The Paper and How to Tackle It

Before we go on to nitty gritties of how to crack the FMS entrance exam. Let’s take a quick review of the question paper pattern. The Jan, 2009 paper had:

• 175 questions
• 4 sections, namely: Data Interpretation, Verbal Ability, Quantitative Aptitude and Reading Comprehension.
• The data interpretation, quantitative aptitude and reading comprehension section were of easy to moderate difficulty level while the verbal ability section were of high difficulty level.

With 175 questions to be solved in 2 hours and 50 percentile sectional cut off in each section the FMS entrance exam is all about speed: solving as many questions as possible and hence practice and practice is the mantra to crack the exam. To score well in addition to knowing the basics of each topics and a lot of practice of all types of questions that can come in the exam, it helps to memorize the word lists to be able to crack the verbal section. Verbal section becomes highly scoring for the people with good vocabulary. But the questions in this section have usually been diverse, for example last year there were almost 10 questions dedicated to the names of the Greek Gods and on idioms. So a diverse reading habit helps a lot. Though with the exam just round the corner, the emphasis right now should be on revision and more practice of the strong areas rather than working on the weaker sections, this helps in building ones confidence and helps one to stay calm on the day of the exam.

Maths and Data Interpretation section are usually of the easy to moderate difficulty level and no extra preparation is required. Although last year’s paper had a few question based on the equation on force and also on calculation of velocity which although easy to solve for the Engineering graduates might be little troublesome for non Engineers. But as mentioned earlier with 175 questions there are plenty of questions to build up one’s score , irrespective of whether one is from a Maths background or not.

Reading Comprehension section has traditionally seen easier passages compared to other exams but there were some difficult passages in last year’s paper and hence even in this sections one’s practice, reading habits will influence one’s score.

Finally, it is important to keep in mind that it is an exam and the only way to crack it is to stay calm and confident about oneself, plan a strategy which optimally utilizes one’s strength and which can be formulated by giving mocks and practice tests and to implement this strategy in the exam but at the same be flexible enough to alter it if required.