1. How should an IPMAT Aspirant prepare for the examination?
2. How to prepare for the Quantitative Aptitude section of the IPMAT examination?
3. How to prepare for the Verbal Ability section of the IPMAT Examination?
4. IPMAT Mock tests - How many should I take? What's the importance of Mock tests? And more..

Let's just straight into the preparation process. Students preparing for the examination often discount the importance of understanding what the exam pattern is, how difficult are the questions, what should your strategy be? 90% of students that we interact with don't have any idea as to how many questions are tested, what are the exam's portions, how many questions are to be attempted, how important the skill of "skipping questions" is, whether there is negative marking, etc.

The IPMAT is wildly different from board examination preparation in the sense that the best approach to attend your board exams cannot be applied to your IPMAT examination. Board exam tests one subject in 3 hours, IPMAT tests around 35 different topics (across English and Mathematics) over 2 hours.

Let's break down the IPMAT examination into individual sections and simplify the preparation process. Let's start with the Quantitative Aptitude section. Quantitative Aptitude is the only section in which you can certain things to see a direct tangible improvement in your scores. This is also where the portion is vast, so more than 50% of your preparation time will be spent in this section. Quant preparation is a fairly straight forward 3-step process - But let's first look at what the portion is for this section.

What's tested in the Quantitative Aptitude Section of the IPMAT?

Topic Segment	IPMAT Syllabus - Key topics tested
Number Theory and Modern Math	Factors, Factorials, Digits, Reminders, HCF & LCM, Set Theory, Logarithm, Permutation and Combination, Probability.
Algebra	Linear and Quadratic Equations, Roots, Surds, & Indices, Polynomials Inequalities, Functions, Arithematic & Geometric Progression, Algebraic Formulae
Arithmetic	Percentages, Profit & Loss, Simple Interest & Compound Interest, Averages, Ratio & Proportion, Mixtures, Speed, Time, & Distance, Races, Work & Time, Partnerships
Geometry	Lines, Angles, Triangles, Circles, Polygons, Quadrilaterals, Mensuration, Co-ordinate Geometry, Trigonometry

Extra topics tested in IPMAT Indore Syllabus

Apart from what is listed above, IPM Indore will test a couple of question templates that aren't tested in IPMAT Rohtak - Those would be Matrices and Determinants & Data Interpretation.

Learning from basics - Theory & Application of Formulas

Now that you know what you're getting into, with regard to your IPMAT preparation, the first step is to start from the basics of every topic. Learn every bit of theory patiently and understand the formulas. Understanding theory works best if you pair it up with application of formulas in questions. After all, what does it matter if you know the formulas but are unable to solve questions?

In this stage, you're just practicing questions to get more comfortable with the topic. Don't consider how fast you're able to solve - Just focus on making sure that you're getting the answers in the end by properly understanding the basics & applying them in your questions. Doing this consecutively for all topics tested in IPMAT is going to assure that your comfort level with the IPMAT portion is high!

Pracing a TON of questions!

Simultaneously, as you're completing the portion - Take up topics you've already covered and solve more IPMAT level questions. At this stage, while you practice questions, make sure that you time yourself. Because you're looking to improve two very important metrics - Speed & Accuracy. Knowing how many questions you're able to solve.

There are going to be 15 to 20 different question templates that could be tested from each topic in the IPMAT - If you practice to the tune of 50-100 questions per topic, you're bound to cover most question templates tested in the examination. This process will ensure that you are able to find the right questions to solve in a time-bound test & are also able to maximize accuracy.

Taking Mock tests to get exam ready

After all of this, if at the end of the day, you don't take mock tests to get yourself exam ready, you won't be able to score to the max of your potential. When you take mock tests that mimic the question difficulty and the exam pattern as seen in the actual exam, you train yourself to strategize optimally for the IPMAT examination.

For example, in the examination, you might find a beautiful question from Speed, Time, and Distances - This is from a very simple topic, and you might have spent a lot of time practicing questions from this topic. But if this is a question that's bound to take 4-5 minutes to solve via trial and error, then the best thing to do is to skip it and find 3 or 4 easier questions to solve in the same time. Doing this will fetch you 15+ marks more.

But this is not a skill that will come naturally to you - You have been trained over 12 years to attempt for 100 marks in the examination. Only if you make this mistake in a mock test, will you NOT make this mistake in the actual IPMAT. This is why mock taking is very vital!

Moving on to Verbal Ability section, the portion is defined well - and they have stuck with certain question templates for a long time. However, to get to the answer to any question, there isn't any formula, which makes preparing for the Verbal Ability section of the IPMAT pretty tricky. But let's first start with what gets tested.

What's tested in the Verbal Ability Section of the IPMAT?

Topic Segment	IPMAT Syllabus - Key topics tested
Reading Comprehension	1 or 2 passages in English, followed by 4 to 6 questions each.
Verbal Ability	Paragraph Completion, Para Jumble (Sentence re-arrangement), Inference-based passages
Grammar & Vocabulary	Word Usage, Vocabulary, Fill in the blanks, Etymology, Idioms & Phrases, Analogies, Antonyms-Synonyms
Sentence Correction	Subject-Verb Agreement, Noun and Pronoun Errors, Preposition and Conjunctions, Tenses, Modifier Errors, Parallelism, etc

Understanding the question templates - How does one approach them?

There are a standard set of question templates that get tested in this exam - most of which revolve around your comprehension abilities - i.e. Are you able to understand what you read, and more importantly, are you able to extrapolate the ideas in passages and paragraphs into the questions that follow?

Because of this, there is a little bit of theory for every topic that helps you find the best approach to solving a question. This will help you improve your comfort level with different question templates.

The importance of building a good reading habit.

One of the most pivotal parts of your preparation for the Verbal Ability section is to "build a good reading habit". This helps you comprehend what you read quickly without much mental effort - And this will drastically increase your efficiency in the Verbal Ability section since, as mentioned before, this exam will test your ability to understand what you read and extrapolate those ideas into the questions asked. We at 2IIM have made it a point to share reading articles on a daily basis to all aspirants - You can access this reading list here - Bharath's Curated Reading List

Mock tests & Analysis - Picking the right questions

The IPMAT Examination is as much a test of your ability to strategize as your ability in solving math and english questions. Out of around 18,000 students that take the exam, handful of students might be able to attempt 40 questions in 40 minutes. If you're not one of them, you should build a good strategy when it comes to the VA section. This involves figuring out the answer to questions like
1. Am I going to sit for the Reading Comprehension Question at the start of the section or do I want to start off on something else?
2. Which are the question templates where my accuracy is the highest?
3. Which topics are just not my cup of tea?, etc

It takes a few mock tests to understand your strengths, weaknesses, and preferences. So make sure to take at least a few mock tests to give a finishing touch to your IPMAT Preparation.

This is a section tested ONLY in the IIM Rohtak's IPM Examination. This constitutes exaclty 1/3rd of the question paper - with 40 questions to be answered in 40 minutes.

What's tested in the Verbal Ability Section of the IPMAT?

The portion is a bit vague - Anything that can be considered as a puzzle can be added into this section. However, based on the past year papers - here's a rough list of what can be tested from this section in the examination.

Logical Reasoning - Topic Segment	IPMAT Syllabus - Key topics tested
Basic LR	Logical Sequence Series, Coding, Arrangements Blood Relations, Input & Output, Binary Logic
Standard LR Sets	Games and Tournaments, Cubes and Visual Puzzles, Word Problems, Sequencing, Grid Puzzles, Linear and Circular Seating Arrangements, etc
Visual Puzzles	Cubes and Dices, Venn Diagrams
Sentence Correction	Critical Reasoning, Statements and Conclusions, Syllogisms, True or False, etc.

Getting comfortable with the portion

You first need to be comfortable with what kind of questions get tested so that you can get answers to questions like - What is the usual starting point of this question template, How to I approach this puzzle template?, etc.

Practice makes perfect

Make it a point to regularly solve puzzles so that you get better and better at finding the right methodology of approaching a problem. With practice, you will find ways to mechanically solve puzzles in a template that you're already comfortalbe with.

Getting better at puzzle solving

When it comes to solving puzzles, even solving puzzles like Sudoku, 2048, etc will help you get that much better at demystifying that part of the puzzle that will help you solve a couple questions in the set. So make it a point to kill some free time by solving puzzles along the lines of Sudoku or 2048 - All of which will be freely available on Google Play or the App store.

Set/Question Selection

Of the 40 questions, 10-12 questions come in pairs - This means that there is common information for two questions back to back. This means that you get a little more information to decode in the set, but you get a chance to solve 2 questions at once.
Are you the kind of student that is able to quickly knock off the two question sets?
Do you waste too much time for the 8 marks you tend to get from solving one set? Do you feel like it's not worth the tradeoff?
Know answers to these questions by solving a few mock tests & analyzing your performance.