Most of the MBA aspirants take the popular tests that can be termed as glamorous. What they don’t realize is that the aim of getting into a good institute can be achieved via multiple ways and keeping all your hopes on one test is not a sound strategy. Though this post is pretty much everything you need to know about MAT, I won’t get into the test details, format, important dates, etc. Instead, I will keep my focus on the importance of the test.
First, a few spoilers:
1. GK section is not counted in the final percentile score (Yay, hate tests with GK section? Jump on this)
2. Even on a good day, a MAT will not have more than 1 lac takers.
3. Option to take the test in the online or paper pencil format (Makes it super easy for people who struggle with CBTs)
4. Happens multiple times in the year (though for some of the institutes, specific MAT scores are considered. For example, February MAT for Maharashtra DTE CAP rounds)
The scores are reported as scaled scores and percentile and the actual sectional cutoffs are not revealed. Here are my two MAT attempts and scores with percentile.
|
Section |
MAT 1 |
MAT 2 |
||
| Scaled Scores | % Below | Scaled Scores | % Below | |
| Language Comprehension | 90.74 | 99.78 | 90.02 | 99.68 |
| Mathematical Skills | 95.3 | 99.92 | 99.84 | 99.94 |
| Data Analysis & Sufficiency | 95.14 | 99.97 | 83.55 | 99.92 |
| Intelligence & Critical Reasoning | 93.4 | 99.99 | 83.83 | 99.93 |
| Composite Score | 800 | 99.99 | 800 | 99.99 |
In both the attempts, I followed the same strategy.
Start with the section that you’re most comfortable with. In my case, I always started with the Mathematical Skills section. For 40 questions, if you are good, you will take anywhere between 30 to 45 minutes. This is because most of the questions are fairly straightforward and don’t require a lot of work to arrive at the answer. In the Mathematical Skills section, if you know the formulae and can calculate faster, I don’t see why one can’t attempt 30+ in this section with ~100% accuracy.
Once you solve a section, generally, you may not want to come back to it. We are looking at 160 questions to be done in 150 minutes which gives you close to a minute per question. One can always follow a different strategy of attempting 20 questions in each section to reach good number of attempts and balanced score, but I don’t think it helps much. Also, one may not be comfortable with all the sections and spending unnecessary time on questions will lead to low overall attempt.
One of the things that I would like aspirants to keep in mind is the presence of incorrect/incomplete questions. In my attempts, in the Mathematical Skills section at least, I found 1-1 question incorrect/incomplete/vague. Don’t waste time on such questions and anything north of 35 attempts in a section with decent accuracy almost guarantees a 99.9+ in that section.
The second section in my attempt order was Intelligence & Critical Reasoning. Again, the key is to attempt as many questions as possible with good accuracy. Anything that requires more than a minute should be attempted considering the time-return equation. I generally skipped long arrangement sets and attempted all other puzzles and reasoning/logic questions early on. A good attempt in this section is 30+ with 80-90+% accuracy.
Data Analysis & Sufficiency is time consuming compared to Intelligence & Critical Reasoning section. This is because for most of the DI questions, I found answer options to be ridiculously close and required intense calculations. This section, hence, is something that differentiates and you can race ahead of others if you are good here. Anywhere between 40-45 minutes can be spent here and the target should be to get around 30 questions right.
I always kept the Language Comprehension in the end because even with 30 minutes, I knew I would do fair in verbal. Simple RCs where you can locate the answers easily combined with easy to moderate verbal questions, make this a fantastic scoring opportunity. You should take risks at a few places and go for as many attempts as possible.
A 75%+ plus attempt in each section and overall is a good place to be in. Having said that, it doesn’t guarantee a 99.99. For a 99.99 in MAT, one needs to attempt close to 140-150+ questions with good accuracy. As the GK (Indian & Global Environment) score is not counted in the final composite score, I attempted a few questions in both my attempts and was never bothered with my score in this section.
I am sharing the sectional scaled scores and percentiles of two other MAT 99.99 percentilers.
| Section | Scaled Scores | % Below | Scaled Scores | % Below |
| Language Comprehension | 95.41 | 99.94 | 62.71 | 89.15 |
| Mathematical Skills | 99.95 | 99.99 | 99.99 | 99.99 |
| Data Analysis & Sufficiency | 99.95 | 99.96 | 94.79 | 99.92 |
| Intelligence & Critical Reasoning | 72.65 | 98.72 | 67.92 | 96.64 |
| Composite Score | 800 | 99.99 | 800 | 99.99 |
Do whatever works for you. Decide a section order that you are most comfortable with, get a good start and then build on it. Don’t spend time in lengthy questions and go for as many attempts as possible. The negative marking won’t affect much if your genuine attempts cross 35 in any of the sections. And even if you are planning to take the February MAT, take December MAT as well just to see where you stand and understand the test dynamics.
The reason why MAT is so important is because the score is accepted for 15% of the seats in almost all Maharashtra based institutes that participate in DTE CAP rounds. Essentially, you get a 99.99 and you are almost certain of making it to JBIMS (considering the current process). A 99.9+ gets you in the top 4 institutes. A student aiming for DTE CAP rounds without taking MAT, is damaging his/her chance of getting into a good institute as one never knows what will work out and what won’t.
For test information, visit the MAT official website here. Check MAT frequently asked questions before you apply.
If you have any queries, feel free to contact us. Do join our preparation group on Facebook and interact with our mentors and other aspirants and get your queries resolved immediately. All the best!
