(Image Courtesy: Ranaji Deb)
One of the more sought after tests of the season, the MICAT conducted by the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA) was held today across the country. A brief overview of the test by Anand Jhunjhunwala and Nishant Khanna, who took the test yesterday.
Pattern of the test:
The paper pattern was very similar to last year except a few significant changes that there were no sectional time limits. Moreover the paper was divided broadly into two parts-1 and 2.
First section started off with a sub-section comprising of word associations which were a good mix of 15 easy and difficult questions. There were 5 implicit argument statements with really tricky options but still 2-3 were doable, then came the 5 data sufficiency questions which, again had a few tricky options and finally there were 10 visual reasoning questions which MICA has been giving for the past few years. Overall, this section was of an easy to moderate level.
Then, the next subsection was of 25 General Knowledge questions which comprised of a good mix of static, current and media related GK. There were quite a few match the following questions here. This section was also on the moderate side and a regular reader should have been comfortable attempting it.
This was followed by the next sub-section which consisted of Quantitative Aptitude, Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation. There were a lot of questions from probability and progressions. Although there were a few sitters too. An attempt of 10-12 here should be good out of the 30 questions on offer.
According to Nishant, there were a few wrong questions like cylinder and cone question which had no correct options will lead to a lot of wasted effort. This section was very tough and this was not what any one was expecting
The next subsection consisted of Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension(RC). Again this section was a notch higher in difficulty than that of last year. There were two RC passages of 4 questions each and 22 other questions comprising fill-in-the-blanks, sentence completion, Parajumbles etc. A good attempt should be 18-20 questions.
The second section was the writing section which started off with a topic Trial by media is justified.” One had to first give arguments in favour of the statement and then in the next essay give arguments against the same statement. Finally, one had to tell the editor of the newspaper magazine about this topic in 40-50 words. This was followed up by a series of 10 different cartoons. One had to order them and construct a story.
For this whole Part 1 we had 2 hours and 15 minutes which was really demanding and in the end I had to rush through the essays so that I could complete them in time. Also here it was mentioned that 1/4th marks would be deducted for negative marking in the first section (except the written part)
Next Part comprised of the psychometric analysis and all the questions were compulsory. There were no right/wrong answers in this section. Ones paper will not be evaluated if he/she misses out attempting any part in this section. It started off with a list of 30 statements. One had to select any 10 which best described us!! Then came the set of 26 questions each having 6 options and we had to tick the option which we supported (very strongly/strongly/moderately). This was followed by 10 questions wherein one had to prioritise the options on the basis of our preference. For this we were given 30 minutes.
Overall Analysis:
All in all I think the paper was a touch more difficult than last year but was balanced as it had a good mix of sitters and tough nuts. The trick was to not to get bogged down by tough ones.
Nishant holds a similar opinion, when he says, Much along the expected lines in terms of sections, the removal of time gap between Creative section and Section A,B,C and D created a lot of time issues. The paper was no doubt lengthy and time consuming. Psychometric also was longer than expected.
As MICA does not reveal sectional cut-offs nor the marks it is really difficult to predict good number of attempts but still a cool head and solving the paper with steady pace in todays MICAT will get you through to the GEPI stage.
All the help for this review has been provided by the amazing guys and gals on the MiSpirants Group. Thank you people.