Exam Snapshot

JMET retains its charm as the most predictable of the major exams and JMET2008 was no different. However, in no way was this among the easy exams of this season. In fact, JMET2008 was a monster in the league of the IIFT and CAT papers, with no respite for the students. The most common reaction among the student community after the exam was that the “QA cutoff would very low – tending towards 0 (!)”.

Section 1: Verbal Communication

No. of Questions: 40

The Verbal Communication section had questions from Reading Comprehension, Grammar, Vocabulary, Analogies and Fill in the blanks. The section had a good mix of both easy and difficult questions and a student who picked up the right questions will have no problems in clearing the. The RC passages were short and readable (as opposed to CAT) but like CAT, had two very close options in most cases, which made them a nightmare to negotiate. The vocabulary questions were not commonly used words which made them very difficult to answer. The Fill in the blanks and the questions based on semantics were doable and would have given opportunities to score.

Section Summary

The expected score for this section should be around 10-13 in about 30-35 min. Any score above 20 should be considered excellent.

Section 2: Logical Reasoning

No. of Questions: 40

This section was dominated by the Logical Reasoning kind of questions, i.e., questions on Arguments, Strengthen & Weaken Statements and Logical Flaws. Unlike the previous years, very few questions were based on puzzles. This section was ambiguous and confusing and in several cases, one was better off working out the answers by the process of eliminating choices. There were two sets on Analytical Reasoning – one on blocks and the one based on tasks taken up by four persons, both of which were doable. Overall, this section can be classified as Easy-Moderate and was a section where marks could have been scored in this paper.

Section Summary

The expected score for this section should be around 12-13 in about 25-30 min. Any score above 20 should be considered excellent.

Section 3: Quantitative Aptitude

No. of Questions: 40

This section of the JMET has always managed to retain its reputation of being one of the toughest QA sections of all the management entrance exams. Traditionally there used to be a mix of questions on arithmetic as well as higher mathematics (from 10+2 level and sometimes graduation level mathematics). However, this year, the paper setters completely left out the ordinary arithmetic type of questions, involving the familiar topics of geometry, numbers and quadratic equations etc. Further, the questions on higher maths used to be mostly individual questions based on standard concepts. This year, there was a shift of focus from such type of questions to entirely application oriented questions. With the exception of a few individual questions that appeared in isolation, almost all the questions appeared in twelve sets of what can best be termed as “business caselets”, with a heavy emphasis on not only the conceptual understanding across various topics but also on the practical application of those concepts in a real-time problem/decision making situation. To this extent, most of the questions involved dealing with situations which were not perfectly structured as one would find in the usual objective type questions. An uncanny sense of discomfort would have plagued anyone and everyone trying to make sense of this section The concepts involved were as varied as probability distributions, present value of investments/cash flows, linear programming, matrices, differential calculus, curve fitting etc. In fact, the cut-off in this section is expected to be as low as 3 marks.

Section Summary

The expected score for this section should be around 4-5 in about 25-30 min. Any score above 10 should be considered excellent.

Section 4: Data Interpretation

No. of Questions: 30

This section, though having only 30 Qs was a nightmare for most students. This was very unlike the easy DI section of the past. Being different from what one was used to, the sets demanded intensive calculations which made this section moderately difficult. The easy sets here were the ones pertaining to Production & Sales and the one on newspapers, which could have been solved with a little bit of effort.  

Section Summary

A good time allocation for this section would have been around 24-28 min with a score of 7-8 being par for the course. Any score in excess of 14 should be considered excellent.

Expected Overall Cut-off marks