MICAT 1 Analysis – December 2024
(December 07, 2024, 9 am to 11:15 am)
MICAT (MICA Admission Test) is the ONLINE entrance exam for PGDM-C/PGDM from MICA, Ahmedabad. Generally, MICAT is held twice for admission to the batch in the ensuing year. MICAT-I is held in December, and MICAT-II is held in January for the batch commencing a few months later in June/July. MICAT I 2024 for the 2025-2027 batch was scheduled for December 07, 2024, from 9 AM to 11:15 AM. However, some centres reported delays owing to server issues. Here is our detailed MICAT 1 analysis to help you figure out the difficulty level of the paper and the expected cutoff.
MICAT 1 analysis – Test Structure and the IMS estimate of good attempts
| Section | Name | No. Of Questions | Time allocated | Good Attempts |
| A | Psychometric Test | 150 | 30 minutes | ALL |
| B | Descriptive Test | 4 | 25 minutes | ALL |
| C | i. Divergent and Convergent Thinking | 20 | 80 minutes | 10-12 |
| ii. Verbal Ability | 20 | 8-10 | ||
| iii. Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation | 20 | 5-6 | ||
| iv. General Awareness | 10 | 5- 6 |
- Navigation between sections is not allowed
- Section C carried 1 mark per question. 0.25 for each incorrect response.
- No Negative Marks for the Psychometric Test and the Descriptive Test
- Psychometric Test is compulsory and the performance in the psychometric test is used as a qualifying criterion for the next stage. Candidates must attempt all the questions in the Psychometric Test to ensure that their paper is evaluated. However, the marks or the assessment criteria of the test are not revealed to the candidates.
MICAT 1 analysis – Verdict
Students who have ‘cleared’ the Psychometric Test and secured an overall score of 25 in Sections C (i) to C (iv) can expect a call for the GE-PI round (subject to their fulfilling the other criteria specified at : https://www.mica.ac.in/postgraduate-programme/selection-process-and-timelines
MICAT 1 analysis – Section-wise analysis
Section A – Psychometric Test
There were 150 questions in this section.
Apparently, there are no correct or incorrect responses in a psychometric test. Around 33 questions presented a situation/course of action, and the test-taker had to mark either True or False. Around 117 questions were about a particular personality trait or a course of action. which required the candidates to respond with one of the following 8 options.
- Totally Disagree
- Strongly Disagree
- Disagree
- Somewhat Disagree
- Somewhat Agree
- Agree
- Strongly Agree
- Totally Agree
Given that 150 questions were to be attempted in 30 minutes, it was necessary to work fast and mark the answers quickly.
Section B – Descriptive Test
This section tested the analytical, descriptive, and creative writing abilities of test-takers. The first three questions were related to each other. The topic was “There is merit in hierarchy.” For the first two questions, students had to write three points each, ‘for’ and ‘against’ the topic. These two questions carried 10 marks each.
In the third question, students had to write a 300-word answer on how young managers can promote hierarchy in their organizations to make them more efficient. The instructions stated that the points for the third question should not include the points stated in the first two questions. 20 marks were allocated to this question.
The fourth question in this section consisted of four pictures. Students had to write down a story using these images in any order (A-B-C-D or D-C-B-A or any such combination). The order was to be mentioned before the story. The pictures were related to: ‘luggage; a roadside market; an insect on food; a camel.’. This question carried 30 marks.
This section was to be attempted in 25 minutes and carried no negative marking.
Section C – Aptitude Test
The aptitude test had 4 sub-sections with a total of 70 questions. These 70 questions had to be solved within 80 minutes. The test this year had a mix of questions with 8, 5 and 4 options. Out of 70 questions, about 30 had 8 options.
(i) Sub-section: DIVERGENT AND CONVERGENT THINKING
The Reasoning section comprised 20 questions, including word association, analogies, statement assumption, data sufficiency, puzzle, numerical series-odd one out, Circular arrangement and visual reasoning questions.
| Topic | No. of Qs. | Overall Difficulty Level |
| Verbal reasoning | ||
| Word Association | 4 | Medium |
| Statement-Conclusion [Truth and Lies} | 1 | Medium |
| Non-verbal reasoning | ||
| Visual Reasoning – 3
(analogy, sequence completion, paper folding) |
15
(8 questions with 4 options + 7 questions with 8 options) |
Medium |
| Data Sufficiency – 1 | ||
| Puzzles – 12
Arrangement (Linear – 2, Circular – 1), Symbol-based Family Tree – 2, Directions – 2 (based on Pythagorean triplet), Coding – 2, Number analogy – 1, Alphanumeric Sequence – 1, Odd One Out – Series – 1 |
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In this section, 10-12 questions (in about 25 minutes with 90 % accuracy) would be considered a good attempt.
(ii) Sub-section: VERBAL ABILITY
This section consisted of jumbled paragraphs, word pairs, paragraph completion(cloze), fill-in-the-blanks, and two Reading Comprehension passages.
| Topic | No. of Qs. | Overall Level of difficulty. |
| Reading Comprehension – Passage 1
[Homophily and acrophily on social media- 600 words] |
5 | Medium |
| Fill in the blanks [3 Cloze; 2 questions with 1/4 blanks] | 5 | Medium |
| Choose the correct sentence, Synonyms [2] | 3 | Easy |
| Critical Reasoning – Inference, Paragraph completion, Jumbled paragraphs, Analogy, Summary, Odd sentence | 7 | Medium |
In this section, 8-10 questions (in about 15-20 minutes with 90% accuracy) would be considered a good attempt.
(iii) Sub-section: QUANTITATIVE ABILITY AND DATA INTERPRETATION
This question was the most difficult section of the test. In fact, the level of difficulty of some questions in this section was higher than the level of difficulty of CAT questions. The majority of questions had 8 options. Most of the questions were bulky in nature with a lot of data. That made navigating through the section rather difficult.
The section had 20 questions, 16 of which were on quantitative ability and 4 of which were on Data Interpretation. The Quantitative Ability section was dominated by 6 Geometry questions, followed by 5 arithmetic questions. Overall, the section was Medium in terms of difficulty, and it was one notch more difficult than the corresponding section last year. The majority of the questions had as many as 8 options.
There was one calculation-intensive set of Data Interpretation involving a bar graph and a table involving 4 questions. The set was straightforward, with average figure calculations.
Following is the break-up of the questions in the Quantitative Ability section:
| Area | LOD |
| Arithmetic | |
| Average, Mixtures & Alligations, Ratio-Proportion, Partnership. | Medium |
| Algebra | |
| Quadratic equations | Difficult |
| Geometry | |
| Quadrilaterals, Polygons | Difficult |
| Modern Math | |
| Set Theory (Venn Diagram), Probability | Difficult |
| Numbers | |
| Sequence – odd one out, Factors | Difficult |
| Data Interpretation | |
| Bar Graph | Medium |
In this section, an attempt of about 5-6 questions in about 30 minutes with around 90% accuracy would be considered good.
(iv) Sub-section: GENERAL AWARENESS
The General Awareness section consisted of 10 questions. Out of the 10 questions, 2-3 questions were of ‘match the column’ type while 5 were based on marketing and branding. 2-3 questions were of ‘Identify the facts/true statements’ type,
Also, Static GK contributed 2 questions, while the remaining 8 questions were based on current affairs.
In this section, an attempt of 5 – 6 questions in about 5-7 minutes with 70 percent accuracy would be considered good.
MICAT 1 analysis – Conclusion
According to our MICAT 1 analysis, the exam was of a moderate to hard difficulty level, with the expected cutoff for Section C being around 25.
