MHCET vs CMAT - The Difference between the final two MBA Exams

The CMAT remains the last national MBA exam of the season for most students, but those looking for admission in Maharashtra colleges also have the newly (re)introduced MHCET as another option for MBA admission in the year 2015-16. While the CMAT had replaced the CET in 2012, the CET made a comeback in 2014 due to the DTE’s and the Maharashtra MBA college’s displeasure over thousands of seats not being filled through CMAT in 2013-14. While many of you in Maharashtra will be writing both exams, the table below lists the differences between the two exams. Only 15% of the seats in Maharashtra colleges will be filled through CMAT while 85% will be done through the MHCET.

One of the major colleges that was accepting CMAT - JBIMS -has stopped accepting CMAT scores for admission in 2015. There will be a massive decline in students appearing for CMAT due to JBIMS pulling out and MHCET might be the biggest beneficiary of that. Even KJ Somaiya which accepted CMAT scores will only accept the Sept 2014 CMAT scores and will not accept the CMAT Feb scores while it continues to accept the MHCET scores.


Pattern Differences: The single largest difference in the exam lies in the available time to complete the paper. The CET has twice the number of questions to be attempted in 30 minutes lesser time and without a General Knowledge section. Hence, the average time per question on CMAT will be more than 2 minutes per question (assuming 25 GK questions take less than 30 minutes), the CET will provide a user attempting all the questions an average of 45 seconds per question only.
Another challenge with the MHCET is that the tests will not be arranged by section with questions of verbal, quant and reasoning scattered across the paper. So it becomes harder to attempt only one section first and one may have to rely on the navigation features (Mark for review) of the online interface if one wants to attempt questions of only one section at a go.
Below, we have listed the main differences between the two exams.


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Exam Dates for MHCET 2015

The  Directorate of Technical Education, Maharashtra State has said that MHCET 2015 for MBA and MMS will be conducted on Saturday,14th March,2015 and Sunday, 15th March,2015 through an Online Exam.

The link to the PDF published on the DTE Maharashtra website also mentions that the MCA exam will be conducted on March 29, 2015.


Oliveboard provides 10 mocks to prepare for MHCET MBA exam. Click here to regsiter and take the mock tests.

CAT 2014 Result Analysis | Score-Percentile Distribution

The CAT 2014 results were declared at 5pm yesterday even while thousands of students were unable to access their results well past 9pm. 
There were sixteen 100 percentilers this time versus eight in 2013. Neha Manglik, a student of BITS Pilani is the only girl in the list and the first girl since 2009 to secure a 100 percentile. Over 1000 students have scored above 200 (scaled score) while close to 10,000 students have scored above 150(scaled score). Around 1.68 Lakh of the 1.97 Lakh registered students took up the test conducted in November and the score-percentile distribution looks as shown below.

Back on Nov 16th, we were the only ones who predicted that one would need a score as high as at least 215 to be get a 99.90 and a safe score of at least 180+ to secure 99 percentile (Read our blog here). 215 turns out to be 99.70 percentile. While most other sources indicated our numbers were extremely high, actual results show that our estimates were in fact slightly conservative!

Click here for to prepare for CAT 2015 | XAT | NMAT | SNAP | CMAT | MHCET 

XAT Exam Pattern - Past Year Papers

XAT is the arguably the second most sought after MBA exam after the CAT and one of the last few exams of the MBA Season (CMAT & MHCET the other ones). Many good B-schools accept XAT score with some of the top colleges listed below. We'll also have a look at the XAT exam pattern and its differences from other MBA exams. Click here to sign up for XAT Mock Tests & Decision Making Course.

Top Colleges Accepting XAT Score

XLRI, Jamshedpur

SP Jain IMR, Mumbai

IMT Ghaziabad

TAPMI, Manipal

XIM, Bhubhaneshwar

Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai

Prin. LN Welingkar IMDR, Mumbai

Loyola Institute of Business Administration, Chennai

GIM, Goa

XIME, Bangalore

XAT Paper Pattern:- 

XAT is a paper-based test typically conducted in one slot on the first Sunday of the year. 
Like other MBA exams, XAT has an aptitude section (Quant, Resoning & Verbal) but along with that it has a Decision Making section as well. This is unique to the XAT exam.
The objective of the Decision Making questions is to test the ability of a candidate to analyze a given situation, evaluate the various options available to him along with its consequences, and then pick the best or the most effective option.  A real or a hypothetical case is presented with a problem facing one of the stakeholders in the case along with five options, each option being a course of action that can be taken. The student has to understand the case, analyze the main problem and select an action that will solve the problem in the most effective manner. The best way to solve such questions is to eliminate options one by one. 


The other difference in the XAT exam (compared to CAT and others) is that it has a GK + Essay section but whose score is not used initially while shortlisting of candidates. The GK score is used only during subsequent rounds of elimination. The initial shortlist is made on the aptitude section alone. The Essay (one essay to be written) writing is present to test your writing skills. The aptitude section is timed separately and distinct additional time is available for the GK & Essay portions. 

XAT has historically varied the number of questions in the exam every year. Here's a look at how it has been for the last three years.
Scoring Pattern: +1 for correct and -0.25 for incorrect answers.

Number of Questions by section over the last three years. 

	XAT 2014	XAT 2013	XAT 2012
Quant + DI	31	36	28
Verbal Ability	28	30	32
Decision Making	24	25	25
Total	83	91	85
GK	20	30	0

Click here for Mock Tests & Practice Tests for XAT | CAT | NMAT | SNAP | CMAT | MHCET 

Group Discussion Tips & Approaches

What is Group Discussion?

Group Discussion is a modern, yet common method of candidate elimination conducted in MBA Admissions. It is typically conducted as a second round of elimination for candidates who cleared the written tests. Over here, a small group (typically 5-10 members) is created and a topic is given for discussion. The candidates in the group are then asked to discuss the topic and share their opinions. Read more below or Click here to prepare for CAT & other MBA exams.

CAT 2014: First Day Analysis & Cut-Offs

The CAT exam began today all over the country and after five years of the 60 question format, this was the first time the IIMs had put out a two section, 100 question format.

While difficulty level is subjective, most students will find this paper much easier than any of the recent CAT exams.
Quant was Easy. Most students will find this one of the easiest Quant papers in the last 15 years.
DI was time consuming but definitely not difficult.
The only section that could be classified as difficult was the LR one which had 2 out of 4 sets which were difficult.
Expect cut-offs to be quite high, especially in Sec 1.

Outside of the difficulty level, there were no surprises as such but widely expected topics such as Data Sufficiency, Phrasal Verbs, Fill in the Blanks & FIJ were all missing. Please note that this is only sharing one of the first slot experience and is possibly not representative of students' within the in different slots. All students within the same slot got the same set of questions.

A detailed analysis of the exam is provided below followed by the experience a student will go through before & during the exam. To practice for other MBA exams, click here for XAT | NMAT | SNAP | CMAT | MHCET | CAT 

Expected Cut-Offs:- 

Cut-off Score	Percentile
215+	99.9
176+	99
139+	95
121+	90
96+	80

Note; These are estimates only and it is recommended that you do not use it as targets. 

Section 1 Analysis:  Out of 50 questions, there were 34 questions on Quantitative ability and 16 on DI. Very similar to what was anticipated and given on the mock test of the IIM CAT. There were several sitters in the paper especially in Arithmetic and Numbers. DI had four sets with one on Tournaments. A serious candidate who spends 90 minutes here could have attempted 35+. 

Section 2 Analysis:  Out of 50 questions, there were 16 questions on RC across four passages with the passages of 450-550 words. And there is no highlighting feature. It is mentioned in the beginning of the exam itself that you will have RCs in four question blocks. Two of the RCs had only three questions together and the final question of each passage was isolated somewhere else in the paper. So do check for this before you believe you have completed your RC passage. There were very few specific detail questions and while many of them required a good understanding of the passages, they were easily doable. Logical Reasoning  had 16 questions across four sets. Surprising aspects was the low weight for pure Verbal ability topics such as Grammar, Fill in the Blanks and Vocab. CR had GMAT style questions on inferences and few on essence of short passages. There were 8 Parajumble questions with half of them being on sentence exclusion. 

NMAT Scheduling FAQs | Results

The results for the first window (tests taken up to October 22nd) were out this Sunday. The final shortlisting of candidates for Case discussion & Interview will only be done when the final results are announced on January 22nd 2015. The cut-offs will be around the 95%ile levels like in recent years and hence the cut-off score could vary depending on the distribution of scores at the end of the exam cycle on Dec 20th.
Click here to sign up for 10 NMAT Mock Tests.

NMAT FAQs- Find answers to a few commonly asked questions below.