PGSEM 2008

Test for admission (not the sole entry criterion i.e scores of CAT AND GMAT also work) to PGSEM course by IIMB was held this sunday i.e 2nd March 2008.

Around 1000 young and old experienced geeks had thronged Christ College, Hosur Road, Bangalore on a relatively bright morning with a lot of less traffic on the roads well known for chaotic traffic.

Test started at 10:00 instead of scheduled 9:30. And it had 2 parts. We were all accustomed to 1 part exam but this time it had a surprise element… 1/2 hour Subjective type Case analysis question… Now how’s that… !

10:00 to 12:00 was a usual objective type test divided into 3 sections having 115 questions in all.

Test in brief

Part 1 – Objective type

Section 1 : English 30 questions: 3 RC passages(3*5 = 15 questions), 5 Parajumbles, 5 Vocab usage questions, 5 Sentence correction questions.

Section 2: DI/LR: 30 questions :2 logical reasoning, 4 DI types, 1 Set theory based.

Section 3: Quant: 20*1 markers = 20 questions. 5*2 markers = 5 questions, 10 marks

Overall difficulty level for the whole test was quite less as compared to CAT (like CAT 2005,2006,2007). Infact it was no where near the CAT level. English was a bit tough but still far away from CAT. DI and Quant were miles miles away from CAT difficulty level.

Infact, it closely emulated the sample test paper sent by PGSEM 2 days before the test in terms of difficulty level.

But, this doesn’t mean what the pattern /difficulty level of future PGSEM’s will be. It may be as tough as CAT next year or may not be.

Sectional Details:

Section 1: English

This was the first RC:
“”
The moving parts inside your cells
World’s smallest motors, springs and ratchets propel the engines of life
By Kathleen Wren
Science
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077512/
“”

Second RC: Didnt attempt so do not remember

Third RC:
“”
The Relevance of Preservation in a Digital World
Paul Conway
Head, Preservation Department
Yale University Library
http://www.nedcc.org/resources/leaflets/6Reformatting/04RelevanceOfPreservation.php
“”

5 Easy and Moderate level Parajumbles

5 Vocab usage based questions

5 Sentence corrections

Section 2: DI/LR

2 of the DI sets were like this:

A Table with a lot of rows and columns was given.
For eg: 1st set:

rows: 1-22 numbered athletes.

columns had their ‘parameters’ like weight, chest size, height etc etc.

Now questions were like this:
How many athletes are such that weight is at max 80, height is at max 150 etc etc.
Which athlete has height less than 150, weight more than 80… etc etc

2nd set was similar just that it had different type of foods (corn flakes, raisin flakes etc etc) and parameters like fat, sugar, calories etc etc and the questions were similar to the first set.

2 LR sets were there.

One was a usual set like ABCDE r 5 friends, they do a job of XYZPQ, one more parameter GHIJK. Lot of conditions were given, we had to identify the correct pairs in these 3 sets.

2nd was similar but a tad difficult. Again 5 friends were there, they took diff exam, like JEE, CET-M, etc… and they got some ranks. We had to find out who gave what based on the given conditions.

One set was based on Set theory.

Another set, we had mobile phone SP’s subscription level in different circles. Find out the growth rates etc.

One more set was there. Don’t remember it. It has a DI based set had a table mentioning lot of data.

Section 3: Quant:

First 20 questions were 1 markers. Next 5 questions were 2 markers.

1 markers:

1. An equation in log x was given. To find the solution for x.
2. A does work in 4 days, B in 5 days etc.. When will the work get finished.
3. Tea A price is x/kg, B is y/kg. Sold on z/kg and a profit of 10% is made. Ratio had to be found out.
4. 10 persons ran in a race. In how many ways first 3 places can be took.
5. 3 equations in 3 variables were given. Had to find out whether it is case of infinite solution, no solution…
6. M is a point of intersection of a pair of lines, N is a point of intersection of another pair of lines. Had to find a new line equation for MN.
7. A gemstone of Rs 81000 broke in ratio 2:3:4. Find the loss of worth of gemstone.
8. Average weight of class of 20 students is 50. A student is replaced and average weight now is 50.25. Find the weight of new student.
9. A circle is cut out from square. Find out the loss in area.
10. 3 digit number when reversed is reduced by 297. one more condition was there. had to find out the middle number.
11. A book uses 1890 digits in printing the page numbers. find the pages of the book.

There were more questions of the similar difficulty level.

2 markers:
2 questions were function based. One was very easy other was a bit tricky.
1 question was based on area of rectangle and triangle.
1 was a magic square based question. One number was missing. sum of all rows, columns and diagonals is same. find the missing number.
1 was AP series question of +ve integers. sum of 10 terms is = the 58th term. find the smallest ‘a’.

Part 2 – subjective type case analysis.

It was 30 mins written test.

The case I got was:

Tata Nano has been recently launched. Ms Sunita Narain, Director of Centre for Science and Environment has raised some concerns over the concessions given to Tata’s in terms of cheap land, interest free captial, one time tax on car owner, infrastructure development and traffic control.

More small cars by other manufacturers are also expected.

This would add to congestion and pollution. Public transport will get a hit.

Write in max 250 words each to address the concern of Ms Sunita Narain if you were,
1. An advisor to Tata’s
2. A policy maker of India.

Hope this description of the test help the future generations, as when I was searching for the pattern/type of questions, I didn’t get them.

-CD>