The Maharashtra CET Ready Reckoner

With almost all the biggies done, one of the tests which attracts many of the test takers is the Maharashtra MBA/MMS CET which is to be conducted on the 27th of February 2011. The test is required for an admit into few of the prestigious b-schools in the country.

The Process:
The process is conducted by the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) and is a centralised process. The entire process consists of a written test followed by a Group Discussion and a Personal Interview. The distribution of marks for each of the stages is as follows:

Stage	Marks
Written Test	200
Group Discussion	17
Personal Interview	17
X	2
XII	2
Work Experience	2
Total	240

After the entire process is done, the candidates are given ranks, both general and university wise. After this, the candidates have to apply to institutes of their choice through an option form. The colleges are allotted subject to availability and preferences. Four Centralized Admission Process (CAP) rounds are conducted.

The Written Test:
The written test has one of the highest weightages (83.3%) compared to other entrance processes in the country. This, compounded by the fact that there is no shortlisting of candidates and thus, there being a mix of students having all kind of scores makes the written stage very crucial. With the paper seemingly getting easier and the aspirants getting more serious about the top colleges, the cut-offs are on the rise. If two years back the topper was 167/200 a then record, last year saw more than 20 people scoring above 167. So, one needs to maximize one"s score in this stage so as to get a huge advantage for the next stage. Students have an option of presenting their case with either their CET score or their CAT score (till 2009, they used February MAT scores for outside State candidates) whichever is better. The CAT score is converted to the CET score before the GD-PI stage.

Score Conversion:
The conversion of the score from CAT/MAT to CET is done before the second stage. Now, in CET, few of the top rankers get the same percentile at slightly different scores. For example, the topmost candidate gets a 99.99 percentile. Now, supposing that 1.5 lakh people appear for the test, there will be 15 people getting the same percentile. The last candidate to get a 99.99 had a total of 168/200 in CET 10. Now, if someone wishes to apply with his MAT/CAT score, and has scored a 99.99 percentile in the exam, she/he will be awarded 168/200. So, the lowest marks corresponding to the same percentile in CET will be awarded.

The Paper:
The paper consists of 200 questions with no sections and no negative marking. Because of this, one can attempt all the questions even if one is not sure of a few. The questions can be broadly divided into around 50 from Quantitative Ability, 50 from Verbal Ability and 100 from Reasoning. Out of these, 30 questions are Visual Reasoning ones. There are a few topics which are particularly seen in CET such as strong and weak conclusions, implicit assumptions, courses of action, a twisted version of parajumbles, a solitary RC consisting of 15 questions. The quant part is calculation intensive and one can use some shortcut techniques to do the questions quickly if one is comfortable with using those techniques. The questions are easy to comprehend but solving a question in under a minute and doing the thing repeatedly for 2.5 hours requires a fair amount of patience and concentration.

The Group Discussion/Personal Interview Stage:
For the GDPI, the candidates were required to book a slot beforehand and then the process was conducted. For the GD, a couple of topics are given by the panel from which the group, consisting of around 15 candidates, has to choose one. The groups are not made percentile-wise or category wise and so, there can be people having any score in the group. That makes the process entirely unpredictable. The interview is done after the GD and one has to fill up a profile sheet before the process. The topics and questions are general awareness based and one can hope to do very well if one can communicate well and has a habit of reading.

Documents:
Now this is one aspect which needs to handled before the process is done unlike other processes. The document verification takes place in the same time window as when the GDPI is held. Along with the regular set of documents, one needs to have a domicile certificate if one is a home university candidate. The process of acquiring a certificate takes time and one would be better off if one gets it done as soon as possible. Same goes for the caste validity certificates. For people wanting to get marks for their work experience, the company has to be listed on the BSE or the NSE. For any other work experience, the candidates won"t get marks.