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MICAT or MICA Admission Test is the MBA entrance exam for MICA, Ahmedabad.
MICAT I was held on December 17, 2017. The students reported that the paper was the same paper for everyone with the same order of questions. Thus there are no uncertainties about grading and normalization. The on-boarding process of the test was smooth.
The difficulty level of the test was slightly more than that of the last year. The General Awareness and Quantitative Analysis sections were alsodifficult.
There were three changes in this year’s test. The Psychometric test was the last section in this year’s MICAT. Secondly, there were 25 questions on General Awareness compared to 22 questions last year. Also, the maximum marks for every question in the Descriptive test were mentioned in this year’s test.
The test comprised three sections:
35 minutes were allotted for Section 1 (Descriptive).
105 minutes were available for Section 2.
25 minutes were provided for Section 2 (Psychometric test).
During each section, the candidates were not allowed to navigate to any other section. Sections 1 and 3 carried no negative marking while wrong attempts in Section 2 would attract a subtraction of 0.25 marks.
As per the selection process released by MICA this year,the Descriptive tests of only those candidates would beevaluated who qualify in the Psychometric test and clear the cut-off for Section 2.
This section tested the analytical and descriptive writing ability and creative skills of test-takers. The total time given for attempting these questions was 35 minutes. The first three questions were related to each other. Students reported that the topic for the first three questions was based on ‘has education shifted from a learning perspective to one focusing on earning’.For the first two questions, students had to write three points for and against the topic. These two questions carried 10 marks each.
In the third question, students had to write a 300 word answer to show how learning can be made an integral to education. The clearly stated that the points for the third question should not include the points stated in the first two questions.Twenty marks were allocated to this question.
The fourth question in this section consisted of four pictures. Students had to write down a particular pictorial combination (A-B-C-D or D-C-B-A or any such combination) and explain it with the help of a story. The pictures were related to a scene of a rabbit in a gift box, a globe with pins stuck all over it, a man kayaking in a beautiful lake surrounded by trees, and a photo of people cycling. This question carried forty marks.
The Reasoning section combined 30 word-association, statement-assumption, data sufficiency and visual reasoning questions.
| Topic | No. of Qs. | Level |
| Word Association | 15 | 8Difficult, 5 Moderate, 2Easy |
| Statement Assumption | 3 | 1 Easy, 2 Moderate |
The non-verbal reasoning questions in the section were of easy-to-moderate level of difficulty. Following was the break-up of the non-verbal reasoning questions in the section:
| Type of questions | Number of questions | Level of difficulty |
| Visual Reasoning (Total 8 questions) | ||
| Odd man out | 4 | Easy-Moderate |
| Analogies | 2 | |
| Complete the series | 2 | |
| Logical Data sufficiency (Total 4 questions) | ||
| Relations. Directions and Coding based | 4 | Moderate |
A student should have attempted 19-20 questions in 30 minutes with 80-85% accuracy in this section.
This section consisted of 25 questions this year. Out of 25, 16 were on National issues while 9 were on international topics. Also, 19 questions were of static type while 6 were on current affairs. Overall, the section was more difficult than last year’s MICAT.
The questions were about business, government, politics, ad agencies, laws and acts, and logos.
6 questions could be classified as being easy; 12 were medium and 7 were clearly difficult.
Candidates with good knowledge about such topics could have attempted about 10-11 questions in 10minuteswith 80% accuracy.This section consisted of jumbled paragraphs, synonyms, double blanks, sentence errors, paragraph completion, idiom-based questions and a Reading Comprehension passage. Like last year, only 1 RC passage was present this year. The passage was on the easier side.
| Topic | No. of Qs. | Level |
| Double FIB | 1 | 1 Moderate |
| Jumbled Paragraph – 4/5 sentences | 5 | 1 Easy, 3 Moderate, 1 Difficult |
| Identify the correct sentence | 2 | 2 Moderate |
| Synonyms of the highlighted word used in the sentence | 3 | 2 Moderate, 1 Difficult |
| Reading Comprehension – 1 Passage | 5 | 3 Easy, 2 Moderate |
| Complete the paragraph | 1 | 1 Difficult |
| Antonym | 1 | 1 Easy |
| Preposition-based FIB | 2 | 1 Easy, 1 Moderate |
| Grammar-based correct sentence | 1 | 1 Easy |
| Mark the sentence in which the adverbs are correctly placed | 1 | 1 Easy |
| Meaning of underlined idioms/ Idioms-based FIB | 3 | 3 Moderate |
Students should have targeted attempting about 19-20 questions in about 25 minutes with about 80% accuracy.
There were 25 questions in the section, out of which 19 questions were on Quantitative Ability and 6 questions were on Data Interpretation.Most of the questions were of a higher level of difficulty than last time. In fact, there was just a single question that would have qualified as a sitter. There were two sets on Data Interpretation with 3 questions each. Some students reported that they felt 1-2 questions had some errors in them.
Following was the break-up of the questions in the Quantitative Ability section:
| Type of questions | Number of questions | Level of difficulty |
| Number | 2 | 2Moderate |
| Algebra | 1 | 1Moderate |
| Arithmetic | 7 | 7Moderate |
| Modern Mathematics | ||
| Sequence-Series | 2 | 2 Difficult |
| Set Theory | 1 | 1 Easy |
| Functions | 1 | 1 Moderate |
| Geometry | ||
| Quadrilaterals | 2 | 2 Moderate |
| Trigonometry | 2 | 2 Moderate |
| Circles and Polygons | 1 | 1 Moderate |
| Data Interpretation | ||
| Table | 3 | Easy- Moderate |
| Caselet | 3 | Easy- Moderate |
An attempt of about 15-16 questions in 40minutes at 85% accuracy would be considered a good attempt.
There were 36 questions in this section. The test instructions released by MICA mentioned that it was necessary to attempt all the questions in this test and failure to do so would lead to disqualification of the candidate. In this section, there were no correct or incorrect responses.
In the first set of questions, there were three options for each question about a particular personality trait. Students had to select any single option. There were 10 questions of this type.
The second set of questions asked one to choose from a set of two arguments and to rate them in accordance with one’s personality traits. Around 16 questions were based on this pattern. One statement was presented on the left and another was on the right side of the screen. The six options from which students needed to mark their answer were:
In the third set of questions, the students had to rank 6 actions/responsesentences in the given question in an order of decreasing importance. Around 10 questions were of this type. For someone accustomed to taking psychometric tests, this section was simple and less time consuming. Students are advised not to have pre-conceived notions about which option constitutes the perfect answer. Instead, they should attempt each question honestly.
Students clearing the Psychometricand Descriptive sections andsecuring about 45-47 overallcan expect a call for the GD-PI round.
Those who have attempted IMS test pack on MICAT (a series of 5 tests) would have found that the level of difficulty and the nature of the questions in these tests, as well as the structure of the paper similar to those asked in the actual MICAT.