(MAT) MANAGEMENT APTITUDE TEST - 1st December 2013

 

Overview:

 

The overall structure of the MAT exam remained the same as that of the previous years’, with 5 sections of 40 questions each, 4 options and a negative marking of 1/4th of the marks allotted for wrong answers. The overall difficulty level of the exam did not vary much from the previous MAT exams. Most of the questions varied from easy to moderate. The best way to maximizing one’s score would have been to select questions judiciously.

 

Section	Subject Area	Number of Questions
Section I	Language Comprehension	40
Section II	Intelligence and Critical Reasoning	40
Section III	Mathematical Skills	40
Section IV	Data Analysis and Sufficiency	40
Section V	Indian and Global Environment	40

 

The analysis of each of the sections is as given below.

 

Language Comprehension:

This section comprised of 20 Verbal Ability and Verbal Reasoning questions and 20 Reading Comprehension questions. In case of the latter, there were 5 passages, all with 4 questions each. The passages themselves were short, and the topics covered involved business/economics, politics and the environment. The questions were direct and very easy, and included two word-based questions.

The VA/VR questions included 3 questions on Antonyms, 3 on choosing the Odd One Out, 3 on identifying the Grammatically Correct Sentence, 3 Double Fill in the Blanks, 4 questions on identifying the Essence/Summary of a Paragraph, and 4 Jumbled Paragraphs. Most of the questions were on the easy side. The question words in the Antonyms and Odd One Out questions were themselves jumbled up, so unscrambling them added a layer of difficulty to otherwise very easy questions.

 

Topics	No of Questions	Level of Difficulty
Reading Comprehension	5 passages with 4 questions each – 20	Easy – Moderate
Fill in the Blanks (double blanks)	3	Easy
Jumbled Paragraphs	4	Easy
Odd Man Out	3	Easy – Moderate
Antonyms	3	Moderate – Difficult
Pick Grammatically Correct Sentence	4	Moderate
Finding the Essence of a Paragraph	3	Moderate

 

A good strategy would have been to allot 35 minutes to this section, and solve as many VA/VR questions as possible, and then use the reaming time to attempt the RC questions. A good attempt would be 22-25 questions, with 85% accuracy.

 

Intelligence and Critical Reasoning: 

As usual, this section included a mixture of Verbal Reasoning and Logical Reasoning questions. The former included 4 Analogies, 3 Cause and Effect questions, 3 Statement Conclusion questions, and 4 Assertion and Reason questions.

The LR questions included 3 Family Tree questions, 2 Calendars questions, 12 Matrix Arrangements questions (4 sets of 3 questions each), 3 questions on Grouping and Conditionality (1 set), a single Arrangement based question, and 5 questions on Alphabet Series which were quite easy. Most of the questions varied from easy to moderate level.

 

Topics	No of Questions	Level of Difficulty
Statement and Conclusions	3	Moderate
Cause and Effect	3	Moderate
Analogies	4	Easy – Moderate
Assertion & Reason	4	Moderate
Family Tree	3	Easy
Calendars	3	Easy
Grouping and Conditionality	3	Easy – Moderate
Alphabet Series	5	Easy
Four sets of Analytical Reasoning based on Matrix arrangements with 3 parameters (height, color of cap worn and place where they stayed)	12	Easy – Moderate

 

A good time allocation for this section would be 30-35 minutes in which 25-27 questions were easily solvable.

 

Mathematical Skills: 

This section was primarily dominated by Arithmetic and Word based problems with a variety of easy to moderate level questions. The major topics covered in this section were Time, Speed and Distance, Time and Work, Mixtures and Alligations, Pipes and Cisterns, Ratio & Proportion, Profit & Loss, Simple & Compound Interest, Percentages, Geometry and Mensuration, Averages and Probability.

 

Topics	No. of questions	Level of difficulty
Time and work	3	Easy
Pipes and cisterns	2	Easy
Speed and distance	7	Easy – Moderate
Simple and compound Interest	2	Moderate
Profit-loss and Partnership	3	Moderate – Difficult
Percentage	5	Easy-Moderate
Ratio and proportions	4	Easy
Mixture and Alligations	2	Moderate – Difficult
Averages and Algebra based	3	Easy
Probability	4	Easy
Geometry and Mensuration	5	Moderate – Difficult

 

A good strategy would be to attempt 23-25 questions in 35-40 minutes with 85% accuracy.

 

Data Analysis and Sufficiency: 

The 5 questions based on Data Sufficiency were on the easier side and should have been attempted. There were 5 questions on Quantitative Comparison where a set of 2 statements were given and students had to  find which quantity was greater using both the statements. These should have been attempted too.

For Data Interpretation, the selection of questions was very critical as a couple of the sets were easy but quite a few were time consuming. The questions were based on Line Graphs, Bar Charts, Pie Charts + Bar Charts, Tables, Caselet based etc.

 

Topics	No. of questions	Level of difficulty
Two Pie charts showing production and expenses on vegetables for six different years.	5	Moderate – Difficult
One line graph showing rate of interest for 3 different banks for different years.	5	Easy
One Caselet study involving modes of transport between cities and the number of people using each mode of transport.	5	Moderate – Difficult
One bar graph showing production of 3 types of ice-creams by a company over different years.	5	Easy – Moderate
One Data Table showing number of students appearing for an exam and the number of students qualifying for the next stage in different zones of a country.	5	Easy
One bar chart and pie chart combination showing the number of adults working night shifts and the percentage of women working night shifts respectively.	5	Moderate
Data sufficiency	5	Easy
Data comparison	5	Easy

 

Around 22-24 attempts with 85% accuracy would have been good for this section.

 

Indian and Global Environment: 

Most of the questions in this section – about 34-35 – were on current events, so anyone who keeps abreast of current economic and political scenarios in India and abroad and regularly reads newspapers would not have found this section too tough. The rest of the questions were static, and were not too difficult either.

This section could easily be attempted in about 15 minutes. A good attempt would be 15-18 questions.

Those who have attempted IMS test pack on MAT (a series of 5 tests) would have found that the level of difficulty and the nature of the questions in these tests, as well as the structure of the paper similar to those asked in the actual MAT EXAM.