Maharastra MBA CET 2009 – Paper Pattern and Analysis
Well, the last of the MBA entrance exams have come to an end with the Maharastra MBA CET getting conducted on the 15th of Feb 2009. This year the CET was definitely looked forward to by many students as a last option, what with the economic downturn and loss of jobs/non availability of new jobs.
T.I.M.E. students who have been writing the All Maharastra MOCK CETs this year were thrilled after CET 2009 which was held on 15th FEB 2009. The paper pattern, the difficulty level and the types of questions had an uncanny resemblance to the MOCK papers save couple of new types of questions that were anyway expected.
This year’s paper was a shade difficult as compared to the last year’s paper. The cutoffs required for getting into the top institutes therefore will go down as they did in CET 2007.
Second year in the running, the Input/Output Flowcharts were conspicuous by their absence. In addition, what was of real relief to students was the reduction in the number of Verbal Reasoning questions that were a nightmare to people. With T.I.M.E. students going through 18 mocks including all types of questions, it was a relief that most of the questions that appeared were familiar and attemptable.
As expected, questions on Selection Criteria (Decision Making), Probability, Coding Decoding and Deductions were pretty straightforward and simple. Students would be able to score well in these areas. Not so surprisingly again, the focus of CET has been on logical ability questions and hence we once again see very few questions in the Quant section. The bête noire of many a student has not troubled them this time and hence most students would have been happy with their performance albeit temporarily. There were no Arithmetic questions at all in this year’s CET.
There were some surprises in the Verbal area (Sentence Completion with 10 different choices), Reading comprehension (instead of one passage there were three small passages) and Quant (where Permutation and Combination questions were sandwiched between a set of probability questions).
If students had paid heed to the advice of all T.I.M.E. faculty to attempt Non Verbal at the end or give it at least 15 to 20 minutes, then scoring 15 extra marks would have been a cinch.
Students felt that the paper was a little lengthy and in parts was shade tougher too. The MOCKS from T.I.M.E. were an apt reflection of the difficulty levels of this year’s CET.
Students who have attended the classes and gone through the handouts or workshops of T.I.M.E. and solved the mocks, felt that quite a lot of questions, especially in Data Interpretation and Quant were almost exact replicas of the T.I.M.E. papers.
A quick preliminary analysis would put the required marks to get into the prestigious JBIMS at the written stage at around 143 +/- 2 for Mumbai Home University Students and around 153 +/- 2 marks for the All India Seats (AI).
CET
2009 Paper Pattern
Total Number of Questions: 200
Total Time allotted: 150 minutes
No. of Choices per question: 5 choices
Negative Marks: Not Present
Number of Sections: No sections – jumbled paper
|
Q Nos |
Area |
Type of Question |
Level of Difficulty |
|
1 to 10 |
Analytical Reasoning |
Logical questions on Odd one,
directions, coding & decoding, misc |
Easy |
|
11 to 15 |
Quantitative Ability |
Permutations and Probability |
Easy |
|
16 to 20 |
Non Verbal Reasoning |
Odd man out (seven figure series) |
Moderate |
|
21 to 25 |
Quantitative Ability |
BODMAS and Approximation |
Easy |
|
26 to 30 |
Verbal Ability |
Grammar (Best way to rephrase the
sentence grammatically) |
Easy |
|
31 to 35 |
Analytical Reasoning |
Number Series (Find the next term in
the series) |
Easy to Moderate |
|
36 to 45 |
Non Verbal Reasoning |
Analogies |
Easy |
|
46 to 50 |
Verbal Ability |
Para Jumble |
Easy to Moderate |
|
51 to 55 |
Quantitative Ability |
BODMAS and Approximation |
Easy |
|
56 to 60 |
Analytical Reasoning |
Deductions (4 statements) |
Moderate |
|
61 to 65 |
Non Verbal Reasoning |
Visual Reasoning (Odd pair out) |
Very Easy |
|
66 to 70 |
Verbal Ability |
Sentence Completion from among 10
statements |
Difficult |
|
71 to 75 |
Analytical Reasoning |
Verbal Symbols and Notations (vowels
and consonants) |
Easy |
|
76 to 80 |
Data Sufficiency |
Quant based DS with two statements |
Easy to Moderate |
|
81 to 85 |
Analytical Reasoning |
Alpha numeric sequence questions |
Easy |
|
86 to 90 |
Verbal Ability |
Fill in the blanks (2 blanks) |
Easy |
|
91 to 95 |
Data Interpretation |
Bar Graph - LIG, MIG, HIG |
Easy |
|
96 to 100 |
Analytical Reasoning |
Mathematical Statements and
Conclusions ( 4 statements) |
Lengthy but Moderate |
|
101 to 105 |
Verbal Ability |
Synonyms (chose from among 3 words) |
Easy |
|
106 to 110 |
Analytical Reasoning |
Series of Numbers (two rows) - Find
output of the second row |
Moderate |
|
111 to 115 |
Verbal Ability |
Reading Comprehension Passage (Health
related) |
Easy |
|
116 to 120 |
Data Interpretation |
Line Graphs - Boys and Girls of five
different colleges |
Easy |
|
121 to 125 |
Analytical Reasoning |
Analytical Puzzle (Seating
arrangement) |
Easy |
|
126 to 130 |
Non Verbal Reasoning |
Similar pair |
Moderate |
|
131 to 135 |
Data Interpretation |
Table - Pass and Fail of students for
different classes |
Easy but with one question lengthy |
|
136 to 140 |
Analytical Reasoning |
Distribution (Seven friends and three
orgn, seven departments) |
Easy |
|
141 to 145 |
Data Sufficiency |
Logic based (4 Q) and one Quant based
(three statements) |
Easy |
|
146 to 150 |
Verbal Ability |
Reading Comprehension Passage
(Marketing Comm) |
Moderate |
|
151 to 155 |
Verbal Reasoning |
Course of action |
Moderate |
|
156 to 160 |
Data Interpretation |
Table - Number/Percentage of
children, men, women in six games |
Lengthy and Difficult |
|
161 to 165 |
Verbal Ability |
Reading Comprehension Passage
(Missile Development) |
Difficult |
|
166 to 170 |
Non Verbal Reasoning |
Visual Reasoning (Complete the
series) |
Easy to Moderate |
|
171 to 175 |
Data Interpretation |
Case let |
Lengthy but Moderate |
|
176 to 180 |
Verbal Reasoning |
Cause and Effect |
Difficult |
|
181 to 190 |
Verbal Ability |
Cloze passage |
Easy |
|
191 to 200 |
Analytical Reasoning |
Decision Making |
Easy |
In Short the same can be categorized as
|
AREA |
No.
of Questions |
|
Analytical Reasoning |
60 |
|
Verbal Reasoning |
10 |
|
Non Verbal Reasoning |
30 |
|
Data Interpretation |
25 |
|
Data Sufficiency |
10 |
|
Quantitative Ability |
15 |
|
Verbal Ability |
35 |
|
Reading Comprehension |
15 |
The marks required in the CET written examination alone, for a seat in the best institutes, are likely to be the following:
Expected requirement for JBIMS (Home University Mumbai)
– 143 +/- 2 marks
Expected requirement for JBIMS (OMS category)
–
153
+/- 2 marks
Expected requirement for
Sydenham
(Home University Mumbai)– 137 +/- 2 marks
Expected requirement for Sydenham (OMS Category)
– 150 +/- 2 marks
Expected requirement for KJ
Somaiyya
(Home University Mumbai) – 135 +/- 2 marks
Expected requirement for KJ Somaiyya
( OMS
category)
– 148 +/- 2 marks
Expected requirement for
Welingkar
(Home University Mumbai) – 134 +/- 2 marks
Expected requirement for
Welingkar
( OMS
category)
– 147 +/- 2 marks