SNAP 2016, as was announced earlier, had a slightly different pattern from what it had been following since 2009. The total number of questions remained at 150. However, the section on Current affairs had 30 questions and the section on Analytical & Logical reasoning had 40 questions, compared to 40 and 30 respectively earlier.

The other change was that the Reasoning section had one mark per question compared to 2 marks per question earlier. This led the total marks to come down to 150 from 180 earlier.

The overall difficulty level of the test was much higher compared to earlier. The broad distribution of the test was as follows:

Section	Marks	No. of Questions	Good number of net attempts	Ideal time allocation (min)
General English	40	40	20-22	25
Quantitative, Data Interpretation & Data Sufficiency	40	40	21-23	40
Current Affairs (of last 2 years)	30	30	12-15	15
Analytical & Logical Reasoning	40	40	15-16	40
Total	150	150	68-75	120

As the exam doesn't have sectional cut-offs, the job of the students is easier compared to the other OMETs as they can focus on maximising the overall score instead of perforce trying to improve their sectional performances in tough sections.

Let us have a closer look at each of the sections -

General English

We will look at this section area-wise

Verbal Ability

Question Type	No. of questions
Fill in the blanks (Verbs)	2
Fill in the blanks (Adjectives and comparisons)	1
Fill in the blanks (Prepositions)	1
Fill in the blanks with 2 choices to complete the sentence logically and result in similar meaning	2
Para-formation Questions (PFQs) with 6 sentences	2
PFQs with 4 sentences	1

The FIB questions had a sentence with single blank and six words A, B, C, D, E, F given. Combinations like AD, AB, CE, BF were provided as choices.

The PFQs with 6 sentences and the sentence equivalence questions were difficult. The remaining question types were easy to moderate.

Vocabulary

Question Type	No. of questions
One word replacement for a phrase	1
Foreign word	1
4 words which could all be classified as Compound words	1
Synonyms	3
Confusable words (F.I.B.)	2
Confusable words in pairs (Synonyms)	2
Antonyms	3
Analogy	3
Idioms	1

The questions in this area were of moderate difficulty level.

Critical Reasoning & Reading Comprehension

This RC area consisted of 2 passages each with 6 questions.

The passages were lengthy in nature at around 650-700 words.

Passage 1: "The Euro crisis and different ideas about how the currency should be managed." The question types were unique with questions on “Who could be the authors of the passage and what is the main highlight of the passage”, "Classifying the viewpoints of the countries".

Passage 2: “Fuel from sewage is the future – and it's closer than you think” This passage had direct questions and is a must attempt in this area. As a strategy, the second passage could have been attempted first as all the questions in the second passage were relatively easy and the answers could be picked up directly from the passage.

There were 2 CR based questions, one on conclusion and another on weakening argument.

Around 20-22 can be considered to be a good number of attempts in this section.

Quantitative Ability, Data Interpretation and Data Sufficiency

The Quantitative Ability, Data Interpretation and Data Sufficiency section was a little lengthy and relatively trickier section. This was unlike last year when the section was lot more doable. Questions were both from Arithmetic as well as Pure Maths.

There were two DI sets in the exam which were calculation based and should be on the moderate side for most of the students. Similar to last year’s SNAP, there were no DS questions this year as well.

Topic	Description	No of Questions	Difficulty Level
Percentages	No of passengers in train	1	Moderate
Profit & Loss	Trader marking up by 80%, Trader buying from wholesaler – faulty weight	2	Moderate
Ration & Proportion, Partnership	Raja & Rani invested in the ratio 4:5	1	Easy
Indices &Surds, Logarithms	(x+y)^3..., [a-b {sq rt(6)}]..., Log(tan1+...tan89)	3	Moderate
Progressions	Ball dropped from a height	1
Time & Work	Ram twice as efficient as Shyam	1	Easy
Speed, Distance, & Time	A & B running with different speeds given in terms of their steps, Raj walked from A to B	2	Moderate
Clocks	Clock late on Sunday noon	1	Moderate
Simple Equations	Train left station P	1	Moderate
Numbers	Dogs eating cats, No of zeros in (5!)^5!+..., HCF – LCM of P & Q, Unit’s digit - $ value, unit’s digit of (1!)^ 1!+...,Maximum no of bells in the church..., Fruit merchant had six varieties of fruits	7	Easy-Difficult
Geometry and Mensuration	Circle and parallel lines, Cart – front wheel, rear wheel..., Chords extended in a circle, Equilateral triangle with side 24, Circle inscribed in a square, Square plank of side 4m	6	Easy-Difficult
P&C	No of triangles formed by joining vertices of Octagon, Chess tournament with male and female participants	2	Moderate-Difficult
Probability	Red balls, Ram lies 60% of the times	2	Moderate
Averages	Male-Female average age	1	Easy
Statistics	Summation(Xi -2) = 110	1	Easy
Venn Diagrams	Students play cricket, hockey etc.	1	Moderate
Miscellaneous	A=0, B=1,	1	Moderate
DI Set # 1	Passengers getting in and out at various stations – Pie Chart Based	3	Moderate
DI Set # 2	Pulse – Table based	3	Moderate

A good student could have attempted a net of 21-23 of the 40 questions in the section by spending around 35-40 minutes.

General Awareness

The General Awareness section had 30 questions.

Questions were asked from various categories as below.

• Sports (Davis cup/Test cricket/Oscar Pistorius, English Premier League, Finalists in 2015 FIFA world cup etc.)
  
• Awards (Oscar for best picture, Lata Mangeshkar Life Time Achievement Award, Noble prize for Literature, the person inducted into International Astronautics Federation etc.)
  
• Famous people (Matching people with their professions – Janet Yellen, Urijit Patel, Mario Dragi, UN Secretary General, Vice president of the US etc)
  
• Government Schemes/Operations (Code name of the rescue operations conducted in Sudan, Sethu Bharatam etc.)
  
• Business (Name of Google's Instant Messenger, Company that acquired Linkedin, Indian company in the top 150 R&D spenders, Company that Flipkart acquired etc)
  
• Science & Technology (Name of the mini satellite made my the Pune engineering college students, Humanoid Robot unveiled by China etc.)
  
• International Affairs (Kigali Agreement)
  

As the name of the section suggested, there were no static GK questions. Most of these questions were crackable by those who had a decent touch with the happenings around the world. There were a few sitters too that should have been cracked by any serious MBA aspirant.

Around 12-15 attempts in the section in around 15 min would have been good for this section.

Analytical & Logical Reasoning

The Analytical and Logical Reasoning section did not have a lot of ‘easy’ questions. While there are a few, the number would not be enough to make students to feel happy or confident after the exam. All the questions were stand alone questions, unlike the set based ones that we are used to see in the “CAT”. Added to this, there were quite a few tough ones to crack.

The difficulty level of the section could be pegged at moderate-difficult.

The question distribution in the section was as below

Type	No. of Questions	Difficulty
Input-Output	5	Medium
Non-Verbal Reasoning	5	Difficult
Number/Letter series	4	Difficult
Blood relations	3	Medium
Quant based Reasoning	3	Medium-Difficult
Arrangements	3	Medium
Venn Diagrams	1	Easy
Decision making	2	Medium
Clocks	1	Easy
Miscellaneous	13	Medium-Difficult

Around 15-16 attempts could be considered to be a good attempt in this section.

Cut-Offs:

An overall score of 68-70 or above should be a good score for SIBM, 63-65 for SCMHRD, and 56-60 for SIBM Bangalore and SIIB. Please note the there are no sectional cut-offs for SNAP.