The CMAT conducted by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) was held yesterday i.e 17
th January 2016. More than 400 b-schools are listed that accept CMAT scores. This year around 1.25 lakh candidates took the test. The results will be declared on 21
st January 2016.
The exam began at 9:30 am and ended at 12:30 am but students had started reaching the various centres by 8:00 am. They had to undergo a security check and document verification post that. Being a computer based exam, it remained glitch-free to a large extent as compared to the previous years’ experience. Only a few issues were reported.
There were 100 questions comprising of 4 sections- Quantitative Techniques and Data Interpretation, Logical Reasoning, Language Comprehension and General Awareness. The questions carried 4 marks for the right answer and negative marking of -1/4 for every wrong answer.
Quant and Language comprehension were easier compared to Logical reasoning and General Awareness. The difficulty level in Quantitative Technique was moderate with a few tricky questions. Overall this section was a scoring section. The language comprehension pattern stuck to the usual paper pattern. There were 3 Reading Comprehension passages with around 500-600 words and were shorter than those of CAT 2015. This section though, as usual, was time-consuming. The logical reasoning section was also time-consuming and those who spent more time solving it would have run short of time in other sections. General Awareness was the most difficult section but if a candidate knew most answers, he could finish solving it in 10-15 minutes.
Clearing the sectional cut-offs
For the quantitative technique section, attempting 18-20 correct answers on 25 would be enough. For the English language comprehension section, attempting 16-18 correct answers would be enough. Getting 15-17 correct answers in the Logical reasoning section would be more than sufficient and attempting 16-18 correct answers in the General awareness section would do the job of placing the test-taker in a good b-school. Overall, scoring anything above 170-180 would be considered a good score.
Since CMAT can be taken only once and if you are not expecting good marks, you should review your test taking strategy and focus on CET. Read
Appearing For MH-CET 2016; Tips From A Topper.
For those who didn't do well in CAT 2015 and are confused about whether to take the exam again, click
here to read the chat by the CEO of VistaMind.