TISS MAT 2020 Analysis

II) TISS MAT (TISS MANAGEMENT APTITUDE TEST)

The inclusion of TISS MAT was a surprise element this year.

M.A. Selection Procedure:

  • Courses at TISS for which the TISS MAT Score is valid:

(i) MA in Human Resource Management & Labour Relations (HRM & LR)

(ii) MA in Organization Development, Change and Leadership (ODCL)

  • The scores of TISS MAT will count in the final selection process. In the case of candidates applying for the two flagship courses mentioned above, the scores for TISS-MAT, PIT (Pre-Interview test) and PI (Personal Interview) will be aggregated in the ratio 30:40:30.

Features of TISS MAT

  • Conducted along with/ immediately after the TISS NET for a duration of 30 min
  • Number of sections - 3
  • Number of questions - 45 (15 questions in each section)
  • Number of marks - 45
  • No sectional time limits and sectional cut offs
  • Negative marks - 0.25 for every wrong answer

A snapshot of the three sections is provided in the table below:

SECTION NUMBER SECTION NAME No. of questions No. of marks
1

 Comprehension

 15

 15
2

 Management Data Interpretation

 15

 15
3

 Business Awareness

 15

 15

A detailed analysis of the three sections is given below:

Section I - Comprehension

There were two Reading Comprehension passages. One contained 8 questions while another contained 7 questions. The passages were not difficult to understand but one had to analyze a lot of data. One passage was short while the other passage was fairly lengthy. The shorter passage was on “Changes in Operating Ratios in the Indian Railways” (Deficits/ surpluses etc).

The strategy would be to devote 12 minutes to the section and attempt at least 10 questions. The overall difficulty level of this section was Moderate.

Section II - Management Data Interpretation

This section presented three DI sets of five questions each.

Area in D.I. No.of Questions Sub Area
Set 1 - Pie chart

 5

 Contribution to a global cause by 7 countries including North America
Set 2 -Two Pie charts

 5

 % of Educated and Uneducated people
Set 3 - Histogram/ Bar Graph

 5

 Duration of calls and Number of calls

A good strategy would be to devote 13 minutes to this section and try and solve all questions targeting a score of 11. This was overall an easy section.

Section III - Business Awareness

While the GK section of the TISS NET presented questions from a variety of fields like sports, government policies, zoology etc; the GK section of the TISS MAT presented questions related mainly to business.

There were a total of 15 questions which could be attempted in 5 minutes. About half the number of questions were difficult questions. The current GK questions were not so current. Some of the current GK questions went back to the 2014, 2015 and 2017 period. Some of the GK questions included:

a) Which brand takes its name from a body fluid (Answer: Pepsi from ‘pepsin’)

b) Which is the odd man out (Names of three CEOs and one name was the odd man out)

c) Which TATA group existed when Jamshedji Tata was alive?

A score of 6 marks would be good for the Business Awareness section.

Overall Analysis: A good score for the TISS MAT would be 25-27. About 32-35 questions should have been attempted seriously with 85-90% accuracy.