MAH MBA CET common mistakes
MAH MBA CET · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
In seating-arrangement and floor-based puzzles, locks onto the first arrangement that satisfies all the clues and answers every sub-question from it, never re-testing whether a second valid arrangement exists.
The first layout that fits feels like confirmation, and redrawing the whole diagram mid-set feels like throwing away work. CET puzzle sets frequently carry one clue that is only partly used, leaving genuine ambiguity that the candidate never notices.
What to do instead
Before answering, check which clues were never actually needed. Any clue still doing no work signals an unresolved branch: build the alternative placement, mark free slots with a question mark, and test each option against both layouts before committing.
Burns eight to ten minutes on a single logical-reasoning set while three short, independent questions later in the section stay untouched.
Sunk-cost pressure: the diagram is half built, so leaving feels like a loss. Candidates also over-estimate how close they are to a solution and under-estimate how cheaply other questions could be scored.
What to do instead
Apply a two-minute checkpoint. If the diagram has not started collapsing by then, mark the set and move on. Clear every single-step question in the section first, then return with whatever time remains. Five easy marks outweigh one hard puzzle.
Solves figure-series questions by staring at the whole sequence and hunting for one overall pattern, instead of comparing figure one with figure two and extracting one transformation at a time.
Whole-sequence scanning is how the eye naturally works, and it occasionally pays off, which reinforces the habit. But series in this exam usually stack two or three simple rules, which are invisible when you look at the sequence as a single picture.
What to do instead
Compare only consecutive pairs and state the rule in words before touching the options, for example: outer shape rotates ninety degrees clockwise, inner dot count increases by one, shading alternates. Then verify that written rule against the next pair before choosing.
Answers odd-one-out and analogy items by overall visual dissimilarity, choosing the figure that simply looks different rather than the one that breaks a named property.
Abstract figures invite impressionistic judgement, and one option is usually drawn to look conspicuously unusual. That decoy is a surface distraction, not the property the setter encoded.
What to do instead
List candidate properties explicitly: number of sides, number of closed regions, axis of symmetry, presence of a curve, shaded fraction, rotation of an inner element. Test each property across all five options. The correct answer differs on exactly one listed property and matches on the rest.
Performs full long multiplication and division on every arithmetic question, including ones where the four options are separated by fifteen per cent or more.
School arithmetic habits die hard, and exact computation feels safer than estimation. The result is that easy marks cost three times the time they should, and the slow questions at the end of the section are never reached.
What to do instead
Read the option spread before computing. If the options differ widely, round the inputs to two significant figures and estimate. Reserve exact work for questions where two options sit within a few per cent of each other, and for questions asking for an exact remainder or digit sum.
Treats successive percentage changes as additive, writing twenty per cent then thirty per cent as a fifty per cent rise, and answers 'B is twenty-five per cent less than A' when told 'A is twenty-five per cent more than B'.
Every percentage has a base, and the base silently changes halfway through the sentence. In a timed paper the eye grabs the numbers and skips the preposition that identifies the base.
What to do instead
Write the base down explicitly before calculating, and convert every change into a multiplier: a twenty-five per cent increase is times one point two five, and the reverse move is divide by one point two five, not multiply by zero point seven five. For two successive changes, multiply the factors rather than adding the percentages.
Builds a full algebraic equation for every word problem, even when the answer options could simply be substituted back into the question in one line each.
Equation-building is taught as the respectable method, while back-substitution is treated as a shortcut for weaker students. Under time pressure the reverse is true: substitution is faster, self-checking, and immune to algebra slips.
What to do instead
Before writing variables, ask whether the options are concrete numbers. If they are, test the middle value first, then move up or down depending on whether the result is too large or too small. Options that fail a simple condition, such as a whole number of items, can be eliminated without any calculation.
Reads the questions first, then scans the passage for the line that matches, and picks the option that reuses the passage's own vocabulary.
Word-matching feels like evidence, and distractors are deliberately built to repeat the passage's phrasing while inverting its logic. Fragment-reading also destroys the argument structure that inference and tone questions depend on.
What to do instead
Read the passage once, end to end, tracking what the author claims and what he or she concedes. Predict the answer in your own words before opening the options, then choose the paraphrase rather than the echo. Any option that lifts a phrase verbatim deserves extra suspicion.
Marks an inference answer that merely restates an explicit line, or one that requires outside knowledge the passage never supplies.
Both feel correct because both are true in a loose sense. The difference between stated, implied and assumed is not visible unless the candidate consciously classifies the question stem before answering.
What to do instead
Label the stem first: stated, inferred, tone, or purpose. For an inference, apply the denial test, asking whether the author could consistently deny the option. If the author could deny it, it is not an inference. For outside-knowledge options, check that the passage itself supplies the link.
Orders a para-jumble by topic, placing a sentence that begins 'This shift in policy...' ahead of the sentence containing the policy it refers to.
Jumbled sentences on the same theme all feel interchangeable, so candidates chain them by subject matter. Cohesion, however, is carried by grammar and connectives, which the eye skips when reading for meaning.
What to do instead
Build the chain on structural signals: pronouns and demonstratives must follow their antecedents, connectors such as however and therefore constrain order, and the opening sentence is usually general and definitional with no backward reference. Confirm the candidate order by reading the reconstructed paragraph aloud in your head.