Verbal Ability

No. of Questions           :           42
The Verbal section of FMS had 42 questions which focused mainly on vocabulary and usage (idiomatic expression, figures of speech). A few questions looked at identification of, and the use of parts of speech and grammatical tools. Overall, this section was very difficult. Candidates who are comfortable with English, if they spent half an hour 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 18-20 with an accuracy of around 60% should be considered to be very good. The cut-off is expected to be around 15 (50%ile).

Quantitative Ability

No. of Questions           :           49
This section had questions on Quant and Data Interpretation. Both the sets of DI were pretty straight forward, which involved only simple calculations. In the set on FDI inflows, the difficulty regarding determining the exact values was overcome by the fact that one could approximate the values and still arrive at the answers. The set about ISRO’s moon probe involved only straight forward calculations, except for the first question, regarding the number of images that could be sent, which involved some thinking. Both the sets being part of an otherwise tough section should have been definitely attempted by the students. The Quant section was different from the regular Quant of FMS in that they focused on a wide variety of topics which include circles, parabola, limits, and economic functions, physics oriented mathematical problems and so on. But for a candidate with average proficiency in commercial mathematics there are many easy questions available in the paper and at the same time there are ambiguous questions and probably a few of the questions have errors. On the whole the Quant part appeared to be difficult but individually the questions are not those much difficult. A good time allocation strategy for this section would be around 30-35 minutes and attempts in the range of 20 with an accuracy of around 70% should be considered to be very good. The cut-off is expected to be around 18 (50%ile).

Logical & Analytical Reasoning

No. of Questions           :           50
The Reasoning section of FMS had 49 questions with Qs on both Critical reasoning as well as analytical reasoning. Some of the questions in analytical puzzles were difficult to comprehend and some of them were ambiguous. However the critical reasoning questions were not difficult to answer. The question based on blood relations and the one based on distribution (two cars and six persons) were ambiguous. Some of the questions appear to be quite familiar (ex: Input output) but would have been difficult to comprehend for an average student. Overall, this section can be classified as difficult. A score of 35 to 40 is a good score in this section, with in a time of 40 minutes that need to be spent in this section. A good time allocation strategy for this section would be around 35-40 minutes and attempts in the range of 18-20 with an accuracy of around 70% should be considered to be very good. The cut-off is expected to be around 20 (50%ile).

Reading Comprehension

No. of Questions         :          35
This section with 35 questions was devoted to Reading Comprehension. There were 5 passages with 7 questions each. While the content in the passages was not difficult to deal with, reading would have taken time, as each passage was quite long. The questions however, were not easy to answer, except, perhaps, for 3 or 4 of them. Most ranged from moderate to difficult. The questions focused mostly on detail, some on interpretation, a few on the main idea, and a few on inferences. One or two questions actually required some idea of concepts not referred to or explained in the content given. A good number of questions had choices which presented combinations of detail within, thus becoming really difficult. 
Overall, the section was difficult. Candidates who are comfortable with English, if they spent half an hour on this section, would have attempted 3 passages and about 15 to 17 questions, and may have answered 10 to 11 correctly. A good time allocation strategy for this section would be around 25-30 minutes and attempts in the range of 16 with an accuracy of around 60-70% should be considered to be very good. The cut-off is expected to be around 15 (50%ile).

Estimated Cut-offs for Sections

Verbal Ability - 15
Quantitative Ability - 18
Logical & Analytical Reasoning - 20
Reading Comprehension - 15

Expected Overall Cut-off