SNAP 2016 exam was conducted on 18th December, 2016 (2.00-4.00 pm). The paper was slightly different from the previous year’s papers. For starters, General Knowledge became Current Affairs which led to a drastic decrease in the level of difficulty. Last year, the GK section was tough. This year’s Current Affairs section was easy as majority of the questions were from areas any well-informed student would be aware of. The English section was easier than that of last year with a plethora of sitters . The overall difficulty level of the paper, however, was moderate to difficult. A well-prepared student would be able to attempt about 95-100 questions (including about 15-20 questions from Current Affairs) . In comparison to last year, the Quantitative Aptitude section was on the tougher side while the reasoning section continued to be difficult.
The analysis of individual sections is given below.
The detailed break-up of the section is given as follows:
| Topic | Number of questions | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Reading Comprehension (Two passages) | 11 (6 + 5) | Easy |
| Para Jumble (Six sentence and five sentence) | 3 (2 +1) | Easy- Moderate |
| Verbal Analogy | 3 | Moderate |
| Foreign phrase | 1 | Easy |
| One word substitution | 1 | Moderate |
| Idioms | 2 | Moderate |
| FIB - Vocabulary based | 2 | Moderate |
| FIB - Grammar based | 4 | Easy |
| Synonym | 3 | Easy - Moderate |
| Antonym | 3 | Easy - Moderate |
| Common Confusable | 4 | Easy - Moderate |
| Identify figure of speech | 1 | Difficult |
Critical Reasoning |
2 | Easy |
Unlike last year, this year’s paper was much more balanced. There were the usual vocabulary based questions which were quite easy to attempt. 3 questions of vocabulary used the same words as that in the IIFT paper. They asked to find two answers for a few vocabulary questions which is similar to the GRE pattern. Sentence Correction was a surprise miss this year. So were the figure of speech questions. There was only one question which asked the candidate to identify the type of the word used. There were two RC passages and all but one of the 11 questions asked were factual in nature. The options were straight forward and easy to select. The two passages came from the areas of Fuel Conservation Technology and Brexit issue respectively. They were lengthy but easy to read. There were two six-sentence para-jumble questions and they were tedious to read. However, the options were not close. The idioms and migratory word questions were quite easy. Three vocabulary questions contained words which had already appeared in IIFT this year. One common confusable question came from CAT 2007 paper. The analogy and CR questions were very easy. Overall, a student should have attempted 35-37 questions in this section with 90% accuracy. One should have taken 22-25 minutes in this section.
The detailed break-up of the section is given as follows:
| Topic | Number of questions | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Percentages, SICI | 1 | Easy - Moderate |
| P&L | 3 | Easy - Moderate |
| TSD, Work | 5 | Easy - Moderate |
| Averages | 1 | Easy |
| Number System | 7 | Easy - Moderate |
| Algebra | 4 | Easy - Moderate |
| Logarithm | 1 | Easy - Moderate |
| Geometry, Mensuration | 7 | Moderate -Difficult |
| P&C | 2 | Moderate |
| Probability | 2 | Easy - Moderate |
| Set Theory | 1 | Moderate |
| DI-Pie Chart | 3 | Easy |
| Table | 3 | Easy - Moderate |
The difficulty level of this section went up considerably compared to that of the last year. Overall, the difficulty of the section was moderate. There were 4-5 questions that were lengthy to read. Questions from Number System, Arithmetic and Algebra dominated the paper. There were a significant number of questions from Modern Math. Though data provided for a couple of questions were not adequate to find the required quantity, there were no such options like ‘Data inadequate’ and ‘Cannot be determined’ in these questions. A student would have done well to attempt all the DI questions. Thus, those questions can be considered as erroneous ones. An attempt of 25-27 with 85% accuracy should fetch a good score in this section.
This section had 5-6 questions that could be put in Quantitative Aptitude section as well. There was surprising no case-let based set in the section. Almost all the typical areas of the Reasoning section were present with the special focus on mathematic based and series questions. The detailed break-up of the section is given as follows:
| Topic | Number of questions | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Blood Relation-Tree Based | 2 | Easy - Moderate |
| Coding-decoding | 1 | Easy |
| Series | 8 | Difficult |
| Seating Arrangement | 2 | Moderate |
| Distribution | 1 | Moderate |
| Mathematical | 11 | Moderate - Difficult |
| CR | 2 | Difficult |
| Puzzles | 1 | Moderate - Difficult |
| Visual Reasoning | 5 | Difficult |
| Input-output | 4 | Easy |
| Clock | 1 | Moderate |
| Calendar | 1 | Moderate |
| Venn diagram | 1 | Moderate |
There were a significant number of questions from Visual Reasoning. To solve a couple questions in the section, one needed to have some factual information. The questions based on series and visual reasoning were quite difficult. An attempt of 24-26 and a score of around 20 can be considered a good score.
The biggest difference in the paper this year was in this section. As announced earlier there were only Current Affairs questions in this section. Most of it was from 2016 with a few of last year as well. The detailed break-up of the section is given as follows:
| Topic | Number of questions | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Persons | 8 | Easy - Moderate |
| Business Awareness | 6 | Easy - Moderate |
| Sports | 5 | Easy - Moderate |
| Current affairs- Science &technology | 4 | Easy - Moderate |
| Current affairs-Awards | 3 | Easy - Moderate |
| Government Programmes/Operations | 2 | Easy - Moderate |
| Current affairs-Geography | 1 | Easy |
| Current affairs-Miscellaneous GK | 1 | Easy |
This section was a good mix of all the areas of Current Affairs(Persons, Business Awareness, Sports, Science &technology, Awards, Government Programmes/Operations, Current affairs-Geography and Miscellaneous GK ).