• Section I – ENGLISH COMPREHENSION  Ideally one could attempt 30  questions in the English Comprehension section with a possible accuracy of 24 - 26 questions.

• Section II – Quantitaive Aptitude  Spending anything between 30- 35 mins. could have helped to get a score of around 30,The possible cut-off for this section could be around 23-26.

• SECTION III: Analytical Reasoning  A good attempt could be 27 + Questions with 24 as a good score.

• SECTION IV: ISSUES OF SOCIAL CONCERN  OVERALL, a good attempt could be 112  questions with possible accuracy of   85 %

*Accepts IRMA score but student has to apply separetely to XIMB.

Area Wise Test Structure

Sr. No.	Area	No. of Questions	Sectional weightage (in %)	Suggested Time        (in minutes)	Ideal Attempt
1	English Comprehension	40	20 %	30	30
2	Quantitative Aptitude	50	25 %	35	30 +
3	Analytical Reasoning	50	25 %	30	27 +
4	Issues of Social Concern	60	30 %	25	25+
	Total	200	100	120	112 +

SECTIONAL BREAKUP

Section I – ENGLISH COMPREHENSION

Unlike last years paper which contained jumbled para and individual questions on English usage this years English Comprehension section had just one surprise - it contained 1 RC with 25 questions.

There was 1 para with 10 blanks, 3 word based questions and 2 partially indirect questions. The para fill in the blanks were not of the CAT league and most students found it fairly easy with only a couple of questions of moderate difficulty level since the options seemed too close. Most options were easy to eliminate. The passage was sourced from the same extract as the Reading Comprehension. The 3 word based questions were easy to solve and contained familiar words such as 'bottlenecks' , 'facilitate' and 'efficient'.

Reading Comprehension

The English Comprehension section comprised just 1 passage of approximately 1000 words. The passage was an extract of a convocation address by renowned economist Dr. Y.V. Reddy, Governor, Reserve Bank of India.

There were 25 questions on the passage alone, which took most students by surprise. However most questions were easy to moderate level of difficulty, and the 7 word-based (synonyms & antonyms) questions could be easily answered without necessarily referring to the passage. The remainder of the questions were partially indirect to slightly inferential based questions and were of easy to moderate level of difficulty. Some of the lines in the passage were numbered to help the student locate them easily while answering some of the questions.

The words for the synonym and antonym based questions were rather familiar ones, e.g. 'propounder' , 'inculcating', 'stake' , 'confronting' , ' phenomenal' , 'enormous' and 'spurt'.

Ideally one could attempt 30  questions in the English Comprehension section with a possible accuracy of 24 - 26 questions.
 

Section II – Quantitaive Aptitude

This section was not much different from the ones that have appeared last year. Most of the questions were straightforward and anyone having good grasp over basics should have sailed through this section. As the level of difficulty was low, one can expect a high cut-off for this section. A good attempt in this section could have been anything between 35-38 questions with an accuracy of 85 %.A good time allocation would have helped students to maximize their scores in this section.

Spending anything between 30- 35 mins. could have helped to get a score of around 30,The possible cut-off for this section could be around 23-26.
 

The detailed analysis of this section is given below:

Area	Topics	No. of Questions	Level of Difficulty
Arithmetic and Algebra	Approximations/ Calculations	5	Easy
	Time and Work	1	Easy
	Profit and Loss	2	Easy
	SI/CI	2	Easy
	Ratios and Propn	1	Easy
	Numbers,Percentage, Ages	5	Easy + Medium
Modern Maths	P n C	2	Easy + Medium
	Probability	2	Easy + Medium
	Venn Diagram	5	Easy + Medium
Data Sufficiency	Numbers,Averages, Ages,Work	5	Easy + Medium
Data Interpretation	Table	2 x 5 = 10	Easy
	Line	1 x 5 = 5	Easy + Medium
	Bar	1 x 5 = 5	Easy

 SECTION III: Analytical Reasoning

The section included questions based on Verbal Reasoning and Logical Reasoning

Verbal Reasoning

Topics	Number of Questions
Possible Consequence	5
Strong & Weak Arguments	5
Probably/Definitely True Inferences	5
Course of Action	5
Implicit Statements	5
Total	25

 
A good attempt could be 27 + Questions with 24 as a good score.

SECTION IV: ISSUES OF SOCIAL CONCERN

There was a fairly uniform distribution of Dynamic and Static data related questions. Questions based on National and International issues appeared in this section. There were questions related to TRIPS, Climate Neutrality ( guidelines by UNO to global warming), GDP of Agricultural sector, salient features of Self Help Groups and Mid-day Meal Schemes, Small Scale Enterprises, Budget, various Govt. schemes, Gender Inequality, Child Labour, reasons for Farmer Suicide, river systems in India etc.

Other questions that were included were related to persons such as Nirmala Deshpande, Luisa Dias – (Global Women's Leadership Award 08), and books such as  Animals People – the book based on the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, authors of Gandhi's Emissary and  A Week with Gandhi.
The  Social awareness questions were not difficult but only a student who has sincerely been preparing for IRMA well in advance and reading up would be a lot more comfortable.
Ideally one could attempt 25+ questions in this section with a possible accuracy of 15 - 18 questions.

OVERALL, a good attempt could be 112  questions with possible accuracy of   85 % 

IRMA cut off scores as provided by the institute last year:

IRMA2007