CMAT 2022, by NTA, was conducted in a glitch-free environment on 9th April across India. Most students who wrote the exam reported satisfactory conduct of the exam.

The exam had 5 sections this year, including the Entrepreneurship & Innovation section, that was made compulsory this year. This section was introduced for the first-time last year as an optional section.

The exam was, overall, a of moderate level of difficulty. Those who prepared well should not have faced many challenges in taking the exam. T.I.M.E. students would have found this to test to be not so tough as most all of the questions, including many from the GK area have been dealt with in our tests/material/classes.

The pattern of the exam was as below:

Sections: 5 (Quantitative Techniques and Data Interpretation, Logical Reasoning, Language Comprehension, General Awareness, Innovation & Entrepreneurship)

Marking scheme: Four marks for every correct answer, One mark penalty for wrong answers

Number of questions: 20 in each of the five sections

Duration: 3 hours

Sectional Time-limit: No

Let us look at the details of each section, based on student feedback.

Quantitative Techniques and Data Interpretation (QTDI):

The QT and DI section of CMAT 2022 had a good mix of questions from various topics. At least half of the questions can be considered as easy while the remaining are easy-moderate with a few difficult questions also being present. The questions given on Data Interpretation were slightly difficult. There are new varieties of questions given in this area – Match the following type, statement-based questions which we usually come across in GA or Reasoning. The questions were spread across a wide range of topics viz., Numbers, Ratio & Proportion, Percentages, Profit & Loss, Compound Interest, Time & Work, Time & Distance, Geometry, Mensuration, Probability, Sets & Venn Diagrams, etc.

A well-prepared student could have attempted 17-20 questions in the section.

Logical Reasoning

This section would have come as a pleasant surprise to students who might have struggled with LR in other exams like CAT/XAT etc. Very few questions in this section were based on Puzzles, majority of the questions were based on other areas. There were a few critical reasoning-based questions also. There was an error in one of the blood relations based questions.

The following is a snapshot of this section:

Overall, it was relatively easy section and 15+ attempts can be regarded as good performance in this section.

Language Comprehension

This section consisted of one Reading Comprehension passage with 4 questions and 16 questions on Verbal Ability. The Reading Comprehension passage was on megacities and urban development, and it was not difficult to understand. The questions however were largely inference based. There was a question pertaining to main idea and supporting idea, one on the meaning of a phrase, and one on meanings of four quotes from the passage. This set can be said to be on the moderate-difficult side, given that this is the third section in the test. Rather demanding, given that this was the third section. However, those who chose to do this set early in the exam may not have fund this to be as challenging. Verbal questions on grammar, Idiom and Phrases, Synonyms, Antonyms, Spellings, and Analogies. Grammar itself can be subdivided into sentence correction, prepositions, direct speech, and verbs. Interestingly, there was a four-sentence quiz on homophones. The 4-sentence paragraph jumble also required some effort. But, on the whole, this was a comfortable section, which required application.

15+ attempts can be considered to be very good in this section.

General Awareness

The questions in this section were from various areas and only those students who have been reading the newspapers regularly would have found this section to be relatively easy, other may have struggled to score a high score in this section.

The following is a snapshot of this section

10+ can be regarded as good number of attempts in this section.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

The questions in this section effectively evaluated interest of a test taker in this domain. The questions comprised Entrepreneurship related concepts/terms, Government policies and General Awareness regarding this sector. Students who have been regularly reading the Business section of newspaper would have found this to be very easy, though even for other students this might not have seemed very difficult as the questions were generic and not detail/specifics oriented.

The following is a snapshot of this section

12+ attempts can be regarded as good performance in this section.

All the best!!