NMAT 2013 Analysis

7/27/2019 NMAT 2013 Analysis..

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NMAT 2013 vs CAT 2012 A Qualitative Comparison

Having appeared for NMAT and CAT in the space of 3 days, I felt that a good way to analyse both exams

would be compare their entire experience at one place so as to give students a suitable frame of

reference. Here, I have looked at the two exams, their structure and difficulty level, their exam players,

the experience etc while appearing for the test and even hours after the test.

I appeared for NMAT on 11th October in the 9:00 a.m. slot and CAT on 13th October in the 10:00 a.m.

slot. I cannot disclose actual questions or chapters due to the respective non-disclosure agreements.

However, I will try and give you a feel of both exams.

However, please note that some of my views here under Recommendations are purely personal and

you may have to apply them in your exam keeping your preparation level in mind.

Area CAT NMAT Recommendations

Check-in

Process

1) Admit Card Mail+ 1 Valid ID card

needed

2) Biometricsincludes

photograph and

fingerprint

3) Bags andvaluables not

allowed in the

test lab. Only awallet allowed.

4) Lenient in termsof frisking

1) ConfirmationMail + 2 Valid ID

cards needed

2) Biometricsincludes

photograph and

signature on a

digital pad

3) Bags andvaluables not

allowed in thetest lab.

4) Very strict interms of frisking.

1) Where I suggest carrying 2 ID cardsfor CAT, I would recommend carrying

3 for NMAT. It helps to have an extra

ID

2) Try to carry an ID that shows yourface AND sign clearly. The CAT

authorities will accept an ID only if it

shows your face clearly. Also, the

NMAT authorities check your sign on

biometrics vs ID card. They made me

sign on the digital pad thrice becausethey could not match my signature

with the one on my PAN card.

3) Carry only as much stuff as you reallyneed

NDA

1) 5 minutesafter the tutorial

and just before

the test

1) 2 minutesbefore the

tutorial and test

1) Both the non-disclosure agreementsmore or less say the same thing.

Make it a point to read them quickly

and accept them at the earliest

Tutorial 1) 15 minutes 1) 13 minutes

1) Both the tutorials give you anoverview of the screens and features

that you will encounter during the

exam. An added advantage of the

NMAT tutorial is that at the end of

the tutorial, you can try the

functionalities of the review screen

using the slides of the tutorial. Since

time saved in the tutorial does not

get added to the exam, utilize this

time to go through the tutorials well


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Section

Order and

Selection

1) 2 sections withno choice in

selection.

1) 3 sections with achoice in

selecting section

order

2) There is aseparate screen

that allows you

to pre-determine

the order in

which you will

attempt all 3

sections.

3) The screen givesyou 6

combinations of

section orders

and you have

click on the onethat suits you the

best.

4) If you do notselect the section

order within 3

minutes, the

system

automatically

starts the test

using the first

section ordergiven.

1) NMAT has been more student-friendly in the sense that it hasallowed the student to decide first-

hand what order he/she wants to

attempt the sections in.

2) There is a section order screen whichhas a time limit of 3 minutes. This

screen gives you 6 combinations: VA-

QA-LR, QA-LR-VA, VA-LR-QA etc. You

can select any combination that you

want. The sections will be displayed

as per your selection

3)

If you do not select within 3 minutes,the system selects the default option

i.e. VA-QA-LR

4) Also, once you select the section andstart the test, you cannot change the

order midway. So, if you select VQ-

QA-LR and during VA, you feel you

want to attempt LR second, it will not

be possible.

Sections

1) Section 1 QA +DI 30

questions 70

minutes

2) Section 2 VA +LR 30

questions 70

minutes

1) QA 48questions 60

minutes

2) VA 32questions 22

minutes

3) LR 40 questions 38 minutes

1) Unlike CAT, since you know thestructure in terms of subject area

beforehand because of the breakup

given by the NMAT authorities, you

can plan and prepare accordingly. In

CAT, you wont know how much time

to spend on DI and how much on QA

2) However, this year, the DI and LRbreakup and questions types in

section I and II have been similar to

last year, so you can plan some part

of your attempts beforehand.

Negative

Marking

1) Yes, butundisclosed

1) No1) CAT clearly wants a focus on accuracy

and attempts based on whether you

are confident of what you know.

2) NMAT obviously wants you toattempt all questions (like MHCET)

because of the no-negative marking


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policy.

3) For questions where you are not surein NMAT, flag the question and in

the last 2-3 minutes, randomly mark

those questions. Dont waste time on

those questions initially.

Termination

of Section

1) Not allowedbefore the

scheduled time

lapses

1) Lapse ofschedule time

2) Completion ofquestions

1) Unlike CAT, if you finish your sectionslightly earlier than allowed in NMAT,

you CAN end that section and move

to the next section.

2) However, your time saved in thissection does not get added to the

subsequent section.

3) So, in case you save time on, say,Verbal Ability, it is a better idea to

review your questions. You will

anyways lose the spare time by

ending.

Breaks

1) No breaksallowed 30

minutes prior to

and during the

exam

1) Breaks allowedbut they are

timed. Any time

that you use in

the break gets

deducted from

that section

1) For CAT, it makes sense to take yourwater and toilet breaks well in

advance.

2) For NMAT, though the Pearsonauthorities were slightly more lenient

and allowed people to take water and

toilet breaks even 10-15 minutes

before the exam, it may not be wise

to take a chance.

3) In NMAT, if you manage to endsection 1 or section 2 with more than5 minutes to spare (unlikely), you

could use it to take a break.

4) In NMAT, you are allowed breaks, butyou do lose time. Keep that in mind.

GroupQuestions

1) Number ofquestions in the

set declared

beforehand

2) All questionsseen one below

the other on the

right hand side

of the screen

1) Number ofquestions in the

set NOT declared

beforehand

2) Each questionseen on a fresh

page

1) As is evident, CAT scores more thanNMAT in this regard. In NMAT, when

you start a group question, you dont

know how many questions that set

has. This makes attempt planning

virtually impossible.

2) For each question, you need to usethe Next and Previous buttons.

This harms you if the latter questions

of a set are easier or multiple

questions are related to each other

e.g. if calculating data for question 1

can help solve question 4 as well.

3) In CAT, since you can see allquestions together, you can decide


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whether you want to attempt all the

questions or some or skip the set

altogether.

4) Also, one disadvantage of the NMATplayer is that if the data in the

question extends either horizontally

or vertically, you cannot move to the

next question till you scroll the bar in

the required direction. One set in my

paper had a data bar that was

redundant to the questions in the set,

but I had to scroll the bar each time

to see that bar and then move to

the next question. It may not waste

too much time, but is surely an

irritant.

Highlighting

in RCs1) Allowed in CAT 1) Not allowed in

NMAT

1) Since highlighting is not allowed inthe NMAT RCs, finding relevant datamay become slightly more difficult.

You may need to practice NMAT RCs

accordingly.

Section End

Warnings

1) 5 minutesbefore the end

of each section

and 1 minute

before the end

of each section

1) 5 minutes beforethe end of each

section

1) Since NMAT gives only one warningi.e. 5 minutes before the section is

scheduled to end, you will have to

keep a tab of when approximately 2

minutes are left. This will help in

marking the questions you havent

attempted

Difficulty

Level

1) Challengingcompared to

last year

1) Same as last year1) I found CAT 2012 more challengingcompared to last year with a better

quality of questions and a couple of

innovative sets in LR.

2) I felt NMAT 2013 was similar to myNMAT 2012 exam in nearly all

respects.

Attempts

1) 25 in section Iwith

approximately

21-22 correct (I

assume)

2) 30 in section IIwith

approximately

26 correct

(Again.

Assumption)

3) 55 in all

1) 42 out of 48 inQA

2) 36 out of 40 in LR3) 32 out of 32 in

VA

4) 116 out of 120 inall

1) For CAT, I would suggest anywherebetween 19-21 attempts with 17+correct in section I and 25 -26

attempts in section II with 22+ correct

2) For NMAT, try to attempt all 120questions


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Documents

NMAT 2013 Analysis