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DU JAT 2020: JAT Toppers Address Aspirants' Queries
Updated: Jun 28, 2020
Some of the blog aspirants mentioned that they are preparing for the DU JAT 2020 exam and are looking for some tips and suggestions on how to prepare for it. So, I'll be sharing two separate posts by JAT Toppers in which they address the common queries of the aspirants.
This is the first post of that series in which the following JAT toppers have expressed their opinions:
Prabal Gupta (DU-JAT’17 AIR-1, SSCBS, CAT’19 99.98, IIM-C’22)
Satviek Goel (DU-JAT’17 AIR-3, SSCBS, CAT’19 99.65, IIM-L’22)
Divya Vaid (DU-JAT’17 AIR 37, SSCBS, CAT’19 99.27, IIM-A’22)
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DU JAT Queries
What’s the exam pattern like?
Prabal: The DU JAT is computer based test consisting of 100 questions divided into 4 parts consisting of 25 questions each:
Quantitative Ability
Reasoning & Analytical Ability
General English
General & Business Awareness
The exam is to be completed within 2 hours (120 minutes) and the questions generally come in an assorted manner. You get +4 for every correct answer and -1 for every incorrect answer. There's no negative marking for unattempted question and there's no sectional cutoff as well. The test is conducted by NTA across various cities in India.
What kind of books to refer?
Satviek: I joined coaching and the material provided by the institute was enough to practice and get a good score. The material provided by other coaching institute should be good enough as well.
In addition you can go for Word Power made easy by Norman Lewis for VARC, and for Business and General Awareness it's recommended to read newspapers like The Hindu, Mint etc. for a period of 6-8 months leading up to the exam. Manorma Year Book and other General Awareness books can be consulted for GK Preparation.
Divya: I had also joined coaching after my boards and only referred to the material given by my institute and I found it sufficient. There are various books available for DU-JAT preparations by publishing houses like Arihant, there is also a general knowledge books by the same publishing house.
However, in the last few days before the exam one should just focus on giving as many mocks as possible, past year papers (with solutions) are easily available on the internet. Sample papers would also be freely available which would cover business and current news from 2020.They give one a fair idea of the kind of questions and how to manage time.
How to prepare for the exam?
Prabal: Aim for as much practice as possible. Give a lot of mock tests and past year papers to get the hang of it. Also try and identify your stronger areas, do not attempt questions you are not confident about. Mocks will help you improve you speed and accuracy both.
Satviek: My advice to the JAT aspirants would be give a sufficient number of mocks, which would help them identify their strengths and weakness. Start from the area/section you are most comfortable with for example it was QA/LR in my case. After that work your way up to improving on your weak areas. The key to QA/LR is to practice regularly and build up on your concepts. VA would require you to inculcate a reading habit and GK/BA can be aced by being aware of the business/general in the last 6-8 months leading up to JAT.
What’s the difficulty like?
Satviek: Questions on QA will be based on Mathematics studied till Class 12 and can be easily attempted with speed provided you've prepared for them in advance of the test. Reasoning and Verbal Ability would require constant practice in order to build up your pace leading upto the exam.
For business and general Awareness, special focus should be on the international organizations (HQ, Head etc.), awards and ceremonies, and business deals struck within the last 6-8 months.
Divya: The syllabus would not be beyond what has been covered till 12th. A few important topics for Quantitative Ability are- Numbers, fractions and decimals, ratio & proportion, percentage, profit and loss, simple interest- compound interest. General English has comprehension passages, questions on synonyms-antonyms, fill in the blanks, and the like. Few topics of Reasoning and Analytical Ability are verbal analogy, numeric and alphabetical series, blood relations, direction sense, missing characters, puzzles, non-verbal reasoning, etc.
The PR Cell of SSCBS has been posting sample questions from their Instagram handle for the past few days, that would give you an idea about the difficulty level, you can access them here.
How to attempt the exam? Anything to be prioritized?
Prabal: There is sufficient time given so go through all questions and attempt everything you can in a reasonable manner. I went with the order of the question paper, attempting each question I knew or could figure out and leaving rest for the end.
Satviek: Since every question has an equal weightage you should first attempt the questions are you're confident of solving within a minute (5-6 minutes in case of RC or a logical reasoning question). After that you should move on to questions where you are confident of getting a correct answer within 1.5-2 minutes.
JAT is quite easy if one uses a structured approach. The key is to have a proper time management plan in place attempt the easy questions first, leave the ones you find tricky, have >80% accuracy and above all don't panic in any case, I remember my system shutting down 15 minutes in to the test. Have proper sleep before the test date, go in to the test with a calm mind and clearing JAT shouldn't be an issue.
Divya: So DU-JAT is not as difficult as it may seem to you right now, the questions would not be beyond what you have studied in school. However, time is of essence as you have to do 100 questions in 2 hrs.
You could also decide a strategy for yourself based on the mocks you attempt, there is usually no sectional time limit so you can use the time you save in one to attempt questions from other sections which take longer. You could begin the paper with the section you are stronger in, for me it was English and I managed to save some time in it and give more time to QA. The GA section usually takes the least time (10-15 minutes) as you either know the answer as soon as you read the question or you don’t, and so I had attempted the GA section at the end. DO NOT GUESS IN GA, it is better to leave questions than getting them wrong.
Who should be taking this exam? An ideal candidate should aim for what?
Satviek: DU JAT is conducted for admissions into BMS (Bachelor of Management Studies) /BBA (FIA) (Bachelor of Business Administration- Financial Investment and Analysis)/ BBE (Bachelor of Business Economics) courses of University of Delhi. Thus candidates who are interested in learning more about business administration, financial management, and economics In their undergrad should give the test. Anyone from any stream in class 12th can appear it, the only requirement is that you should have studied English and Mathematics at the +2 level in order to be eligible for the exam.
You'd study various concepts in the field of finance, marketing, human resources, statistics, economics, management of global business under these courses. You can check out the syllabus on the University of Delhi Website.
You have to understand that you'll be judged on a relative basis and not an absolute one. So there's no ideal score for a candidate. The focus instead should be on attempting as many questions correctly as you can. Since there's negative marking it's not recommended that you attempt questions just for the sake of maximizing the attempted questions.
Few top colleges for BMS/BBA(FIA)/BBE are:-
Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies
Deen Dayal Upadhyay College
Keshav Mahavidyalaya
Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce
Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Khalsa College
Ramanujan College
For getting admission into Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies (SSCBS), a rank below 150 should suffice for General Category students, the merit list is prepared on the basis of your 12th percentage (best of four), which has 35% weightage and marks in DU-JAT, having 65% weightage.
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The first thing I'd like to say is a big thank you to Prabal, Satviek and Divya for contributing to the blog and helping out the JAT aspirants. Secondly, I'd like to apologize to the JAT aspirants who were awaiting this post since a long time.
I sincerely hope that the insights shared by Prabal, Satviek and Divya help all the JAT aspirants. I will soon be sharing another post in this regard so that you have multiple perspectives to take away for the exam.
Wish you all the best!