On the whole the level of the test was moderate. The important factor was selection of appropriate questions to attempt. The reasoning section was easier than quant section in this test. Verbal section was moderate. 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 extremely harsh and widespread use of life sentences in the US had no real justification in deterrence, incapacitation, or retribution, especially since most offenders aged out of crime before middle age. The passage was moderate to difficult in terms of understanding and questions based on it were either moderate or difficult. The second passage (7-10), argued that people had wrongly treated testosterone as a powerful cause of male sexuality and aggression, even though scientific evidence had shown little or no such link. The passage was an interesting read and questions based on it were either easy or moderate. The third passage (16-19) narrated how Pandit Shivkumar Sharma transformed the folk santoor into a respected Hindustani classical and film instrument through innovation and dedication, earned immense acclaim, and left an irreplaceable musical legacy. The passage was manageable and questions based on it were either easy or moderate. The fourth passage (21-24) exposed how some ayurvedic companies, especially Patanjali, had relied on weak or manipulated science, undisclosed conflicts of interest, aggressive marketing, and overhyped plant-based remedies, thereby endangering public health. The passage was again understandable and questions based on it were either easy or moderate. The questions (12, 13 & 15) based on summary were easy. The questions (5 & 11) based on misfit were either easy or moderate. The questions (6, 14 & 20) based on finding the best placement were moderate except Q20, which was easy. Overall feel of the section was moderate. However, one could have easily scored 90+ percentile by attempting 17-19 questions with 75-80 % accuracy.
The difficulty level of DI was easy. There were 16easy, 4 medium and 2 difficult questions in this section. The two blocks (BATA Crucible is a prestigious quiz contest organized for B-school students from India. Six students from National Institute of management-Lucknow participated in the contest. & A professional juggler juggles 10 balls of different colors, 1 yellow, 5 black, 2 red and 2 green, but in a specific order) were easiest and should have been attempted. In this section, one could have fetched 90+ percentile by attempting 12-14 questions with approx. 80% accuracy.
Students found this section easy to moderate. The Quantitative section had 5 easy, 11 medium and 6 difficult questions. Selection of questions was important to crack this section. There were questions from varied topics like Geometry, Basic Numbers, Basic Algebra, Progression, Series, & Arithmetic. A good student could have scored 90+ percentile by attempting around 10-12 questions with approx. 85% accuracy.
The overall feel of the paper was moderate, 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 & 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 & misfit require analysis and knowledge of tricks to answer the questions.