IIM Bangalore set to increase fees

Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore has decided to increase the fee for its flagship PGP program to Rs. 2.5 lakhs. The change would be effective for all 2007 enrollments.

Explaining the hike from the current Rs. 1.75 lakhs, IIMB director Prakash Apte said the kind of salaries offered to students placed via campus selection justify the increase. He also pointed out that while the cost of the program is Rs. 4 lakhs, students are still charged a subsidized amount.

Along with the fee hike, IIM-B is also increasing the student intake to 270, from the current batch size of 240.

Source: Economic Times

Government wants more control over the IIMs

The HRD Ministry led by Arjun Singh is working on a law to curb the financial independence of the six IIMs. Through the Institutes of Management Act the ministry has proposed to limit the funds received by B-schools to only the annual grants from the government.

If this law is passed, the IIMs will also have to submit their financial records for review to the Parliament, making them answerable to the Government. The IITs have been governed by a similar law, Institutes of Technology Act, since 1961.

Source: Economic Times

IIM-A to revise PGP program

India’s top B-school has announced plan to revise its flagship program for the first time in a decade. A committee of professors has been formed to revise the curriculum and bring it more in line with the changing market scenario.

The course revision will be done keeping in mind the expectations of students and the institutes goals. Other issues such as teaching methodology, program content, exchange programs, faculty exchange and appointment, course curriculum, choosing electives will also be taken into consideration.

Source: The Economic Times

Reliance World, BIMTECH to offer retail management

The Birla Institute of Management Technology, in collaboration with Philadelphia University has launched an 11-month Executive Program for Retailing Management. The course content has been jointly developed by the two institutes, and covers topics such as Retail Store Management, Visual Merchandising, Merchandising Management, Supply Chain Management, Customer Relations Management, and Theft Prevention.

The 300-hour course will be delivered through the Reliance World videoconferencing based virtual class room platform. Faculty from the university will also visit India for contact sessions with the students.

Source: Moneycontrol.com

ISB and Wharton renew association

Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania have extended their association for another 5 years. Faculty from Wharton will continue to teach and contribute to the curriculum at ISB. Wharton faculty will also assist ISB in the development of course reading and case materials to be used in the post graduate curriculum; and help initiate a faculty development program for ISB faculty.Similarly, ISB will support Wharton on Asian business issues, as well as help with the development of course material relevant to the region. The two institutes will also collaborate on research.

Along with renewing the existing association, ISB has also joined Wharton as one of the founding sponsors and an academic sponsor of Wharton’s India Knowledge@Wharton.

Source: Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

IIM-L launches IPMX program at Noida

Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow has announced plans to offer a full-time, one-year, residential executive MBA program at its upcoming Noida campus. The focus of this program will be to train aspirants with prior work experience for leadership roles.

The International Program in Management for Executives program will focus on developing the students’ understanding of the Indian and international business environment. IPMX will facilitate their understanding of business, at both functional and strategic levels.

Admission to the program will be through GMAT scores. IIM-L will consider scores obtained from 1st January 2004 to 20th November 2007.

Application dates

Source: MBAUniverse.com

IIM Shillong to begin operations in 2008

The 7th Indian Institute of Management, IIM Shillong will begin operations from academic year 2008 – 2009. The institute will be called the Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management (RGIIM), and will be situated on a 120 acre campus. In its first year, the institute will admit 60 students. This will be increased to 120 students in its third year and 180 students in the sixth year.

Initially the institute will offer a two-year full-time program in management (PGPM). In future the institute also plans to offer short-term programs of local relevance on subjects such as tourism, horticulture and hydel power.

However, the institutes name was missing from the CAT Bulletin issued by the IIMs on July 21. The CAT Group will issue a notification about the Shillong institute shortly.

Source: Business Standard

New National Law School at Bhubaneshwar

Another addition to the exponentially growing breed of national law schools is NLS Bhubaneshwar. Good news is it will commence its academic operations from 2007 itself. There are 160(120 for 5 year Integrated LLB) seats up for grabs. The entrance exam will be held on August 26, 2007. Last date for submission of application is Aug 16. For further details visit KIIT.ac.in. Selling of forms commences from Aug 1.

Selection criteria of IIM-B

Here is the official communication releasesd by IIM-B:

PGP Admission Process for IIMB Batch of 20071

This document details the process that was adopted for selecting candidates for admission to the Post Graduate Program in Management (PGP) at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) for the batch of 2007. The process that would be used for admissions in 2008 by IIMB will be made available on the IIMB website before CAT 2007. It is expected that the process followed will be roughly similar.

IIMB has internally developed an admission process that seeks to identify the most promising candidates for its prestigious PGP program. This process has been progressively refined over the years based on its cumulative data on CAT applicants and on the academic performance of the candidates that were admitted at IIMB. The process arrived at is based on the relationship of academic performance in IIMB to past academic performance, CAT score, performance in group discussion, interview and prior work experience. The selection criteria and weights given to various parameters are based on data from previous cycles as well as on inputs from the IIMB faculty body and other relevant stakeholders and are usually revised every year. The admission committee fixes these criteria and weights at the beginning of each admission cycle before looking at information pertaining to candidates applying in that cycle so as to avoid any bias.

IIMB has found over the years that students who perform well in the academic program are typically those who have a consistently good academic record during their school, high school and graduation level, besides exhibiting sufficiently high aptitude as measured by the CAT. Therefore IIMB uses multiple parameters, namely academic performance in school, high school and graduation programs as well as candidates’ scores in Common Admission Test (CAT) to judge the suitability of candidates for the PGP program. Relevant work experience, if any, is also given weight in the selection. Evaluation by multiple criteria is also consistent with empirical research on recruitment and selection that shows greater efficacy of recruitment processes that use multiple criteria. The CAT score, over and above being a selection criterion, is also used to establish the minimum level of proficiency that is expected from the candidate in respective faculties as indicated by section wise minimum scores in the CAT. Multiple criteria are used to arrive at a composite score for every candidate, which is used to select candidates for the subsequent stage. The remaining part of the document explains this process in detail.

IIMB adopted a two-phase selection process and accordingly these selection criteria were applied in two phases. The first phase process was applied to all eligible candidates who appeared for the Common Admission Test (CAT) to determine those candidates who would
be called for group discussion and personal interview (GDPI). During the GDPI process, two faculty members evaluated each qualifying candidate on his/her performance in the group discussion, his/her summary of the group discussion and his/her performance during the personal interview. In addition, for candidates having work experience, each interviewing faculty evaluated the quality and relevance of the candidate’s work experience. These scores,
in combination with the pre-GDPI selection parameters were used cumulatively in the second and final phase of selection to identify the candidates who merit selection from among those candidates who appear for the GDPI.

The selection process, parameters and weights used are uniform for all categories of applicants. Sufficient candidates were short-listed at each stage in each category to meet the reservation requirement for each group, as applicable at that time.

Phase 1

1. The first short list of candidates was based on candidates securing minimum section-wise and aggregates percentile scores in the CAT as shown in Table 1. All the subsequent processing, standardization and selection was limited to candidates belonging to this first
   short list. This means that the CAT score alone was used as the basis for arriving at the first short list. However, these section-wise and aggregate level cut-offs were not decided in advance – they were based on the overall performance of all candidates in that year’s CAT and was adjusted to ensure that a sufficiently large pool of applicants were available in each category for subsequent processing by applying other selection criteria on these candidates.


2. For all candidates in the first shortlist as stated in Table 1, the candidates’ percentage scores in the 10th and 12th board exams are standardized by dividing each score by the 90th percentile score obtained in that board. The database of 10th and 12th scores of all CAT applicants of the past two years was used for identifying the 90th percentile score for each 10th and 12th board for this purpose.


3. For all candidates in the first shortlist as stated in (1), final scores obtained by the candidate were used for the bachelor’s degree and professional degrees (if any). Incomplete or intermediate scores were considered only if the candidate’s final score was
   pending. Thus, for final year bachelor’s degree candidates, their incomplete graduation score would be taken in lieu of final graduation score. Graduation scores were standardized within their respective categories. This provided the standardized score for the bachelor’s degree for all candidates in the first shortlist.
4. For all candidates in the first shortlist as stated in (1), candidates with Chartered Accountancy Professional course were eligible for weight under professional course. No
   other professional course was eligible for weight under professional course. The professional course score was also standardized for all candidates in the first shortlist.


5. For all candidates in the first shortlist as stated in (1), the score/weight for work
   experience was given by: where x is the months of work experience up to December 2006, as captured in CAT application Form (and substantiated in the application to IIMB). This implies that the score peaks at 36 months and falls to zero at 144 months experience - thus providing higher scores to candidates with work experience of moderate duration.


6. For all candidates in the first shortlist as stated in (1), the maximum of the work experience score and the professional course score was considered for selection under a common weight of 10 for work experience or professional course – since both provide professional work experience relevant to a management program.


7. For all candidates in the first shortlist as stated in Table 1, other than work experience or professional course, the weights for the remaining four components (each of them being standardized) were fixed as: CAT = 20, 10th board=15, 12th board=10, Bachelors= 15.


8. For all candidates in the first shortlist as stated in Table 1, the weighted total of the five components namely (a) work experience or professional course, (b) CAT, (c) 10th board, (d) 12th board, (e) bachelor’s as stated above was used to prepare a pre-GDPI rank list for calling candidates for the GDPI. Sufficient candidates were invited for GDPI to enable selection based on the additional GDPI evaluation components (a) GD, (b) GD summary, (c) Personal interview, (d) review of work experience (if any).


9. For all candidates in the first shortlist as stated in (1), the top 10 candidates in each sectional and total score in CAT, adjusted SSC, HSC, Bachelors and professional (CA) (from the first shortlist, as created in Table 1) automatically qualified for GDPI. These candidates were given a chance to appear for GDPI due to their exceptional performance on one parameter. However, at the end of Phase 2, all such candidates had to merit selection at an identical level of composite aggregate score like any other candidate.


10. For all candidates in the first shortlist as stated in (1), standardization in any component stated above was carried out as per the following formula. As mentioned in Table 1, all standardization was done with reference to the qualifying first shortlist or its subdivisions; Standardized score (truncated between 0 and weight (wt)) was computed from the raw score (val) as:

Phase 2

11) For each of the three elements of evaluation during the GDPI process – Group Discussion, Group Discussion Summary, Personal Interview - the average of the scores given by the two interviewing faculty was considered. The overall performance of each candidate in the Group Discussion was scored by each faculty individually. Similarly the quality of the Group Discussion Summary was scored by each faculty individually. Each faculty used the Personal Interview to comprehensively evaluate the candidate’s motivation and ability to fit in and benefit from the PGP program. All candidates were required to provide three confidential reference letters from their employers or faculty and this was also used in the personal interview evaluation.

12) The work experience score was multiplied by the quality of experience score, as evaluated by the interviewing panel as an assessment of the relevance of the work experience to the program. The quality of work experience score was evaluated on a 5 point scale (0 – 0.5 – 1 – 1.5 – 2) by each member of the panel during the interviews. The average quality of work experience score was multiplied by the pre-GDPI work experience score and accordingly the work/professional experience component score used in Phase 1 was revised in Phase 2. The scores in all past academics were also updated, if required, on the basis of actual mark sheet submitted based on the principle of considering all subjects (except where mentioned explicitly in the mark sheet).

13) The Group Discussion score (weight=7.5), Group Discussion Summary score (weight=7.5), the Personal Interview score (weight=20), after standardization within interview panels, were added to the pre-GDPI total, to arrive at the final aggregate score.

14) The final offers of admission to candidates were made on the basis of ranks in each category on the final aggregate score as mentioned in (13).

Since IIMB follows a comprehensive multi-criteria process at the pre-GDPI stage, it is able to identify many candidates for the GDPI who have an excellent academic record and work experience but who, while doing well enough in the CAT to be in the first shortlist, may have narrowly missed the high score that would have been required if CAT alone was the basis for the GDPI short list. Such candidates effectively replace candidates who have only a high CAT score but score poorly in terms of their past academic record and work experience. IIMB emphasizes consistent and high performance in past academics.

Admission into the Post Graduate Program through GMAT

A separate process was used for processing applications from candidates who applied through the GMAT route. To be eligible to apply through the GMAT route, a candidate must have resided abroad for at least 18 months in the preceding three years and should not have been in a position to appear for CAT2006.

The first short list among such applicants was created by applying the same percentile cut-offs, as used for the general category taking the CAT.

For each applicant in this shortlist, each member of the evaluating committee (6 faculty members were involved in 2007) went through the applications in detail and in particular, evaluated the academic background and the international experience of the candidates. The evaluating faculty also assessed whether the candidate was likely to gain admission through CAT. Finally each member recommended strongly or weakly in favor of the candidate or recommended rejection.

The final decision for each candidate was taken on the basis of detailed discussion on these recommendations and assessments of strengths and weaknesses of each candidate. There was no quota or fixed number of seats for such candidates. There were also no waitlists for the same reason. In most years, the number of such candidates joining the program has not been higher than three or four. ***

1. This information, released for the first time this year, is pertinent to the admissions cycle (2007) alone and therefore, no inference can be made from this document about the admissions process used at IIMB in the past nor does it imply that the same or similar process will be adopted for future admission cycles at IIMB. IIMB reserves the right to change, modify or adopt any new admissions process that it deems necessary and which best suits its purpose for a given admissions cycle.)

2. This is as per reservation act applicable at the time of creating the shortlist for GDPI. At the time of making admission offers, as per the Honorable Supreme Court judgment, OBC reservation was withheld and consequently all OBC candidates called for GDPI were considered in the General category

Communication Workshops

As a part of our constant endeavour to help you realize your true potential, we are organizing communication workshops for you at the FC Road centre as per the following schedule:

Workshop part 1: Thursday, 2nd August, 11 a.m.- 1 p.m.
Workshop part 2: Friday, 3rd August, 11 a.m.- 1 p.m.

As you are well aware, good communication skills are extremely important for cracking the GD/PI round. It is also a key competence required for any career nowadays. Hope all of you will derive maximum benifit from these workshops.

Matchstick Square Puzzle

Problem:

Take eight matches and form the 2x2 square shown in the illustration.

The object is to divide this square with the four additional matches into two parts of the same
area and shape.

You have to use matches with their full lengths without cutting, breaking or overlapping them.

Solution:

mce puzzle solution

Decipher this:

mce
mce
mce

Solution:

"Three Blind Mice"

Explanation:

mce is mice without "i" (eye), that is blind mice!

Mock CAT 3 Analysis

Overview:


In this paper, Verbal Ability was on the easier side, whereas Quantitative Ability section was tough, and Logical Reasoning based Data Interpretation sections was moderate.
The information the cover page made available to you was:

• There were 75 questions in all, distributed over three sections.



• Each section had 25 questions and carried 4 marks for each question.



• Wrong answers carried negative marks equal to one-fourth of the marks allotted to the question.



• Total time available to answer all the sections was two and a half hours.

Executive Summary:
A synopsis on how this paper could have been attempted is:

*Note: The number of attempts and the score has been worked out on the basis of the experts’ insight on how the students would have taken the test and what score IIMs have been considering for dispatching the call letters. The correct cut-offs can be confirmed statistically only after seeing the actual performance of all of you.

SECTION I: VERBAL ABILITY

In this paper, Verbal Ability was of easy-moderate level of difficulty. This section must have been a morale booster for you after Mock –1 and Mock-2. Let us do a specific analysis of this section.

A glance at the section would have revealed to you the order of attempts.

You could have attempted the section in the following order
1. Fact Inference Judgement - 7-8 mins
2. Para-completion – 15 mins max
3. RC Passages- Rest of the time!

1. Fact Inference Judgement: Qs 16-20

A good starter. You could have attempted all 5 questions. Q 17 was probably a bit tricky. The others were easy. In 7-8 minutes a score of 12-16 was a sure possibility.

2. Paracompletion:Qs 1-5

These were a mix of levels of difficulty. You could have attempted all –probably getting 2-3qs correct and in the process notching up a net score of 8-12.

3. Reading Comprehension:

You would have found out that passage 3 was an easy passage. The other two were of moderate difficulty. Assuming that you attempted one passage reasonably accurately , a score of 8-12 was a possibility here.

Taking account of test conditions a score of 24-28 looks very much possible. If your English and reading are up to the mark then you could score even above 30 in this section.

An attempt of 14-15 could have yielded a score in the range of 24-28.

PS: The above attempts and possible score have been derived based on sample simulation of the paper. They are subject to variance under actual test conditions.

SECTION II: QUANTITATIVE ABILITY

The quantitative ability section of this Mock CAT was tough in its difficulty index. Few questions demanded clarity in concepts as maximum portion of the paper constituted number theory, Algebra and geometry and there were only few problems, which could be done by smart work.

In Q. 28 realize that straight lines at a distance of 1 unit from the origin with slopes 1 form nothing but a square of side length 2. Hence, the area is 4 sq. units.

Q. 29 was the one that could have been solved by smart work. Observe that T100 = 98/100 * 101/103. Since, this is the last term and contains 103 in the denominator, then so should S and hence the only feasible answer is option 1.

In Q.32 It effectively means the remainder when S is divided by 1000. Lets remove a factor of 50.So now we have 883*881*871*873*35*439 when divided by 20=>3*1*11*13*(-5)*(-1) => 5 when divided by 20.Since we had removed a factor of 50 so we multiply it back to get the final result i.e. 5*50 = 250

In Q. 38 was a conceptual problem, which required you to know total product of the factors of N and total product of the factors of N, which are not multiples of 5.So, total product of the factors of N, which are multiples of 5 could be calculated.

Q. 39 required you to arrange the given equation to yield (m-1)(n-1) = 37.Now it could be seen that for (m, n) = (38,2) and (2,38), option 1 & 3 satisfy. Also, we could have m = 0 or n = 0 so that we get –1 & 2 also as the values for the expression.

Q. 41 could have been solved by elimination of options. For x = -0.5, y = 1-3 = -2
Option 2, 3 & 4 are eliminated. For x = -1.5, y = 3-6 = -3, which also satisfies option 1 and hence the answer.

In Q. 42 one could have put the value of one variable from the linear equation into the quadratic and evaluated the discriminant of the resulting quadratic and made it greater than equal to 0 to obtain the desired range. A must attempt for sure.

Q. 45 also required you to plug in values to establish relations within functional values at different points. Putting x = 0 & x = 1, we get f(3) – f(1) = 2.Putting x = 2 & x = -1 and solving we get f(0) + f(1) – f(3) – f(4) = -6=> f(0) – f(4) = -4 => f(4) = 5.

In Q. 48 is another good question. In case the similarity condition did not strike you, sine rule could have made life easy. Let CM = b & CN = a, BM = 5x, DN = 5y, z = 3a = 2b

Q. 49 and 50 were not that tough a nut to crack if you have a concrete knowledge base. If N = abc, K = 20+81(a+c)/(a+b+c). To minimise K we minimise a+c & maximise b. Maximum value of b = 9 & minimum possible value of a+c = 3+0 = 3.Hence, minimum K = 20+81/4 = 40.25.
Also, a+b+c = 17 such that 101a+20b+101c = 96*17+4 = 1636.The only possible value in the given range is for N = 719.719 when divided by 17 gives a remainder of 5.
Hence, a considerable number of questions could have been attempted. With 8 attempts and a decent accuracy of 75%, a score of 22-24 was definitely attainable.

SECTION III: LOGICAL REASONING AND DATA INTERPRETATION

LR/DI section in this paper was of moderate difficulty level. Proper selection of easy sets would have really boosted your score. Lets see them one by one.

Set 1(Q.51 to 55)

Basically one needs to establish a tabular relation among the batches, days, subjects and the name of faculties on the basis of the conditions given and taking care that none of them gets violated. Once the table is ready, the questions can be tackled one by one on the basis of the table. But attempting this set could have proved wrong as it may have taken longer time to comprehend and formulate the right table.

Set 2(Q.56 to 60)

Relation could be established among the number of students who wrote exactly one, exactly two and exactly three names and then their possible values could be observed.56 and 57 could have been answered on this. For the rest of the problems the additional information was to be used which could have given you 2 cases in which the name of candidates along with the number of times their names were written in the first choice and also in the remaining two choices. It would be smart to attempt 2 sitters from this set and proceed to the next set.

Set 3(Q.61 to 65)

This set was a cakewalk. One could have formed a tabular relation of the possibilities. From statement 1 Shane received 0 cookies. From statement 3, Shane and Chris, and Matthew and Graham can have [(0,1)(2,3)] or [(0,2)(1,3)] or [(0,3)(1,4)] cookies respectively. Using statements 2 and 4 we can conclude that only possible case is [(0,3)(1,4)]. So Greame must have got 2 cookies. Using statement 1 and statement 7 we can say that Graham and Greame like wrestling shows, as Shane likes a sports show and there are only two sports shows. From statement 5, Matthew likes Smack down and Shane likes Sports Center. So Chris likes Hitz.From statement 6 Graham likes Krackjack. From statement 8 Greame likes Hide n Seek or Good Day. Shane likes Good Day or Bon-Bon. Matthew likes Hide n Seek or Bon-Bon or Good Day. It would have been criminal not to have attempted this set.

Set 4(Q.66 to 70)

Another easy set in the offering. From the table since A, C, E, F, G, H, L all have more than 1 entries as same which means they can never be the one who predicted all correct. Now, we needed to check only for the remaining five friends. I happens to be the one who counted all-correct as we could have all 12 combinations mentioned as in the question. All the questions could be attempted one by one after finding out the right combination of counts for all the baskets. This set was also one among those that must have been attempted.

Set 5(Q.71 to 75)

This is the easiest of all sets. It should not be a surprise if one is told that it was very much a 6-7 minute set. Approach could have been slightly different here. Assume A = 4 be the first mine. Then rest of the mines are given by: B = 14, G = 7, D = 12, I = 19, E = 20, J = 26, C = 29, F =31, H = 36. As per question 71 if A = 4 is not a mine then none of the above hold for a mine. Hence the right answer is 12.As per the question 72 block 14 & 16 are mines. It is obvious that a shift of 2 blocks will result in all the mines so that the first mine is A = 6. Since, 27 is not in the above list 29 cannot be the block which contains mine. For 73, 1-6-> 6-11-> 11-17-> 17-23-> 23-28-> 28-34-> 34-40-> 40-42.In 74,total number of mine counts if removed from total number of blocks would yield maximum number of throws i.e. 42-10=32.For,75 E can be maximum when A = 6 => E = 22.Also J can be minimum when A = 1 => J = 23. Hence, the difference can be 1.
This set was a must attempt.

This translates to an attempt of about 10-12 questions. With a realistic accuracy of 70%, a score of 26-28 could have been achieved.


All the best!!

Mock CAT 2 Analysis

Overview:

The pattern has been adapted from CAT 2005, except that it offered you half-an-hour extra.
In this paper, Quantitative Ability, Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning based Data Interpretation sections were all of marginally above average difficulty level, having few questions in each section that could be easily managed. Overall, a paper not as easy as the 1st mock we gave but still the one that gives you a good feeling thanks to a few easy sets of questions.

The information the cover page made available to you was:
There were 90 questions in all, distributed over three sections.
Each section was divided into two sub-sections. Sub-section A carried 1 mark for each question whereas Sub-section B carried 2 marks for each question.
Wrong answers carried negative marks equal to one-third of the marks allotted to the question.
Total time available to answer all the sections was two and a half hours.

Executive Summary:

A synopsis on how this paper could have been attempted is:

*Note: The number of attempts and the score has been worked out on the basis of the experts’ insight on how the students would have taken the test and what score IIMs have been considering for dispatching the call letters. The correct cut-offs can be confirmed statistically only after seeing the actual performance of all of you.

SECTION I: QUANTITATIVE ABILITY

Sub-section I-A:

If you are one of those who start answering 1-markers first, this sample gave you all the reasons to pay regards to your strategy right then. You could have started with 1, 2, 3, … and went on answering almost all of them one by one with very few untimely speed-breakers. For instance,

In Q. 1, the general term of the series is nlog3/2log3 = n/2.Hence, our series is nothing but ½+1+3/2+… +n/2 = n (n+1)/4

In Q. 2, the series is equivalent to 9(4k+1) * 8(4k+2) * 7(4k+3) * 6(4m) * 4(4m+2) * 3(4m+3) * 2(4n). Hence, the last digit is decided by 9*4*3*6*6*7*6 => 6 which is the required units digit.
In Q. 3, BD=BF*BA/AF and all these lengths are determinable using Pythagoreans theorem.

In Q. 5, Put x = 0 and eliminate options 3, 4 & 5 straightaway. Put x = -1.3 and eliminate option 2 as well.

In Q. 6, Its worth noting that 3^12k as well as 7^12k gives remainder 1 when divided by 13.Hence, the required remainder = 3+1 = 4

Q. 7 was on the most traditional AM-GM funda. Take a/2 = b/3 = c = k. Hence, k = 2/3 (as per the given condition). So, minimum value = 2k+3k+k = 6*2/3 = 4
Whenever you see anything like

Q. 8, go straightaway to the answer options. If the total number of dogs is N out of which x are Pomeranian, then the ratio = x/(N-x). Since, numerator & denominator in all the answer options are relatively prime the idea should be to check the sum of them and see which of them gives a composite number.

Sub-section I-B:

Coming over to the 2-markers, you would have realised that the life is not so beautiful. There weren’t many questions done as easily as in the previous sub-section. Yet,

Q. 11 again dealt with the same concept as problem 7. As the sum of 13 – x & x + 7 is 20, here take (13 – x)/7 = (x + 7)/3 = k => k = 2.Hence, the greatest value of the expression = 147 * 63 = 210 * 33 * 77 and hence the answer.

Q. 12 could have been a blunder had you not noticed the term successively divided. Condition 1 yields 5(4(3m+2)+1) + 3 = 60m+48 = 72a+12(from second condition). So m gives remainder 12a+24 when divided by 60. So, a starts from 3 corresponding to which n = 228. Hence, the general solution for n = 228+360z. There are 8 such Ns in the given range.

In Q. 14, Apply AM >= GM for positive reals and obtain (a+b+c)(b+c+d)(c+d+a)(a+d+b) >= 34 (abcd). Hence, S1*S2*S3*S4 >= 81*5 = 405.

Q. 18 required a simple manipulation. Taking care of the fact that the last digit of the three numbers should sum upto 9, from the last digits possibilities we get the last digit of the product as all the digits accept 3 & 8. Hence, only 2 possibilities.

Q. 21 looks intimidating on a cursory look but is not the case. The given function effectively translates to (x – f)1/2 ,where f is the fractional part of x.Hence, the required value = .8 * .8 = .64

In Q22, assume the value of a=12 km/hr=200m/min .So, 2.5a = 500m/min and 4a = 800m/min. Also assume, he drives at 200m/min for 30 mins, 500m/min for 20 mins and 800m/min for 25 mins. Compare both the cases and get the value of exact time he takes in driving at 800m/min.

Q. 24 could have puzzled many of you but you will know how easily you could have done it. (0,2) translates to (-1,1) and (3,0) to (2,-1) in the new reference frame. All the answer options accept 3 can be eliminated on this. Only option 3 satisfies the above translation.
It would be criminal not to have attempted

Q. 30,one of the easiest problems in the 2 marks basket. It can deduced that –4<= x <= 8 and –9<= y <=11. Hence, -26<= (x-2y) <= 26 It will always happen that some questions made you feel like attempting them, but you could just not crack them. Or possibly, you didn’t know how you could have proceeded from a particular junction. The reasons range from your unfamiliarity with the concepts to the bitter phase of your fortunes. A major chunk of MBA aspirants fall into this category as far as the QA section goes. So, the best possible service you can do to yourself in such a scenario is to avoid wasting precious time juggling with the concepts and move on to those you could do with certainty.

Assuming an accuracy of 75%, a score of 13+ is possible.

SECTION II: LOGICAL REASONING AND DATA INTERPRETATION

This was a section where within 2-3 minutes of observation of any set, you were able to realise if the questions were attemptable or not.

Sub section II-A:

Set 1(Q.31 to 35)

Distance data was represented by bar graphs and fare and stops data by tables. An average set difficulty wise. Questions 31,32 and 35 were the ones to be attempted quickly as they did not require much effort once you get hold of the logic to crack this set mainly the one that says “anyone taking ticket of any denomination makes full utilization of the ticket and boards down only when the ticket is just about to be invalid or the bus reaches its terminus.” After doing these 3 one could have felt comfortable with the set and cracked the next 2 also.

Set 2(Q.36 to 40)

One could have established the relation between the cards with A & B at the beginning of round 1 and then establish a tabular possibilities for both. From the additional information in the set one could have found the only possible ways in which the cards could have been exchanged. All the questions could be answered once the possibilities were in front of you.

Set 3(Q.41 to 45)

Aah! A must attempt indeed. The whole idea was to realise that there should be one process in which marbles are getting halved for each of the people. B & C cannot have ½ in the first process as in that case the number of marbles with both of them will go out of range. So, A must have ½ as his first step. All the problems where to be considered one by one and using the basic logic should have been cracked in about 12-13 minutes. Really a gift in disguise.

Sub-section II-B:

Set 4(Q.46 to 50)

One could have found out the marks obtained in the test by different people in terms of the aggregate obtained by them in 5 tests together and also utilised the other condition. Then one could have gone about attempting 46, 47 and 48 and once into the groove could have gone on to solve the full set. One should be very wary while doing such sets as a slight fault in observation or representation can cost you the entire set. Be extra careful with regard to the mother data.

Set 5(Q.51 to 55)

A set, which would give you, an impression of familiarity with the concepts involved. Of course it is true but as you would have advanced into the set, you would have realized that the combinations were a bit dicey to frame. The basic logic to crack this set would be to understand that a particular school having one particular medal cannot have the individual sum of the same medal amongst its students more than one. Basically, we have to eliminate cases where the above said logic does not hold true. Forming various combinations, logically it boils down to a combination where we can have 2 possibilities because Vipul & Wasim combined represent similar medal tally as represented by Umesh alone. A good enticing set, wherein not following the right track would cost you both marks and time loss. One could have given 2-3 minutes and realized whether or not progress with this set.

Set 6(Q.56 to 60)

It’s important to deduce that the 6 companies except Mitsubishi and Renault could have manufactured a minimum of 9 and a maximum of 11 cars. With the given information the range of cars manufactured could be found out. In the 12 months period. Then a tabular collation of maximum and minimum number of cars by different brands along with their optimum index and average index could be done. Then one could have gone about attempting all the problems one by one in this set. Hence, about 12-14 questions from this section could have been attempted.

Assuming 75%+ accuracy, a score of 17+ was easily possible.

SECTION III: READING COMPREHENSION AND ENGLISH USAGE

Verbal Section of this test is also meant to be a wake-up call for CAT aspirants. The difficulty level is meant to be a notch higher than Mock CAT-1 Let us take a closer look at this paper! In this paper, Verbal Ability was of medium level of difficulty. There are many reasons this section could have caught you off-guard; however, it definitely presented a section in which you could have attempted a fair number of questions easily and cleared the cut-off. The section had a mixture of questions from the past CAT question types. Let us take a look at the questions.

Sub Section III-A(1 mark)

Questions 63-66 (Word Usage)

A good starter for the English Section. A set of must attempt 1-mark questions to boost your confidence and start off the section. You could have attempted all of them and got if not all 4 then at least 3 correct.

Questions 61,62 (Synonyms in context)

These were two difficult 1-mark questions. These tested your vocabulary. You could have got at least one correct.

Questions 67,68 (6 Sentence Para jumbles)

Two medium level difficulty questions to make you rack your brains to a certain extent, you could have got at least one of them correct.

Questions 69,70 (7 Sentence Para jumbles)

These two questions could have been left since they were worth 1 mark each and would have wasted a lot of time.

Sub Section III–B (2 marks)

Questions 71-73( Sentence Correction)

Three questions of easy- medium level of difficulty, a must attempt chunk. You could have got at least two of them correct.

Questions 74-76(Critical Reasoning)

Three questions of easy- medium level of difficulty, you could have got at least two of them correct out of 3 attempts.

Questions 77-81 (Passage –1)

When the going gets tough, the tough get going! This was a passage, which really tested your reading skills. But the questions were doable. Out of 5 attempts you could have got at least 4 correct.

Questions 82-85 (Passage –2)

A passage which was difficult to read and had questions which were of higher level of difficulty. You could have skipped this.

Questions 86-90 (Passage –3)

A passage, which was relatively easy to read. Some of the questions were tricky, requiring you to read in between the lines. All the questions could be attempted out of which 4 could be correct.

An attempt of 22-24 questions with 80 % accuracy could have yielded a possible score of 17 in 50-55 minutes.

All the best!!