CMAT September 2014: First day, first slot analysis

 

CMAT September 2014 is a paper for the well prepared. It was an extreme standard, no brilliance, no stupidity paper! Nothing much has changed in the exam as a whole. They have maintained the variety and spice. Some change in the verbal section has been introduced – not shocking though. CMAT September 2014: Student and expert reactions. Let us take a look at the section-wise analysis of the paper without much delay.

Verbal Ability: In the first part of CMAT September 2014 analysis comes VA. In the first format wherein there were 17 questions on Critical reasoning, this format had exactly one question on critical reasoning. All we can sum up is that there’s an amazing movement in this section. It won’t be wrong to say that the movement has been a good one. Similarly, there were no RCs in the first edition and today 15 questions of RC were seen. Also, one of the RCs had six questions in it – again a change, though not a really good one because the RC was an easy one. The remaining spread of 10 questions was more or less representative wherein there was one Fact-Inference-Judgement question, one Word Usage, one Analogy, one odd one out, one synonym, one vocabulary-based fill-in-the-blanks and one parajumble.

All in all, it is a paper which had a balanced spread, and covered length and breadth of verbal ability preparation. Even the distribution of easy-moderate-difficult questions was a 15-6-4 which is typically CMAT fomat and hence quite a standard one. Options were not very close and hence it would make the section easy for the students.

With good reading and decent knowledge of vocabulary, a good attempt would be 20-22 questions with 85-90% accuracy.

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Quantitative Aptitude: The next part in CMAT September 2014 analysis is QA. The section has not changed much as compared to last year. It was a nice buffet with 25 questions with expectable spread of questions across Arithmetic, Algebra, Modern Mathematics and Geometry. With hardly one to two difficult questions, the overall section can be described as easy to moderate. There were some 14 to 15 questions that can be termed easy and non-time consuming. The remaining seven to eight lay in the moderate area.

With around 22 odd attempts with close to 19-20 correct answers, a student can look at receiving a rank among top 500.

Two DI questions with a Line Graph and a Table which can be termed as easy. Overall, it was a comfortable section for the prepared student. The section did mean to give a relaxed feel to a student, which would boost the confidence and increase attempts. Interestingly, some chapters which generally have a prominent presence viz. Probability, Time and Work, Functions, Clocks & Calendars, Classical Number System questions were found missing in the first day, first slot. Probably, they are in the pipeline for the further slots.

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Analytical Reasoning: The third part of CMAT September 2014 analysis is AR. Half the paper belonged to Arrangement and Puzzles. Beyond that, there were two questions on Circular Arrangement. Hence, this can be termed a playground for a well prepared aspirant. Apart from that three questions of blood relations, two questions of Direction sense, two questions of syllogisms and two questions of statement assumptions stamped the same thing again. Any well trained student would enter and solve these questions. But the only thing that would find the winner will be the time spent on each question. Only a question or two could be termed difficult. The overall difficulty level of this section can be considered as moderate.
About 21-22 questions with good accuracy would fetch a good rank.

Current / General Awareness: The final part of CMAT September 2014 analysis GK. It's very difficult to put it in a bracket. Hence, we can say four to five questions of current awareness, five questions of History and Geography, seven questions on science showed prominent presence. The difficulty level of the GK questions can be termed moderate.

CMAT September 2014: Last minute preparation tips  

 

Overall take

Nothing much has changed in the paper as a whole. They have maintained the variety and spice. Some change in the verbal section – not shocking though.
Like in CMAT February 2014 and CMAT September 2013, the student should be able to attempt a good number of questions and get them right. But it would fill up the time because of the length of questions with just a few minutes to share. Attempts might go up by 10% as compared to previous CMAT. The cut-off as compared to last year will go up by 5 to 10 marks.

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This CMAT September 2014 analysis is strictly indicative. This however forms a base in terms of the preparation agenda and a rough pattern on how to go about attempting the paper.

 

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 www.CatGurus.com