would be to start with the Quantitative skills section and end with the Logical Reasoning section.

The pattern of the paper was as follows:

Logical Reasoning

The Logical Reasoning section was easy-moderate in terms of the difficulty level.

There were 25 questions based on Analytical and logical reasoning and the remaining 15 questions were on Verbal Reasoning. The questions came from areas that are usually expected and like the questions which you see in CL’s NMAT mocks. There were two sets of machine input/output questions wherein one was number based while the other one was word based. Both the sets were difficult to decipher and they were best left unattemped (i.e. guessed at the end).

There were only 2 questions on Blood relation that came as a part of the coding decoding questions itself.

The LR sets were arrangement based and were straightforwards. For example, one of the sets had 5 friend A, B. C, D, E and there were 4 statements about them. This was one of the easiest questions in this section.

There were 15 questions from the area of Verbal Logic. The difficulty level was easy-moderate. Any student, with a basic understanding the fundamentals of verbal logic, could have answered these easily. There were a good number of questions from statement-conclusion, strengthening and weakening arguments, statement-inference and statement-assumption. At the same time, these questions were not difficult.

Overall, the section was of Easy-Moderate level of difficulty. An attempt of 24-26 with 90% accuracy was achievable.

Quantitative Skills

The Quantitative Aptitude section was, probably, the easiest section of them all. The questions were mostly from Arithmetic, Numbers and Modern Math. There were very few Geometry or Algebra questions. The questions from Modern Maths (Permutation-combination and Probability) were of moderate difficulty level. The Time and Work questions were easy.

Just like the previous year, there were 5 DI sets out of which 4 were easy whereas 1 was not easy but students could have given it a try. The 5 DI sets include 2 table-based DI sets, 2 bar-graph based set and 1 pie-chart based set.

One of the bar graph-based DI set was about a power-grid which produces certain amount of energy, expends certain amount on its own operations and sells the remaining. At the same time, the country in which the company is based also imports certain amount of energy. Questions were easy and were based on what percentage of energy was imported across the different years.

A DI set based on pie-charts was about the revenue generated by various sectors like Natural Gas, Oil and Petroleum etc. This data was given for two consecutive years. The data of one year was in the form of a pie-chart and the other was in the form of a table. The student had to determine the revenue and growth of the sectors across the years.

A well-prepared student would not have had much difficulty in going through this section. 28-30 proper attempts were certainly possible.

Language Skills

The thing that stuents worry about the most here is the vocabulary. Thankfully, the words used in the questions were easy (for eg. Bound, despite etc,)

However, the vocabulary in the Cloze test questions was slightly more difficult to solve. In the error spotting questions, the errors were no longer just grammatical but were slightly more nuanced (e.g. errors in the position of the apostrophe etc.)

The two Reading Comprehension passages made all the difference in this section. The first passage was on impact of media on teenagers while the second one was on the discovery of new species underwater.

There were four para-jumble questions. These were not difficult. The sentences of the paragraphs were short too.

The remaining questions in the section were based on grammar. The preposition-based Fill-in-the-blank questions were quite easy.

The pattern of this section remained on predictable lines. Overall, the section was difficult keeping in mind the difficulty of words in the time constraint. An overall attempt of 25-27 with 90% accuracy is realistic. The other questions could have been educated guesswork.

TEAM CL