FMS 2010 was devoid of surprises in the pattern as the number of Qs was revealed before the exam. However one tends to expect easier Qs with an increase in the number of Qs but this was not to happen. The English sections would prove to be the waterloo of many a student in FMS2010 as the difficult and lengthy nature of these sections would have put paid to any hopes of a high score. The biggest surprise this year was the length of the paper which would have made scoring extremely difficult and high scores of yesteryears would only be an aberration. The cut-offs however are likely to be higher than last year on account of the increase in the Qs and the ‘scorching’ performance of students in the managements exams this year!

The break-up of the FMS paper and an optimum time allocation strategy are given in the table

The Verbal section of FMS had 50 Qs which focused mainly on vocabulary and usage (idiomatic expression, figures of speech). Most students consider the Verbal section as an area where some ‘quick runs’ can be scored – how wrong were all of them! FMS2010 took the Verbal section to a new high, something which would have made many a student feel dizzy. The Vocab based Qs were a nightmare and would have demanded a very high level of proficiency. A few questions looked at identification of, and the use of parts of speech and grammatical tools and these were the ones to be attempted for a decent score. Overall, this section was very difficult and the cut-offs are likely to be on the lower level. Candidates who are comfortable with English, if they spent 20 mins on this section, would have attempted 15 to 17 questions, and may have answered 10 to 11 correctly. A good time allocation strategy for this section would be around 20-25 minutes and attempts in the range of 16-20 with an accuracy of around 60% should be considered to be very good. The cut-off is expected to be around 26 (50%ile).

Surprisingly, this section had questions only on Quant and absolutely none in DI. This would have been a terrible setback to students who were expecting the DI Qs to bail them out in this section and get a good score. There were quite a number of questions involving concepts of higher maths, including maxima-minima, limits, physics oriented mathematical problems and number systems. There were also lots of questions on graphs, some of which would have needed a good visualization skill. The questions on higher maths were simple and would not have troubled a student who was well aware of the concepts. However, they would have been almost undoable if the concepts were not known. There were quite a number of questions related to time & work, time & distance, profit & loss, equations, logarithms, etc. Concentrating on these questions alone would have been sufficient to get good score. There were a few sitters (e.g. Arithmetic mean of n numbers, y= x/(x+1), etc.). On the whole the Quant part appeared to be difficult but students who did not panic after seeing the questions on higher maths and chose the easier questions would have definitely got a good score. A good time allocation strategy for this section would be around 30-35 minutes and attempts in the range of 16-20 with an accuracy of around 60% should be considered to be very good. The cut-off is expected to be around 20 (50%ile).

The Logical & Analytical Reasoning section of FMS had 50 questions with majority of Qs from Analytical reasoning, one set which was a DS model based on a DI Table and surprisingly a few Qs based on Vocabulary. The good thing with this section was that there were quite a few easy sets and that could have helped one increase their score substantially.The sets on the ‘concentric rings’, ‘six directors of a private company’ and the ‘English alphabet’ (valid word etc.) were absolute sitters and should have been attempted. The Qs on directions, distribution based question (“B-school students” and the one about “Five new recruits”) and the one based on arrangement (Six products to be arranged in 6 windows) were easy though there was an element of ambiguity in the phrasing of the sentences. Overall, this section can be classified as moderate to difficult.A good time allocation strategy for this section would be around 25-30 minutes and attempts in the range of 18-22 with an accuracy of around 75% should be considered to be very good. The cut-off is expected to be around 28 (50%ile).

FMS broke new ground with this RC section – could anyone have imagined an RC which runs into 4-5 pages and has 24Qs in it!! The key to doing well in this section was to attempt the passages that had the maximum weightage (in terms of Qs) as all passages were difficult to read and would have taken quite a bit of time to read and therefore one had to look for the maximum return on investment for the minimum reading. The Qs in the passages were tricky and would have required a keen eye and a quick re-reading of the relevant portions of the passage. Overall, this section was difficult on account of its length and would have come as a setback to students as they would have hoped to score a lot of marks here. A good time allocation strategy for this section would be around 30-35 minutes and attempts in the range of 17-21 with an accuracy of around 80% should be considered to be very good. The cut-off is expected to be around 22 (50%ile).

Estimated Cut-offs for Sections

Expected Overall Cut-off

FMS-MBA 2009 FACT FILE

FMS-MBA-MS 2009 FACT FILE

MBA full time

MBA-MS