The VARC section had 24 questions - 16 from Reading Comprehension and 8 from Verbal Ability. There were no major changes in the number of questions from the previous year. However, there were no Para Formation questions in this section this year. One surprise in terms of presentation was that RC and VA questions appeared in random order – the RCs were interspersed with VA questions, which would have made navigating the section a little troublesome. For many candidates, the section began with a VA question.

There were four RC passages, with 4 questions per passage. There were a good number of application and inference-based questions, which required a thorough understanding of the author’s perspective.

The passage on ‘How Spices Changed the World’ was easy-moderate in terms of readability. However, all the questions were quite challenging. There were a couple of further application questions, which required incisive critical reasoning, and most of the questions had two very close options. The ideal approach for most students would have been attempt this passage at the end of the section after going through the other passages.

The passage on ‘Externalities of Inventions’ was a moderately difficult read. The questions, barring one, were not very difficult. Overall, most students could have attempted this passage.

The passage on ‘Open Peer Reviews’ was a rather difficult read as the subject was complex. Most of the questions tasked candidates with identifying the exception (‘Except’ questions), and they required careful analysis of multiple sentences. These were challenging and time-consuming as they entailed revisiting the passage several times to ensure accuracy. Students who attempted this passage would have had to exercise discretion in choosing (and leaving) questions.

The passage on ‘Human-Carnivore Interaction’ was easy-moderate in terms of readability. There were a couple of very difficult questions with confusing options, but the other questions were doable.

In the Verbal Ability section this year, there were two questions on Odd Man Out and three questions each on Para Summary and Sentence Placement. There were no Para Formation questions. Only the Odd Man questions were TITA-type.

The Sentence Placement questions were mostly moderate, with one difficult question. The Para Summary questions were moderately difficult. The subjects were complex and this made answering the questions rather time-consuming. However, the test-taker could have attempted two out of three questions if they focused on the central idea.

Both the Odd Man Out questions were very difficult, as there were no obvious connections between the sentences. It was rather challenging to identify a pattern and form a paragraph with four sentences.

A net score of 19 – 21 marks should suffice for the candidate to clear the sectional cut-off of 85 percentile.

Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning:

The DILR section of the afternoon slot was similar to the morning slot, in terms of the difficulty. There were no changes in the section pattern across the slots. Slot 2 also had five sets – two 5-question sets and three 4-question sets. While students had the advantage of having more choices, the way some of the sets were presented made it slightly difficult to select the right sets.

There were two sets that were doable. However, one of these sets gave the impression that the set was complicated and some students stated that this prompted them to move on to other sets. Those who selected sets after properly understanding the information given in the sets would have been well placed to get their selection right.

The set wise details are as below:

The set on “Number Grid” was a 5-question Quant Based Reasoning set. There were four rows and four columns, with ten slots, and students had to place numbers from 1 to 10 in these slots. There was not a lot of information given in the conditions and each condition had multiple possibilities, which made figuring out the first step itself difficult. Exploring all possibilities would have consumed time without making much progress. This was a set that students need not have attempted.

The set on “Streets and Lakes” was a 4-question Routes and Networks set. The set was not difficult and three of the four questions were doable. The questions were independent of one another and therefore, students need not have attempted all of them. However, students could have skipped the set as the network looked a little complicated. But this was a doable set and so, students should have attempted this.

The set on “Athletes and Coaches” was a 5-question Distribution set. One had to figure out which athlete was trained by which coach and the ratings given to the athletes by their coaches. This was not too difficult with students claiming that there was a fair amount of information given in the conditions and was not reasoning intense. There were two questions in this set that could have been answered without fully solving the set. This was a set that students should have attempted.

The set on “Store Ratings” was a 4-question Reasoning Based DI Set. There was a bar graph in the set, which was not hard to interpret. But students said that the set involved Statistics concepts like mode, median, cumulative averages, and some conditions could not be interpreted without knowing how to apply these concepts. As a result, it was difficult to solve the set. Even those who knew these concepts said that the set was still difficult. This was a set that students could have skipped.

The set on “Company PAT” was a 4-question Bubble Chart set.

Bubble charts are usually a little difficult as there are multiple levels of interpretation like the position of the bubbles and their areas. There were two Bubble charts given in the set, which would have made solving the set difficult. Also, there was a lot of common information given and this could have resulted in some students skipping the set. Because the set was difficult, skipping the set would have been a good choice.

Overall, the section could be deemed difficult. Those who have taken a good number of AIMCATs would have come across similar distribution of sets across DI and LR and were relatively well placed to select the right sets.

A net score of 16 – 18 marks should suffice for the candidate to clear the sectional cut-off of 85 percentile.

Quantitative Ability:

The QA section of Slot 2 was slightly difficult compared to Slot 1. There were a good number of questions that tested students on the application of concepts and those who’ve been thorough with their revision of the concepts would have done well. There were quite a few questions which, while not difficult to solve, were tedious and time-consuming.

The section had 1 easy, 13 moderately difficult and 8 difficult questions. Those who were able to identify the easy and moderately difficult questions are likely to end up with a high percentile. One thing that many students pointed out was that in some questions, there was a lot of text and as a result, solving these took more time. Some questions seemed like easy pickings but ended up taking more time than expected. 18 of the 22 questions in the section were from Arithmetic (12) and Algebra (6), with only four questions from Geometry (3) and Modern Maths (1). Even students who were not from a Math background could have answered quite a few questions in this section.

The distribution of questions in this section across topics is as follows:

A net score of 13 – 15 marks would be a decent score for a test-taker to be able to clear the cutoff.

Overall, a net score of 53 – 55 marks should be sufficient to score 90 percentile.