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 MAT : Exam Analysis (Dec. 2009)
“Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights.”
Reaching new heights was possible with this MAT- to shoulder the responsibility of a manager, stretching and reaching out into the corporate world, like the branches of a tree!
A ray of hope, and a stability for all management aspirants, is the MAT as it is conducted four times a year. The December MAT (06 Dec 09) is the third in this season of MBA Entrances.
We, at Career Forum have always been keenly following up with our students after each and every entrance exam, to know how they have fared. Getting a ‘Feel’ of the paper from them is very essential especially when there is no question paper available, which is the case with the MAT exam.
This analysis is based purely from the students’ perception and memory.
 COMMENTS:
Overall difficulty of the paper was average. The general consensus was that the Data Interpretation section of this paper was tough.
The average attemptability out of 200 questions was 100-110 with an accuracy of 85%.
As MAT does not consider the General Awareness score so the scoring is out of 160.
This time MAT is being conducted in the paper pencil format as well as a computer based test.
| ‘TOP MAT’ COLLEGES |
| The following is the partial list of some of the good colleges in alphabetical order accepting MAT scores of 06 Dec 2009. |
Institute |
Location |
IILM Graduate School of Management
|
Greater Noida |
Christ College |
Bangalore |
MS Ramaiah Institute of Management |
Bangalore |
Birla School of Management
|
Greater Noida |
Amity Business School |
Noida |
Alliance Business Academy |
Bangalore |
Asia Pacific Institute of Management |
Delhi |
MITCON Institute of Management |
Pune |
The PreMATs conducted by our institute proved to be very useful for the students as many of the question types in this MAT were similar to the ones we framed in our test papers.
| OVERVIEW OF THE MAT PAPER |
Time |
150 Mins |
Total no. of questions |
200 |
Total marks |
200 |
Negative marking |
1/4 |
| break-up and weightage |
AREA COVERED |
NO. OF QUESTIONS |
MARKS ALLOCATED |
DIFFICULTY LEVEL |
Verbal Ability |
40 |
40 |
Easy to Average |
Quantitative Aptitude |
40 |
40 |
Average |
Data Interpretation and Data Sufficiency |
40 |
40 |
Tough |
Reasoning Ability |
40 |
40 |
Average |
General Awareness |
40 |
40 |
Easy to Average |
Total |
200 |
200 |
|
Verbal Ability
Overall Difficulty- Easy to Average
Verbal Ability questions were well distributed throughout the paper.
- Passages formed a major part of the Verbal Ability. There were five reading comprehension passages of which all were short with a word 550 to 700. There were four questions per passage. Of the five passages only three could be attempted with ease. So that makes it an attemptability of 10-12 questions from the given 20 questions.
- The topics of the RC’s were based on Chandrayaan mission, Electric Power, and G-20.
- There were five ‘jumbled sentences’. Instinct and logical thinking, and recognizing the building words in each sentence, was the key to a successful paragraph building.
-
The other Vocabulary based question were the ‘Double Blanks’ and ‘Analogies’. The degree of difficulty was ‘Average’.
- Interspersed were four logical reasoning questions taxing the student’s brain as they were not so simple and straightforward.
- There were five questions based on grammar one was choosing the appropriate syntactic and semantic option from among the given options and the other was choosing that option which had a grammatical error in it.
- Here fundamentals of grammar were absolutely essential to answer this question.
- For a Career Forum student these questions were not as tough as they appeared to be.
| Verbal Ability |
Area |
No. of Questions |
Difficulty Level |
Reading Comprehension (5 passages) |
20 |
Easy to Average |
Jumbled Paragraph |
5 |
Easy to Average |
Fill in the blanks (Double blanks) |
2 |
Easy |
Grammar (clear and concise) |
5 |
Average |
Analogies |
4 |
Easy to Average |
Word substitution |
4 |
Easy to Average |
TOTAL |
40 |
Easy to Average |
Quantitative Aptitude
Overall Difficulty – Average
- There was an uneven distribution of Mathematics questions. Question types from arithmetic, were predominantly spaced out through out the paper. There were few questions from algebra.
- The questions were mainly based on ‘time-distance-speed’ (trains), upstream & downstream, ‘time and work’, pipes & cistern, ‘profit and loss’. There were some questions on ‘percentages’, races, probability’, partnership and ‘permutation & combination’.
- Many students felt that these questions were of average difficulty and answering them did not take up much time. Career Forum’s, Mathematics Techniques: C.F.M techniques, Scaling Ratio and N.R.V. Techniques, helped students immensely in tackling questions based on arithmetics.
| Quantitative Ability |
Area |
Sub Areas |
No. of Questions |
Difficulty Level |
Arithmetic
|
Partnership |
4 |
Easy to Average |
Race |
3 |
Average |
Speed Time and Distance |
5 |
Average |
Pipes and Cisterns |
5 |
Easy to Average |
Boat and Stream |
4 |
Easy to Average |
Time and Work |
6 |
Average |
Profit and Loss, Discount |
5 |
Average |
Algebra
|
Permutation and Combination |
4 |
Average |
Probability |
4 |
Easy to Average |
TOTAL |
|
40 |
Easy to Average |
Reasoning Ability
Overall Difficulty- Easy
Apart from MR, most of the reasoning based questions were covered in this paper. There were questions on matching, seating arrangements, blood relations, coding-decoding, and inductive reasoning, missing number series, Venn diagrams and cubes.
There was one decision making caselet, with five questions. The other question types included Assertion Reasoning, Forceful arguments, Statement-Assumption
There were five questions based on Quantitative Comparison.
| Reasoning Ability |
Area |
No. of Questions |
Difficulty Level |
Blood Relation |
3 |
Easy to Average |
Cubes and cuboid |
4 |
Easy to Average |
Sitting Arrangement |
3 |
Easy |
Matching |
1 |
Average |
Coding decoding |
3 |
Easy to Average |
Number series |
5 |
Average |
Venn Diagram (Two caselets) |
3 |
Average |
Assertion Reasoning |
2 |
Easy to Average |
Forceful arguments |
3 |
Easy to Average |
Statement-Assumption |
3 |
Average |
Analytical Reasoning (Decision making) |
5 |
Average |
Data sufficiency |
5 |
Average |
TOTAL |
40 |
Easy |
Data Interpretation
Overall Difficulty- Above Average
- This section is synonymous with graphs of all types.
- There were Bar Graphs only in vertical form.
- Pie Charts followed.
- There were some questions based on interpreting data from tables which was quite simple.
- Line Graphs also formed a part of this section.
- There was an unusual caselet in the form of a story – had average difficulty questions.
| Data Interpretation (DI) |
Area |
No. of Questions |
Difficulty Level |
Line Graph |
5 |
Average |
Bar Graph |
4 |
Average |
Line +Bar Graph |
5 |
Tough |
Table + Bar Graph |
4 |
Tough |
Simple Table |
4 |
Easy |
Pie Chart (2 caselets) |
9 |
Tough |
Paragraph Based |
4 |
Average to Tough |
Data Comparison |
5 |
Easy to Average |
TOTAL |
40 |
Easy to Average |
General Awareness
General Knowledge always makes a student sit up because there is an unknown factor involved in this section.
Predominating in this section were questions based on current affairs of the year 2008-2009.
.
The current business scenario in the field of automobiles was also the need of the hour.
Keeping abreast of the global growth in the field of Finance and the emerging economies would also have proved beneficial to the student.
CEO’s as well as founders of high ranking banks and organizations is priceless information which a student benefits from. There were a few questions based on this knowledge.
Watching reality shows was also a boon as there was a question on ‘Big Brother’.
Staying ahead in this changing scenario of the taglines of the rich and famous companies is a necessity as there were quite a few questions based on them.
Most of the students agreed that the GA questions were familiar to them but as attempting them was optional many of them just skimmed through them.
Though General Awareness is not considered in the overall MAT some colleges do consider these scores in their MAT calls.
Some of the General Awareness Questions:
1. Big Brother reality show belongs to which country?
US UK Canada or India
2. Which of the following states does not have an IIM?
Mumbai Kozhikode Shillong Bangalore
3. Who is the founder of Oracle?
4. Who is the current CEO of TCS?
5. The classical dance form ‘Kathak’ originated in which state?
6. How many teams will be participating in the world cup cricket 2011?
7. Largest railway bridge in India?
8. What is the duration of the 10th five year plan?
| General Awarenes |
Area |
No. of Questions |
Difficulty Level |
General Awareness |
40 |
Easy to Average |
Total |
40 |
Easy to Average |
Overall difficulty average.
Most of the students seemed quite happy with their performance in this paper. After the results are declared, it now remains to be seen which college will give them a MAT Call.
Do keep visiting this site to get the latest updates on the MAT front.
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