CMAT Sept 2013: Section-wise Analysis (Day 1)

By Parasharan Chari

CMAT – first day, first slot analysis – is a mixed bag, to say the least.

Seems like a Karan Johar or a Sooraj Barjatiya movie, the same packaging, the same star cast, the same story line, just a new support cast to add to that small surprise element.

The section wise analysis of the paper can be such:

Quantitative Aptitude: The paper was similar to last year. 25 questions with equal spread of questions across Arithmetic, Algebra, Modern Mathematics and Geometry. The difficulty level was also well spread out. There were some 3-4 speed breakers which would take some time to get solved. There were some 15-16 questions that can be termed easy and non-time consuming. The remaining 3-4 can be termed as difficult questions. Overall, a student aiming a top 500 rank would be able to make more than 20-21 attempts with at least 90% accuracy if he dedicates 50-55 mins for this section. Overall, a comfortable section for the prepared student. Two words for this section of QA for this edition of CMAT – No Change.

Verbal Ability: From the unusually insane levels of 17-18 questions of Critical Reasoning, CMAT has made a conscious shift to 7-8 questions of Critical Reasoning in the Sept’13 edition of CMAT. And adding to this welcome change is the inclusion of Reading Comprehension in the Verbal Ability section. Probably, last year was the only exception where they comfortably omitted Reading Comprehension. This is a welcome change because this is like returning to the tried and tested formula and for a fact, seems like what exactly the doctor prescribed for CMAT. Apart from the RCs, the distribution of questions was like a “standard aptitude test paper” with 2 parajumbles, 5 questions based on vocabulary, 3 questions based on grammar and so on and so forth. Overall, a standard section for a prepared student and if he puts in an hour into this section, he will be able to attempt nearly 21-22 questions with 90% accuracy.

Analytical Reasoning: The AR of last year and the AR of this year were like ‘kumbh-ke-mele-mein-bichde-hue-twins’. Just nothing has changed. The sets in the Analytical Reasoning / Logical Reasoning section were based on arrangements, puzzles and decision making and these sets were lengthy especially because there was only one question for each set. However these were doable as these are time consuming but possible. Apart from these there was at least one question based on Series, Coding-decoding, Deductive-Inductive Logic, Statement assumption and Statement Conclusion. A good candidate could take around 55 minutes to attempt this section and attempt around 20 - 21 questions with 85-90% accuracy. Hence the overall difficulty level of this section can be considered as moderate just because of the length of sets.

Current / General Awareness: There was a rightful mix of dynamic to static GK however the questions cannot be put into a bracket.

Overall take: The difficulty level of the paper has increased in comparison to the last year, but still not enough to not let a student attempt nearly all questions of aptitude. Last year, an aggressive test taker used to sit on 90% of the aptitude based questions attempted with time to spare, but this time around the number of attempts could come down by 2-3 per section, but that obviously means the cutoff will come down too – not by a great margin, but the total cutoff could come down by a 10-15 marks.

This analysis is strictly indicative and does nowhere mean things will not change in February. This, however, forms a base in terms of the preparation agenda and a rough pattern on how to go about attempting the paper.

All the Best!

About the author:

Parasharan Chari is an alumnus of SP Jain and is currently serving as the chief operating officer at Endeavor Careers and is also associated with the design and development of its online testing portal CatGurus.com