CMAT - 2023

The Common Management Admission Test (CMAT) is a National Level Entrance Examination for admission to Management Programme(s) in the country.This Test facilitates AICTE affiliated participating Institutions to select suitable graduate candidates for admission to the Management Courses in such institutions. The National Testing Agency (NTA) has been entrusted by the Ministry of Education with the task of conducting the Common Management Admission Test (CMAT) from 2019 onwards.

CMAT 2023 was conducted on May 4, 2023 in two slots from 9 am to 12 noon and from 2 30 pm to 5 30 pm.

The exam was conducted in the Computer Based Test (CBT) format. The duration of the exam was three hours (180 minutes).

The test had five sections with 20 questions each. Each question was of MCQ type with four options. Each correct answer carried four marks while there was a penalty of 1 mark for every wrong answer. There was no sectional time limit, and the candidates could move freely across the sections throughout the exam duration. The total score was 400.

The distribution of the questions is as given in the table below:

Section No.	Section Name	No. of questions	Marks per section
1	Quantitative Techniques and Data Interpretation (QTDI)	20	80
2	Logical Reasoning (LR)	20	80
3	Language Comprehension (LC)	20	80
4	General Awareness (GA)	20	80
5	Innovation and Entrepreneurship	20	80
Total		100	400

Candidates were NOT allowed to move out of the exam hall with their hall tickets even if they ended their test ahead of the stipulated time.

Given below is a summary of the CMAT test based on students' observations and reactions post the exam:

Quantitative Techniques and Data Interpretation (QTDI):

The questions were spread across a wide range of topics viz., Numbers, Ratio & Proportion, Time & Work, Time & Distance, Geometry, P&C, Probability, ERPV, PPL, Averages, Functions and graphs etc. The questions were overall of easy to moderate difficulty level. There were only a couple of questions that could be classified as difficult.

There was one question based on Data Interpretation which was easy to solve. The set was a pie chart with basic percentage calculations.

A well-prepared student will be able to attempt 13-14+ questions easily.

Logical Reasoning (LR): All the questions were stand alone. There were questions from areas like number series, verbal analogies, Venndiagrams, Circular arrangements, Calendars, Coding and decoding, Odd man out etc. Overall this was a relatively easy section.

A good student could have answered 13-15 questions.

Language Comprehension (LC): There was only one Reading Comprehension passage in the third section with four questions. A Couple of questions were direct questions based on the passage. A good student could have attempted 3 out of the 4 questions easily.

The Verbal Ability segment had 16 questions. These included questions on Synonyms, Antonyms, Error spotting, Fill in the Blanks, One-word substitution, Para jumbles, Meanings of words and their usage in sentences, Grammatically correct sentences, etc.

The section was easy to moderate, and a serious test taker should have been able to answer 14-15 questions.

General Awareness (GA): This section was tougher as compared to last year's in terms of difficulty level. Most of the questions were based on Static GK. The section had questions on:

• Geography,
• History
• Politics,
• Banking,
• Sports and Games,
• Current Affairs & General Knowledge.

A good student would be able to answer around 5-7 questions in this section.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Most of the questions dealt with common terminology used in the entrepreneurship domain. There were a few questions that needed little bit of conceptual clarity about this field. There were also a couple of current affairs/general awareness based questions.

A good student would be able to answer around 9-11 questions in this section.

Overall, a score of 230+ can be considered to be a good score for 90+ percentile.