CMAT 2013 Exam Pattern

With just over a couple of weeks remaining for the CMAT 2014, let us revisit the most recent pattern of CMAT. (The following is a reproduction of the article we posted last year after the CMAT exam.)

Pattern & Question Types:

No major surprises. There were minor changes compared to last year(2012) but nothing alarming. The paper’s level should ensure no easy 350s this time round. A word of caution, like always, that reading this will not give you any significant advantage. If at all anything, you might just avoid any surprises.We will not get into difficulty level analysis as that is subjective but overall the level was a notch above Feb 2013.

The only change, if minor and a welcome one, is that the Language Comprehension now has lengthier passages (200-300 words) but each of the 5 passages had 3 questions each unlike last time when every question had a unique passage. This should save sometime overall even though the passages might come across as lengthy at first glance. Like last time, most of these 15-16 questions were Critical Reasoning (weakening, inference, and strengthening) and RC related (tone of author, author likely to agree with etc. ).
In General Awareness, the most ‘worrisome’ topic, our slot had about 9 current affairs and the rest as static questions. There were a number of them on Business related issues and those related to Technology & Science.
Our slot did not have any Series Progression question, nor did it have any Permutation & Combination questions. However, the first slot in the day did have questions on these along with Clocks etc. Like in any Quantitative exam, you have to be prepared for all topics.
The Reasoning section, however, was lengthier. Students of the first slot also felt that and you might want to set aside a longer time frame here if you have been practicing very simple reasoning sets.
Time that we spent by Section:
Quantitative: 55 minutes
Reasoning: 65-70 minutes
Language Comprehension: 45 minutes
General Awareness: 10-15 minutes