It cannot be (A) above because while the GCET has 150 questions overall, the CAT has 75 sometimes and 90 at other times. The GMAT has exactly 78 questions each time for the past decades. Besides, none of these examinations such as the CAT, GMAT and GRE has even a single question on General knowledge.
The correct inference is therefore (B) above: that the type of questions at the GCET on the aspects of English language skill, Quantitative aptitude and so on is as per the questions in CAT, MAT, GMAT, and GRE etc
Luckily the CAT, GMAT and GRE have been giving their actual past papers to students in various ways. Those who wrote the CAT prior to 2003 November and bought the CAT Bulletin for Year N – or the prospectus issued by the Indian Institutes of Management for the Year N- were given the actual CAT paper of Year (N-1) in that bulletin so that student who wished to prepare meaningfully could derive a reasonably accurate assessment of the skills that the CAT was deigned to test.
The Graduate Management Admissions Council – the US based body that administers the GMAT - and the Educational Testing Service (also US based) that administers the GRE have been issuing from time to time a compendium of the past papers of these respective examinations. Nothing could therefore be more reliable than these actual papers as a basis on which to make meaningful preparations for the GCET.
The Quantitative Section
What further strengthens the inference that questions at the GCET follow the pattern in the CAT, GMAT, and GRE and so on is the following evidence:
See page 17 of the GCET Brochure for 2009 and you will find the following question on Quantitative aptitude:
“A train runs with the speed of 70 km per hour with its speed increasing every two hours by 10 km per hour. In how many hours will it cover 345 km?”
Options as follows:
(1) 2 and 1/4th hours (2) 4 hours and 5 minutes (3) 4 and ½ hours (4) None of these.
While the above question may seem to pertain to the topic of “Speed and Distance”, there is just one unknown in the question: the number of hours in which it will cover 345 km. If you were to try solving this question through the algebra route it is unlikely that you will ever succeed. But if you go by the options and see whether the first one will work and if not then whether the second option will work and so on, the answer will stare you in the face. If you were to let the train run for two hours, it will cover 140 km which is far away from the 345 km required. Option 1 will not do. Let it run for another two hours during which its speed would be 80 km per hour and thus during the first four hours the train will cover 140+160= 300 km. Now onwards its speed will be 90 km per hour and has to run another 45 km which it will do in the next half hour. Hence the train will take 4 hours and a half to run 345 km. So Option 2. Is this about mathematics or is it about logic alone?
The Verbal Section
See page 18 of the GCET Brochure for 2009 and you will find the following question on English language skill wherein you are given a word or group of words that is most nearly opposite IN MEANING to the word or group of words in bold capital letters:
Recluse
(1) Criminal (2) Wise (3) Gregarious (4) Timid
If you know what is recluse (someone who does not mix with others and keeps to himself) and what is gregarious (someone who likes to be in the company of fellow human beings), the correct answer stares you in the face: Option 3. A criminal may jolly well be a recluse, being all by himself, plotting whom to cheat next or whom to waylay on the secluded road and so on. A wise person may also be a recluse. In lieu of sitting and chatting with those who gossip or those who talk about mundane matters (such as debating whether cucumber sandwiches are better than cheese sandwiches, he would rather read a good book. Someone timid (meaning a shy person) is most likely to be a recluse. A gregarious person is the opposite of a recluse.
From the above question we can see that just as in the case of the GRE and the GMAT, the GCET may test one’s control over the elements of the English language including over the Latin roots of English. How? On what basis could this be inferred?
Those who write the GRE or the GMAT are allowed to download, free of charge, the POWERPREP CD from the website of the official bodies that administer these examinations. It is clearly mentioned in this CD that the aspirant is expected to be acquainted with the roots of the English language. AS you would probably know, English has over a hundred thousand words. How many would anyone be able to mug? It is only if someone were to be able to understand, for instance, why SECLUSION means solitude or being shut apart from others because CLUD and CLUS is the Latin root meaning CLOSE and the prefix SE means AWAY. This is why an all-INCLUSIVE quotation for a motorcycle, for instance, is one in which all the components of cost (such as basic cost, lifetime road tax, insurance, basic accessories, and so on) have been shut in, meaning nothing has been left out and hence an all inclusive quotation is a comprehensive quotation. Control over the Latin roots of the English language would mean that one would be able to derive not just the meanings of some 3000 words at the core of the English language but also the nuances or the finer shades of meaning of a word.
It would be eminently sensible to solve a dozen or so past actual CAT/GMAT/GRE papers and to master the roots of the English language as also to read extensively in order to be able to develop control over the usages of the English language during the course of one’s preparations for the GCET if one is to put up a trailblazing performance at the GCET.
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