IRMA is not known to give too many surprises and this year's paper was no different. In fact, if anything, the predictability of the paper has gone up considerably and hence students who have written this exam after going through the replica of IRMA paper given by T.I.M.E. would have found this very comfortable to attempt.

The paper consisted of 200 questions and the time allotted for the same was 2 hours. As usual, there were 5 choices for each question - with 1 mark for every correct answer and -1/4 mark for every wrong answer.

The paper pattern is as follows:

An ideal number of attempts in this paper would have been close to 135+ questions.

Expected Cutoffs

Section I  -  18-20
Section II  - 18-20
Section III - 18-20
Section IV - 20+

Overall Cutoff - 85+ for a call from IRMA

Analysis of Sections


Section-I

This section was the easiest section in the entire paper. This consisted of Reading Comprehension (2 passages - including questions on Synonyms and Antonyms), Fill-in-the-Blanks and Cloze passage. In Reading Comprehension, questions followed only at the end of both the passages. Students need not have read both the passages first before attempting the questions. A better approach could have been to read the first passage, attempt questions related to it, then move to the second passage and attempt questions related to it. The fill-in-the-blank and cloze passage questions required the student to know the correct usage of words which are in vogue and would have been very easy for a good student of English. A good student would have attempted almost all the questions in about 25 minutes and got a score of 20+.

Section-II

This section had questions on DI and DS along with the normal problem solving questions. Most of the questions in this section can be termed to be of easy to average level of difficulty. A good student would have attempted 30 plus questions in 40 minutes and could have got a score of 20+.

Section-III

Reasoning section has the usual controversial questions on Strong Argument/Weak Argument along with questions in Inferences, Data Interpretation and Data Sufficiency in reasoning. This section had a lot of attemptable/solvable questions and the only constraint in getting marks in this section would be the time available. By allotting close to 40 minutes, a good student would have attempted 30 plus questions getting a net score of at least 18-20.

Section IV

Issues of social concern, is a section which is unique to IRMA. This time too the paper has questions ranging from all areas of social concern. As expected, many students have struggled to attempt about 35 questions. A good score would be anything more than 20 net.

Click here to see IRMA 2003 Analysis