On the whole the level of the test was tough. The important factor was selection of appropriate questions to attempt. The quant section was easier than reasoning section in this test. Verbal section was moderate to tough. One peculiar thing in this paper was that there were clusters of easy, moderate and difficult questions, so one had to skip the difficult cluster and to move to easy & medium level cluster quickly. The key to getting a good percentile was time management and selection of questions.
The first passage (1-4) argued that the Third World had been systematically kept underdeveloped and dependent by global powers, and that technologies like cryptocurrencies emerged as responses challenging centralized control. The passage was tricky to understand and questions based on it were moderate. The second passage (6-9) explained how urban planning and architecture had historically reflected evolving ideologies, from garden cities and vertical skyscrapers to Modernist and Postmodernist approaches, shaping both city forms and societal perceptions. The passage was slightly easier but again all the questions based on kit were moderate. The third passage (12-15) argued that moonshot ventures had historically faced systemic, financial, and temporal contradictions, often clashing with short-term investor expectations while fostering latent transformative innovations. The passage was an interesting read but questions based on it were moderate. The fourth passage (17-20) explained that climate change had historically caused widespread physical and mental health challenges, particularly in developing countries, affecting agriculture, migration, and social well-being. The passage was easy to understand but all the questions based on it were difficult. The questions (5 & 16) based on summary were easy. The questions (10 & 11) based on best – fit were moderate. The questions (21 & 22) based on misfit were moderate. The questions (23 & 24) based on sentence rearrangement were easy and moderate respectively. The overall feel of the section was moderate to tough. However, one could have easily scored 90+ percentile by attempting 18-20 questions with 75-80% accuracy.
The level of DI section was difficult. Students found no block easy or of medium difficulty level. The block (Monica has a habit of organizing all her documents neatly. She has made three boxes, one of each - red, green and yellow colour. In each box she has kept five different folders,) was manageable and should have been attempted. A few questions must have been done from rest. In this section, one could have fetched 90+ percentile by attempting 6- 8questions with approx. 80 % accuracy.
Students found this section moderate to difficult. The Quantitative section had 3 easy, 12 medium and 7difficult questions. Selection of questions was important to crack this section. There were questions from varied topics like Geometry, Basic Numbers, Basic Algebra, Progression And Series, Arithmetic(Percentages, Time and work Mixtures/Percentages/Allgation/Ratios). A good student could have scored 90+ percentile by attempting around 8-10 questions with approx. 80% accuracy.
The overall feel of the paper was tough, and for the students who knew how to manage the time available to the best i.e., not wasting much time in lengthy and difficult questions, could have easily managed an overall good attempt. Most of the questions in quant section were from Arithmetic, Algebra, Number system and Geometry. For verbal section, one should have good reading speed & comprehension skills as there were 4 RCs based on different areas and also a few questions based on other areas such as summary, best-fit, rearrangement & odd one out. One must focus on contextual vocabulary to understand the key ideas and score well in passages & summary-based questions. Questions such as Best-fit, sentence rearrangement & misfit require analysis and knowledge of tricks to answer the questions.