JOINT MANAGEMENT ENTRANCE TEST

Appearing for Joint Management Entrance Test 2004 (JMET 2004) is the first step in the process of seeking admission to the Postgraduate Degree Programmes in Management offered by the IITs and IISc Bangalore.

Currently IISc Bangalore, IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur , IIT Madras and IIT Roorkee are offering such Programmes in Management. JMET 2004 is being conducted for admission to these Programmes.

JMET is a four-section paper with 150 questions, which need to be attempted in 120 minutes.

1. Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension: This section with 40 questions will probably be the most scoring as well as least time consuming. It is expected that there will be about 20 verbal questions (synonyms/antonyms/fill-in-the-blanks/grammar etc) and 20 questions in reading comprehension (with about three passages).

2. Reasoning: Reasoning is a vast area covering symbolic logic, critical reasoning and analytical ability. All these areas are included in the reasoning section of the JMET paper. About four sets on Distribution/Order Sequencing/Selection/Networks and Maps and such other analytical ability questions can be given. In addition, questions on verbal analogies, coding decoding, syllogism and blood relations can also be given in this section.

3. Quantitative Ability: It is better to understand the scoring pattern of JMET. JMET gives ranks instead of percentiles. Since it is based on ranks, it is very difficult to have cutoff marks for each section. There can be a cutoff for each section but most probably it will be very low. If one understands this aspect, he/she can clearly look at maximizing the scores rather than spend equal time on all areas.

As has been said before, the first two sections happen to be the most scoring of all the four sections, whereas Quantitative section, traditionally, is a tough section to crack. In addition, the Quant section in JMET is different from that of CAT in that, there are areas such as Trigonometry, Coordinate Geometry, Complex numbers, Matrices, Integrals, Derivatives, Sets and Graphs, which are not there in CAT.

4. Data Interpretation: This section is expected to have about eight sets covering different types of data representation. There are 30 questions in this section and giving 25 to 30 minutes would be a prudent idea. It is very important that one tries to attempt all sets given. However, in each set there will always be questions which are either time consuming or plain simple difficult. Leaving out these questions and answering the ones, which will take less than a minute, a student can attempt around 20+ questions in 25 to 30 minutes and still score about 15+.

The first three sections have 40 questions each while the last section has 30 questions making up a total of 150 questions to be done in 120 minutes. There are negative marks and with each wrong answer -1/4 mark is deducted.

JMET gives ranks instead of percentiles. As in every exam, the interview call will depend more on the written score than any other parameter. Hence it goes without saying, that one should maximize the score.