Some test takers outside a SNAP center in Mumbai

The PaGaLGuY reporting team met up with some Symbiosis National Aptitude (SNAP) test 2011 takers on Sunday evening after the exam. Most of the candidates said that the Verbal and Quantitative Techniques (QT) were easy compared to the Logical Reasoning (LR) and General Awareness (GA) sections. They all said that the difficulty level of the test was higher compared to previous years and that the paper was over-all lengthy. A few even found some questions ‘wrong. ‘

I was taken a back when I saw critical reasoning questions in the LR section. Though the test pattern was same, the question style was very different when compared to last three years papers, said Venkatesh Padmanabhan, who completed his graduation in Information Technology (IT). He further said, I hope I clear the first round. My overall test experience was just okay. Shozab Pathan, a commerce student said, I had solved the SNAP paper of last three years. This year’s SNAP was toughest. The GA and LR section have succeeded in producing unfavourable surprises.. I hope I make it to the GD-PI round.

A similar view was expressed by Nidhi Jain, an employee with a financial service firm.”Last few years papers of SNAP were comparatively easy than this year’s,” she said. Rahul Patel, who is pursuing his Masters in Commerce from the Mumbai University added that nothing asked in the test was out of the portion but LR was a little bit tricky and so was the GA section. I knew only four correct answers and for rest, I struggled a lot.”

Nivedita Mishra, pursuing an under-graduation degree from Narseec Monjee (NM) college said, Verbal section was extremely easy. I had not expected it to get it so straight. Sanjeev Moore a Bachelor of Science (BSc) graduate from Ruparel college who appeared for SNAP for the first time said, “I had just prepared for a month so it was okay but had I prepared for the last one year, I would have cleared the test easily.” As a whole, I think the paper was tough. Sections of GK and LR were tough, but Verbal and QT was easy. There werent any glitches during the exam and the paper went off smoothly. But I think that the mock tests that I gave were much simpler compared to this paper. said Dakshina Nair, a graduate in Microbiology.

According to Rutika Sheth, an electronics engineer: There were five to six questions in GK about economics, banking related questions and government schemes. It was less about Current Affairs. Quantitative section was direct and very easy. One just needed to solve them fast, thats all. Verbal section was good. If you know the basic sense of grammar you can crack it.

Some candidates claim there were errors in the paper. There were loads of mistakes in the paper. In the QT section, there was a question that had the same option twice! In the Verbal section, there was a spelling mistake in one of the options. It was supposed to be messenger,but they printed it as massanger. GK was tough and they gave current affairs questions from news as old as January to March 2011, which is like the beginning of the year. Current Affairs questions should at least be from June 2011 onwards. English and QT sections were very easy and I could solve all of them. I am not sure about this one though, but I think there was some mistake in the Pie Chart too,” said a candidate who did not want to be named.

He further said that in the examination center, the invigilators did not know what to do when told about the wrong questions. “I dont think they were properly trained. SNAP 2010 paper was such a lollipop, but this year it was a little though. Though, if someone has really prepared, he would have cracked it, he said.

Abhilash Nair, a final year student studying Bioinformatics said, The paper was pretty easy when compared to the Common Admission Test (CAT) standards. But GK had constitutional and government related questions, which was pretty difficult. In Logical Reasoning, every question carried 2 marks each. So 30 questions had a sum total of 60 marks, and the section was quite tough. In only two hours finishing a 180 marks paper is quite a challenge. He said that one cant even use guesswork because that will result in negative marking. “QT section was a cakewalk for people who prepared well for CAT. There was a question in the QT section, where one of the options was wrong or had a printing mistake. Apparently that option itself was the correct answer and people got confused because of the printing error, added Abhilash.