Micat 2010 Analysis

MICAT 2010- Analysis (7th March 2010)

MICA lived up to its reputation of giving a creative as well as a lengthy paper. The paper had a good mix of questions from all the areas. The paper not only tested the knowledge of a student but also analyzed the personality traits of the candidates. The paper also gave ample chances to the students to showcase their creative abilities. It required a good amount of perseverance and out of box thinking on part of the students to attempt the paper. However, there was no information regarding the weight-age of the different sections. Let’s now look at the detailed structure of the paper:

Overall Analysis

The paper was of two and a half hour duration. It contained 3 parts and each part was further divided into sections focusing on individual areas. The parts had individual time limits and an order for attempting the sections. The marking scheme for the questions was not mentioned except for Part I where ¼ mark would be deducted for every incorrect response and no mark would be deducted for not attempting the question. Let’s analyze the parts as they appeared in the examination.

Part I - 90 mins
Sections No. of Questions
A. Reasoning 36
B. General Awareness 25
C. Quantitative Ability/LRDI 30
D. Verbal Ability 34

Total Questions 125

Part II Psychometric Tests 46q - 30 mins

Part III Creative Ability Tests 3q - 30 mins

The following is the detailed analysis of the paper:

Part I

Even though no sectional cut-off was mentioned, it would have been wise to allocate time to each sub-section and pick up the questions which were sitters.

A. Reasoning-The section was of easy to moderate level of difficulty. It
contained questions of following types:

Topics Covered No of Questions
Clue and Alternatives 15
Statement Conclusion 3
Data Sufficiency 3
Visual Reasoning 10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices
Missing Number 5

The questions of data-sufficiency and visual reasoning were relatively easy. The clue and alternatives questions required a good understanding of English language and its application. The number of options per question was 5.

B. General Awareness- The section had a good mix of questions from the field of marketing, advertising, films, media and general global awareness. The section was moderate to difficult. The number of options per question was 5.


C. Quantitative Ability and LRDI- The section contained mainly
questions based on arithmetic (Percentages, average, mixtures, time and speed, series etc.). Other topics covered were P & C, probability, set theory, integral calculus (areas) etc. There was only one question on algebra (Data-Sufficiency). There were no questions on geometry and mensuration. There were two DI sets (Table based). There was also a set based on analytical reasoning. The overall difficulty level of this section was quite high as most of the questions involved lengthy statements. The number of options per question was 4.

D. Verbal Ability- The section had an easy to moderate level of difficulty.
Almost 30% of the questions were sitters. The passages were short and had direct questions. The passages were based on: (i) Evolution of mathematics and (ii) Business and Indian State. Sentence completion questions were of moderate level of difficulty. Statement conclusion and statement assumption questions were tricky. The fill in the blank questions on prepositions were easy. The number of options per question was 4.



Topics Covered No. of Questions
Reading Comprehension (2 passages) 8
Sentence completion 12
Preposition (FIB) 5
Statement conclusion 2
Statement assumption 3
Grammar and Semantics 4
Total No. of Questions 34


Part II

One had to compulsorily attempt all the questions in this section in order for one’s paper to be evaluated. There were no correct or incorrect responses to these questions. This part had 3 sets of questions, each testing the psychometric skills of a candidate. The first set of questions had 30 statements out of which one had to pick 10 describing one’s personality traits without ranking them. The second set of questions asked one to choose from a set of two arguments and also to rate them in accordance with one’s personality traits. In the third set of questions, one had to rank the various responses under given situations on a scale of 1 to 6 (where a rating of 1 implied highest priority and a rating of 6 meant least priority).


Part III

This section had 3 sets of questions. The section tested the creative and communication abilities of a candidate. The questions were based on essay-writing, story-writing and formation of words. The following were the topics for essay-writing and story-writing:

1- Essay Writing: Tax Deduction to Women as they take care of educational and health needs of a family.
2- Story writing: A picture was given and one had to write a story based on it.

Here is the picture provided for story writing:

For the essay writing question, it is important to note that one had to either
support or oppose the motion; not taking a stance would mean that one would
not be marked for the essay.

With best wishes!
The Career Launcher Team

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