CPLC CET 2012 Analysis

CET 2012 Analysis

Like in his batting, Rahul Dravid maintained immaculate timing when it came to his retirement. But little did he know, while officially announcing his retirement on Friday, that his career would bear striking resemblance to our very own MBA-CET. Both started their journey in 1996 (CET in May and Rahul in June), and both ended their 16 year old careers within 2 days of each other.  Before 1996, admissions to the MMS programme in Mumbai University colleges happened through the ‘Common Written Test’ or the ‘CWT’, which was then replaced by the Common Entrance Test. Those were the days when the admission process was not centralized and every institute used to conduct its own GD’s and PI’s. But the most striking feature of the CET was that in all these years, the paper pattern of the CET did not change even a bit and remained consistent (like Rahul), until 2011. And now 2012!

Yes, the CET 2012 paper was a replica of the CET 2011 paper in terms of being heavy on reading and hence was lengthy. The only difference was that the balance of reading shifted from Verbal to Reasoning. Most of the good students have registered genuine attempts in the range of 155 to 160 questions out of 200. This takes the good score in CET 2012 to around 125-135 in the written exam for admission to the top institutes.

How was CET 2012 different from CET 2011?

Though this year’s CET was similar to last year’s version, there were a few changes:

• Less importance to Verbal: Last year there were in all 80 Q’s in Verbal (including the ones in Verbal Reasoning), with 32 questions in Reading Comprehension and 26 questions on Critical Reasoning, spread across 8 passages in all. This had made the CET 2011 paper skewed towards good readers and students who were strong at Verbal. However, this year there was a more balanced paper, with only 63 questions in Verbal, with only 12 questions in Reading Comprehension and 5 in Critical Reasoning, spread across only 4 passages.
• New question types introduced in Verbal: It was refreshing to find about 15 new question types in the CET this year. The insert missing sentence that was introduced last year, evolved further and had two sentences to be inserted in CET 2012. Identifying an appropriate starting phrase to merged sentence (a question type that was seen only in CET 2002) appeared again after so many years.  The normal antonym and synonym questions were asked with a twist, as it was not revealed which question pertained to antonym and which to synonym.

• Probability makes a comeback: Until 2009, there was a regular set on Probability with 5 questions in it. After a 2 year hiatus, this makes a comeback in CET 2012. This was supplemented with two individual questions on Permutation Combination.
• Logical Caselets strengthens further: The increased importance to Logical Caselets was started last year with 4 sets accounting for 25 questions in all. This year it increased further to 5 sets accounting for 31 questions. In fact, these caselets were one major reason for the drop in the attempts and the CET 2012 paper becoming lengthy.
• Visual Reasoning become tough: These trademark CET questions went back to 30 questions (after deviation from the norm last year with only 25 Q’s). These questions were tougher than last year and hence one should have attempted only a few of these.
• Logical Comparisons make a comeback: The 5 Q’s on Logical Comparisons, a regular question type that went missing last year made a comeback this year with 7 Q’s but in a more time consuming form.

As you can see, about 55 questions changed this year over CET 2011 (as against 107 from CET 2010 to 2011). However, these changes were not substantial enough to reduce the difficulty level or the lengthy nature of the paper.

Things that did not change from CET 2011?

Many of the changes that were introduced last year, stayed even this year making the paper equally difficult.

• Puzzles as a part of Caselets: The individual puzzles questions that enhanced the CET attempts till 2010, had made way for caselet based puzzles in 2011. This continued even this year, with Directions questions being asked in the form of caselets.
• Special Circular Arrangement Questions: Last year’s circular arrangement questions were different from their predecessors in two ways – the direction of facing was not the same for all (some facing inside, some facing outside) and introduction of additional parameters along with arrangement. This continued even this year, with all the sets having people facing both inside and outside, and also additional parameters like family relationships and departments being introduced along with arrangement.
• Distribution of Quant: Distribution of Quant questions remained the same as last year, with 18 questions on Problem solving and 2 on Data Sufficiency. Even the other question types based on quant like the Number series and Quantitative Comparison came for the same number of marks as last year and also in the same form and difficulty level. BODMAS was distinctly absent even in CET 2012.

• The missing Question types never returned: Apart from Logical Comparisons and Probability caselet, none of the other regular question type made a comeback this year – be it BODMAS, Alphanumeric Series, Rule Based Coding, Math and Verbal Puzzles, Individual Syllogisms questions (Strong-Weak Arguments, Cause-Effect and Probably True Probably False) remained a part of history.

As always, here is the area wise analysis:

Quantitative Ability

Perhaps the only area which remained consistent from CET 2011. As mentioned earlier, the Probability caselet made a comeback. Also, the Percentage profit line graph appeared after a sabbatical. Unlike last year, the DI were a little less calculation oriented. In the hindsight, after looking at the overall paper, we feel one should have attempted all the questions in this area.

Verbal Ability

This part CET was characterised by less number of Reading Comprehension questions and introduction of new question types, as compared to last year. Because of this, the attempts in this area is expected to increase, and so will the marks.

Analytical Reasoning

Though the number of questions in this area remained the similar to the last year, the difficulty level increased. Most of the Logical caselets were time consuming and also confusing, and hence became one major reason for the drop in the attempts. Sequential output tracing was very complicated and hence time consuming.

Visual Reasoning

The Visual Reasoning questions were 30 in all, spread across only three question types, each having 10 Q’s. One distinctive feature of this year’s CET was that all the questions of the same type were not placed at the same place. Hence, one had to shift gears from one type to another even within 5-8 questions that were present at one place. Also, the difficulty level of the questions increased as compared to last year.

Verbal Reasoning

This was an area that was majorly hit as compared to last year, with only 11 Q’s as against 30 Q’s last year. But this was only a welcome change for the students, as last year these were not only time consuming and also low on accuracy.

Overall Analysis

For the second year in the running, accuracy would play an important role, which is normally the case in any paper that is low on attempts. This also means, not accounting for enough time at the end for random guesses, is a recipe for disaster.

Note: The ideal attempts mentioned above are the genuine attempts. One must not forget that the remaining questions not attempted this way must also be marked (in order to add a few marks to the score).

Good Score in CET 2012

The cut-offs for the top institutes would fall drastically from last year. Here is what we believe could be good scores for top institutes.

*Outside chance indicates a chance to get into the institute with a very high score in the second stage of selection (i.e. GD and PI).

This also ends my 13 year old association with the MBA-CET, an exam that I cherished taking, an exam that gave hopes to thousands to students who could not fare well in other exams, an exam that was the epitome of fairness and transparency (where every mark was accounted for), an exam that was the meant for the masses simply because it was easy and no so much math-centric as other exams. On the closing thought, I simply could not resist one more aspect of comparison between Dravid and the CET. Both were prolific scorers once, but sadly ended their careers with low score. Yes, for the second year in the running, the CET scores would fall, may be even further than last year.

Content courtesy :

Manish Salian,

Faculty, CPL Pvt. Ltd.

Faculty Profile (Manish Salian) :

*Education*: An MBA from Mumbai University after his Engineering.

*Experience*: Manish is one of the most experienced faculty members in the