All India Council for Technical Education's Common Management Admission Test (CMAT) got off to a smooth start today across 64 cities in the country. September CMAT, one of the 2 CMATs to be conducted for admissions into 2013-15 season, is scheduled to be conducted over a 5-day window from 27th Sep to 1st October, with 2 slots every day. Best score out of the 2 CMATs will be considered for admission. The CMAT conducted in February of this year went off smoothly with no major technical issues being reported. A similar performance is expected this time as well.

The test started with a 10 minute tutorial/instructions about the test. The exam had 4 sections as was declared - Quantitative Techniques & Data Interpretation, Logical Reasoning, Language Comprehension and General Awareness. Each section had 25 questions with every right answer carrying 4 marks and a mark being deducted for every wrong answer. The exam was for 3 hours, with the students being able to move freely across sections, unlike what is expected in CAT2012. This pattern was the same as the first CMAT, conducted in February this year. Unlike in Feb CMAT where authorities took an 'Undertaking' from students who came to the test center with inadequate documentation, the undertaking was not insisted upon this time around.

Students' Feedback:

While the first 2 sections QT + DI and LR seemed to be easy at the outset, there were quite a few questions which were time guzzlers, according to those who attempted the test.

Many test takers believed that Language Comprehension & General Awareness sections were difficult to score in, as picking the right option was difficult - in the section on Language Comprehension due to the closeness of the options, especially in the 'Critical Reasoning' kind of questions, and in the section on General Awareness due to the specific knowledge needed about the question/topic on hand.

There were reportedly quite a few questions which had typos/incorrect or incomplete information.

Some students reportedly had issues with test submission, which took longer than usual, leading to some anxious moments. Most were however able to complete the exam successfully by the end.

Our Take:

Those who got stuck in few QA and DI questions would have found the going difficult as they would have had to race against the ticking clock later. Students who saw through these early enough would have been saved from losing time. The mantra for success in this exam would have been to keep moving on with the questions, while flagging those which seemed tough/time taking for a second look later.

We feel the sections on Language Comprehension & General Awareness were the clinchers in the test. Those who managed a decent to good performance in these can hope to look forward to good over all scores.

Overall, it seems a moderate-difficult exam and the students cannot afford to take it easy, particularly if they are aiming for a seat in the top institutes that accept CMAT, like JBIMS, KJ Somaiya etc.

In the light of AICTE explicitly disallowing the sharing of exam content, no student / coaching institute / online portal can share or use the content of the exam with anybody. No such information can also be posted on any forum on the internet. So, T.I.M.E. has put a policy in place where

(i) no T.I.M.E. person will share information about the test
(ii) T.I.M.E. will not encourage/ask students to disclose details about the content of the test that they took
(iii) T.I.M.E. will not allow anybody to post such information on its website www.time4education.com

Finally, if you are yet to give the test, put your best foot forward and leave no stone unturned in your preparation.

All the Best