On the whole the level of the test was moderate to tough. The test contained many moderate and difficult questions and hence the important factor was selection of appropriate questions to attempt. Reasoning section was tougher than Quant section. Verbal section was moderate to tough. The key to getting a good percentile was time management and selection of questions.
Main idea of the first passage (1-4) is aptly explained in the last few lines of the last paragraph, that is, ‘a state can assure the continuation of liberal commerce and domination on sea trade by having control over the seas; having control over these seas multiplies the national, political and economic powers of a nation’. Author has underpinned the importance of Alfred Thayer Mahan’s ideas of enabling the U.S. Navy with advanced military equipment to have a strong and successful democratic country. The level of difficulty of this passage was moderate. In the second passage (5-8), author expresses his disapproval of the glorification of the war and the misconception of considering it to be influenced by certain culture. He has taken example of Franco- Prussian War, in which Germans (Prussians) were victorious. He elucidates that German victory can’t be taken as victory of its culture, as several military disciplines have nothing to do with cultural tendencies. And then he proposes that the victorious culture must have some values. This passage was easy to moderate in difficulty level. Though the third passage (9-12) author calls attention to the idea of ‘child penalty’, which tend to create a lag in women’s career and hence their lifetime earnings. After discussing an academic paper on the same, author suggests that it’s up to a mother as what example she sets for her daughter to make a work-life balance and bridge the gap between men and women’s lifetime earnings. This passage was easy to moderate in difficulty level. The fourth passage (13-16)discusses how environmental regulations are typically taken to be uniform for all he companies, when it actually is not. A number of factors influence the compliance with these regulations unevenly, like: the size of the company, its location, its establishment year and the size of the revenue base for the treatment of the waste. This passage had 2 easy and 2 moderate level questions. Questions (17-19) were based on Sentence Rearrangement and these questions were moderate to difficult. Questions (20-22) were Para- summary questions and were moderate to difficult- level questions. Questions 23 and 24 were based on ‘fit the sentence appropriately’ in the paragraph. This included moderate level questions. Overall, the verbal section of this mock was more on moderate to difficult with an expected level of 85% of accuracy with 90+ percentile if a candidate attempts around 16 to 18 questions.
The difficulty level of DI was Hard. There were 2 easy, 11 medium and 7 difficult questions in this section. The third and fourth blocks (ships arrived in Mumbai port, in a zoo there are 5 type of animals) were easiest and were must do and by attempting a couple of questions from rest of the blocks, one could have fetched a very good percentile. In this section, one could have fetched 90+ percentile by attempting 5-8 questions with approx. 80 % accuracy.
Students found this section easier than DI this time. The Quantitative section had 4 easy, 10 medium and 8 difficult 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/SI-CI/Ratios).A good student could have scored 90+ percentile by attempting around6-8 questions with approx. 80% accuracy.
The overall feel of the paper was moderate to tough, though 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 easily manage an overall good attempt. Reasoning section was tougher than Quant section Verbal section was moderate to tough. Most of the questions in quant section were from Arithmetic, Algebra, Number system and Geometry. For verbal section, one should have good reading skills as there were 4 RC’s and also a few questions based on paragraph summary. One must focus on contextual vocabulary as well to understand and score well in RC passages. Questions such as sentence rearrangement and placement questions require analysis and knowledge of tricks to answer the questions. It is advisable not to spend too much time on TITA questions especially in the verbal section.
