Sailing Through The C-MAT

A lowdown on what the CMAT is all about, important details and coaching classes, prepping you for the next test season

The Common Management Admission Test, more popularly known as CMAT, is a national level entrance test conducted by the All India Council for Technical Education. Designed to assist premier institutes (approved by the council) to select students for admission into management courses, the first edition was conducted in 2012, as an addition to previously existing tests like CAT. CMAT offers an opportunity to both institutes as well as students to find best prospective students and career building opportunities respectively. More than one lakh students appear for CMAT every year, and then from among them those eligible for admissions in MBA courses are selected.

How is it helpful to you?
CMAT is an entrance test that is accepted as a benchmark for deciding admissions in some of the best institutes around India. Such a platform allows students to make optimum use of  their capabilities and gain access to the institute which gives them an opportunity to launch their career successfully. CMAT acts as a gateway that simplifies the admission process where institutes and students are given a space from which both can get the best prospects for their respective purposes. A common entrance  test helps the student as one does not have to apply to all institutes separately nor does one need to go through the whole entrance process again and again. A single test provides an opportunity for students to attempt for all reputed institutes also cutting down on the effort to pick out the best institutes to apply for. That way CMAT saves a lot of time and effort on the part of students.

When and how is it conducted?
The test is usually conducted at the beginning of the year around February and the results come out in a month’s time. The mode of examination is a computer-based test (CBT), where the students have to see the multiple choice questions and select an answer from the choice listed. The test is conducted in a workstation at the venue of the examination and computers are assigned to students by the conducting authorities.

Important details

• To be eligible for the test the applicants have to be graduates in any field from a recognized university and final year students are also eligible to apply. All applicants should have scored a minimum of 50%.
• The merit list is given sent to respective state governments by the AICTE and then through central counselling process all students are allotted seats in AICTE registered institutes as per their merit. The application fee is Rs 1400 for the general category and Rs 700 for SC/ST, with additional bank charges for both.
• The registration can be done at the AICTE-CMAT website (http://www.aicte-cmat.in/). Two photographs and a signature of the candidate have to be uploaded during the registration process, and the mode of payment includes Net Banking, Credit/Debit card or cash payment through a chalan.
• The exam is computer-based with multiple choice questions. There are 100 questions for a total of 400 marks divided into four sections of 25 questions each. The exam needs to be completed in a time limit of 180 minutes. The sections are Quantitative Techniques-Data interpretation, Logical Reasoning, Language Comprehension and General Awareness.

• The CMAT exams were last conducted in February 2015 and the results were announced in March. The list of management schools approved by AICTE includes fifteen hundred reputed B-Schools.
• The next CMAT exams, for admissions into colleges for academic year 2016-17, will be in September 2015.

Best places to train
PT Education is considered the best institution for CMAT preparations with seventeen management entrance toppers in nine years straight. IMS is also a leading institute which promises good results with more than 90 centres and 50000 students. IMS is ranked among the top five among academies for management entrance coaching.
Elite institute and Endeavour which also have made a reputation in the field of training candidates to face entrance tests. In addition to these, there are online institutes which can help candidates prepare themselves more conveniently from the comfort of their home.

Acing the C-MAT

Shubhadeep Basak, who scored 99.99 percentile in this year’s CMAT held in February, holds an All India Rank of 6. He shares his success mantra and tips for CMAT aspirants

am an Electrical Engineering graduate from Government college of Engineering Amravati, Maharashtra, and a Gold Medallist of my batch. I worked hard for management entrance tests and scored well in quite a few of them. I attribute the success of my performance at the CMAT to my parents, friends, numerous mentors and the faculties.
These are just some general guidelines for your preparation as I believe we should not follow anyone. Everyone has his/her own methods of preparation, but this is what I think could work.

General Awareness
To build up your awareness and general knowledge, please start reading newspapers and the latest series of the Manorama Yearbook. Apart from that, a customized GK course from a coaching institute is highly recommended. There are several monthly GK magazines that can come in handy, such as GKToday and Upkar’s General Knowledge. This is the section which can make or break your chances. So, please try to maximize your marks in it.

Get used to solving tests online
Please be used to online test-solving and sitting with utmost concentration for at least three hours at a stretch. Apart from preparing in terms of knowledge and academics, you should also learn to keep your concentration levels high for long stretches of time. It will be difficult at first. But if you practice, you will get used to it. Practice meditation and deep breathing every morning. This practice will also be helpful for many other entrance tests that are conducted online.

Mock tests all the way
Practice a large number of mock tests. It would be best to start practising answering section-wise tests first, and then solve tests covering the entire syllabus. By doing this, you will discover the tiny and often overlooked flaws in concepts, which may or may not be revealed during mocks. Also, it’s important that while you give mock tests, you should not try to guess. This way, you can understand your true raw score. Analyze each and every single mistake and don’t repeat them.

Get help from experts
Always be in touch with experts  or faculty members. They have innumerable years of experience and will always be there to help out students in need of guidance. I personally do not recommend Facebook or any other social networking site for preparation. But if it works for you, then it’s perfectly fine!

Get the right learning materials
For QT (Quantitative Techniques) and DI (Data Interpretation), I followed Sarvesh K Verma and the materials of my coaching institute. For LR (Logical Reasoning), I used the materials of my coaching institute. For LC (Language Comprehension), ‘English Grammar and Composition’ by Rajendra Pal and Prem Lata Suri is a great book. For VA (Verbal Ability), please start with ‘Six Weeks to Words of Power’ by Wilfred Funk. During the course of your preparation, please don’t try to prepare from multiple books. Follow one book for each. Then, as you progressively go on giving mock tests, you will get to know additional concepts which were not covered earlier.

Manage your time well
During the exam, I had given 15 minutes at the most for the GA section. Please don’t waste your time solving GA. Try to give more importance to LC, LR and QTDI while solving the test.

And finally, breathe
Please believe in yourselves. One test can never decide our future. There is no point in stressing too much and pinning all your hopes on one test. Prepare well for CMAT, but have alternative plans as well. All the best!

 

Volume 4 Issue 11