NMAT Exam Pattern - Complete Details

NMAT is one of the most eminent MBA entrance exams for admission into one of the most prestigious B- schools in the country-  Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) Mumbai. GMAC conducts this exam every year in the form of an online-based test. However, this year, GMAC has come up with significant changes in the exam pattern and the NMAT Exam Format. So, in this article, we are going to apprise you of the NMAT exam pattern changes.

NMAT Exam Pattern

Changes in the NMAT Exam Pattern:

Before we get into the details of the changes in the NMAT Exam Pattern, and while NMAT syllabus 2021 stays the same, here are the key highlights of the major changes in this year's exam pattern and the NMAT Exam Format:

1. The most significant change this year is that the NMAT 2021 will be a computerized adaptive test.
2. The total number of questions has been reduced from 120 to 108.
3. The sectional timings have changed as well as the overall time is increased by 2 minutes.
4. The result of the exam will be received within 48 hours of the exam.

NMAT Exam Format – Adaptive Test Pattern in NMAT 2021:

So, let us know what exactly is this Adaptive test pattern that NMAT has come up with. According to GMAC, "Questions in the NMAT exam are selected from the question pool for each examinee based on his or her performance on the questions previously answered. The questions a candidate receives are targeted at his or her ability level; therefore, a high-scoring candidate generally receives a more difficult sample of questions than a low-scoring candidate".

In simpler terms, if the question is attempted correctly, the questions in the future will progress in an increasing level of difficulty and if attempted incorrectly, the future questions will be easier ones. For e.g. If two candidates say A and B attempt a question X, where A attempts it correct and B attempts it wrong, the next question will be an easier one for B and a difficult one for A as compared to question X. Also, during the test, you cannot go back to the previous question and cannot go ahead without answering the current question.

How the scoring will be done?

There will be a score range of 12-120 for each section and a range of 36-360 for the overall exam. Clearly, the NMAT exam is scored by first obtaining the candidate's final ability estimate based on the probabilistic model approach of modern exam theory, and then transformed to a scaled score ranging from 12 to 120.

Hence, we can say, that the candidate who gets more difficult questions correct, will score higher than a candidate who gets more number of easier questions correct.

Other Important Changes

Apart from the adaptive test pattern, the other significant changes this year in the NMAT exam pattern and NMAT Exam Format are:-

New NMAT Exam Format

The number of questions has been reduced to 108 from 120 with 36 questions in each section. The time duration for the overall exam has increased by 2 minutes wherein the sectional time in the quantitative aptitude section is reduced and the sectional time in the reasoning and English section has increased.

• The result of the exam will be received within 48 hours of the exam as compared to 2-3 weeks in the earlier pattern. You have three attempts for the exam which you can opt for within a 75-day window.
• There is no negative marking in NMAT.