TISS-NET – 10th January 2015 An Analysis Overview: The structure of the TISS-NET was the same as last year’s. The test was online and was divided into 3 sections – General Awareness (30 questions), Mathematical and Logical Reasoning (35 questions) and English (30 questions). There were 95 questions for 100 marks. There was no negative marking. The overall difficulty level of the exam was almost the same as that of last year. Section Subject Area No. of Questions Marks Section I General Awareness 30 30 Section II Mathematical & Logical Reasoning 35 35 Section III English 30 35 The analysis of each of the sections (based on some students’ reports) is as given below. Section I: General Awareness This section comprised 30 questions, each carrying 1 mark. Out of the 30 questions, there were only 2 questions based on current affairs. There were around 11 questions on international static affairs and 19 related to national ones. About 11 questions were easy, 7 were medium and 12 difficult. A score of 15+ would be a good benchmark. Attempting all GA questions would not have taken more than 1520 minutes. Section II: Mathematical and Logical Reasoning Like last year, a lot of questions were based on modern math and arithmetic. The questions on arithmetic were by and large easy and should have all been attempted. There were no questions based on word problems or BODMAS. One question on mensuration was bit tricky. There were 5 LR questions and all of them were based on number series. All the questions were very easy. Though most of the questions were sitters, students not comfortable with mathematics would have found a few of the questions on modern math and geometry slightly tricky and therefore these have been classified as having a ‘medium’ level of difficulty. It would have been better for such students to select the right questions in a judicious manner. The breakup of the questions was as follows: Area Numbers (3) Arithmetic (11) Geometry (6) Modern Math(8) Logical Reasoning (5) Syllogisms (2) Topic and Qs. Simple Number Questions (3) Ratio proportion (2), Time and Work (3), TSD(3), CI SI (3) Geometry(3), Mensuration(3) Permutations and Combinations (4), Set Theory (4) Number Series (2) Simple Syllogisms (2) Level of Difficulty Easy Easy-Medium Medium Easy-Medium Easy Easy-Medium By allotting 35 minutes to this area, one should have ideally solved at least 30 questions correctly and marked the answers to the remaining, as there was no negative marking. Section III: English This section comprised 30 questions, out of which the 5 reading comprehension questions carried 2 marks each. There were 5 analogies, 5 single fill in the blanks, 5 double fill in the blanks, 5 questions on choosing the inappropriate word for the context and 5 jumbled paragraphs. Out of the 5 reading comprehension questions, 4 were of a medium level as at least two options were quite close. 1 question was very easy. The passage was about 600 words long and dealt with ‘women emancipation’. Most of the questions in this section were of an easy to moderate level. A good score for this section would be 28+. A serious aspirant would be able to tackle all questions within 3035 minutes. Topics Reading Comprehension (1 passage) Fill in the Blanks (double blanks) Fill in the Blanks (single blank) Jumbled Paragraphs Inappropriate Word Analogies No. of Qs. 5 5 5 5 5 5 Level of Difficulty 1 Easy, 4 Moderate Mostly moderate (a bit time-consuming) Easy - Moderate Mostly moderate (time consuming) 4 Easy – Moderate, 1 Difficult 3 Easy, 2 Moderate Overall, the cutoff for M.A. (HRM), for general category students is expected to be 76 – 78 marks.