MICAT I was conducted as Computer Based Test for MICA, Ahmedabad on 17th Dec 2017. The overall test taking experience of the students was smooth. The structure of the test was as below:

The level of difficulty of the test was slightly more than the last year’s question paper. While there was no negative marking in Section-1 and Section-3, questions in Section-2 attracted a penalty of 0.25 marks. Also, as per the selection process released by MICA this year, Section-1 (Descriptive Test) of only those candidates would be evaluated who qualify in the Psychometric test and clear the cut-off for Section-2.

Section - 1

Descriptive Test

There were four questions in this section. The students were to demonstrate their analytical and creative writing skills in this particular section. The first three questions were based on the topic: 'The focus in higher education has shifted from facilitating learning to assured earning'. The first question asked to state three arguments FOR the topic. The second question asked to state three arguments AGAINST the topic. And, the third question asked to state three points about the central passage, that learning should stay central to education, without stating the points already used in the previous two answers.

Question four was a picture based story writing. The question had four pictures. The test takers were to write down a particular pictorial combination and then explain it with the help of a story.

All the questions in this section were easy for a serious aspirant.

Section –2

A. Divergent Convergent Reasoning

This section had 30 questions, the distribution of which is given as under. The overall difficulty level of the section was higher than the previous year’s paper.

B. General Awareness

This section had 25 questions this year as compared to 22 last year. Overall, the section was more difficult than last year’s GA section. The distribution of the questions is given as under:

C. Verbal Ability

The Verbal Ability section was easy. The questions were based on the concepts like sentence correction, paragraph completion, double blanks, idiom-based, para-jumbles, etc. The vocabulary based questions were easy. There was only one RC passage which was an easy-read. The passage had five questions: two were fact based, two were based on main idea, and one was based on vocabulary. All the questions under RC were easy.

D. Quantitative Ability

There were a total of 25 questions in the section. Out of 25 questions, 19 were based on Quantitative Ability and 6 questions were on Data Interpretation. There were two sets on Data Interpretation with 3 questions each. The section was relatively tougher than the one in MICA 2016.

Following was the break-up of the questions in the Quantitative Ability section:

Section - 3

Psychometric Test

There were 36 questions in this section. There was no negative marking for the psychometric test. It was compulsory to attempt all the questions in this section. The instructions clearly stated that failure to attempt all the questions in this part would lead to disqualification.

The first set had 10 questions which were of MCQ type. These MCQs asked the test taker to choose an option about a particular personality trait.

The second set of questions had 6 statements each, where these statements had to be ordered according to the test taker's personality traits.

In the third set of questions, the students had to rank 6 actions/response sentences in the given question in an order of decreasing importance.

For a test takers who has taken psychometric tests before, this section would have proved to be simple and less time consuming.

All the best!
Team T.I.M.E.