NMAT 2015 – Day 2

For the first time, I saw good management during an MBA entrance test. It may be due to hardly a dozen candidates showing up for the test held at noon. We were even provided with a token while our backpacks were kept inside a room by the security guard.

There was a small anomaly. It is mentioned in the confirmation email that only the photocopy of the primary id is required. But we were asked for the photocopy of the secondary id as well. Thankfully, I was carrying more than what they asked for. A few candidates had to get their photocopy done. Make sure you carry everything mentioned in the confirmation mail.

You can’t enter the examination hall with anything other than your original id proofs. That’s it. They will provide you will a marker pen and even ear buds for noise cancellation.

Overall feel of the paper:

It was a mixed bag. Some questions were very easy, some moderate while some difficult/lengthy/tricky. I tried to attempt all the easy and moderate ones first. Anyways, not much time was left for the difficult ones. I attempted the Free Nmat mock provided by Test Funda a day before the exam. The difficulty level was a bit similar. Their Nmat player look was the same as the real exam’s. So it helped in getting used to the look and design. There is no other mock series which comes as close to the one provided by Test Funda. They have the best analysis and also an “Ask a doubt” facility. I believe Bulls Eye also provides a good analysis of their mocks.

1^st section:

I started with the English Language section. Why? Just 22 minutes and you are done with one section. And the fact that it is pretty hard to concentrate on reading comprehension during the end of the examination.

My strategy: Take it as it comes. If I don’t know the answer I will make a guess and move on. No point in thinking too hard. Clock is ticking fast. 32 in 22. I need time to solve reading comprehension passages. One was long. So I took around 10-11 minutes for them. And the rest went pretty smooth. Parajumbles were very easy, vocabs a bit difficult as usual. For fill in the blanks, go through the options. Find the errors were easy as well. Overall easy-moderate section.

2^nd section:

I chose Logical reasoning. There was a lr set thrown at me in the very beginning. I ended up spending about 4 minutes and marked a question. But it needed multiple cases as it was a seating arrangement problem. I thought I will come back to it in the next round. The next one was a monster staring at me. It was a difficult/cumbersome input-output question set. I left it as I am not comfortable with it. But I marked random answers and flagged all these questions for review. Other questions didn’t look quite as daunting.

3^rd section:

The Date Interpretation sets were lengthy/calculation-intensive except for one at the beginning. So I ended up attempting two out of five sets. Some quantitative questions were easy. I found only a few difficult and time consuming. For this section, going through the options, while solving the questions, helped me in saving precious time.

Things to keep in mind:

1. Please mark all the questions as you go through the paper. If you don’t know the answer, still mark it and flag it for review. If you decide to mark them at the end, it will put unnecessary burden and headache at the end of the section.
2. Make section selection wisely at the beginning.
3. Strategize beforehand. There won’t be any time to think of strategies during the exam. If the question is your type, then fine otherwise mark and flag it.
4. I can’t stress enough on the importance of taking all the relevant documents. Previous year, a candidate showed up with his college registration card with no signature and photograph on it. He was busted sans doubt. He made some lame excuses about his voter id being stolen. He had to vacate the examination premises and was told to go for a retake later.
5. Solve enough mocks to get into the rhythm and develop a strategy.

Please ask any other queries that you have in the comments section.