MANAGEMENT APTITUDE TEST (MAT)

INTRODUCTION

Since 1988, All India Management Aptitude Testing Service (AIMATS), New Delhi conducts a Management Aptitude Test (MAT) on a national basis every year in the months of September, December, February and May. The Government of India has approved MAT as a National Entrance Test for admission to MBA and equivalent programmes. Institutes offering recognised PG programmes in management and allied fields can participate in MAT. MAT is necessary for admission into the Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM), Post Graduate Diploma in Information Technology & Management (PGDITM) and equivalent programmes offered by All India Management Association (AIMA-CME) or other Management Institutes (MI). Centre for Management Education (CME), the education wing of AIMA, was established in 1993 as a full-fledged autonomous business school. All management institutes that participate in MAT are either AICTE (All Indian Council for Technical Education) approved or affiliated to universities.

AIMA-CME offers various programmes to suit the requirements at different levels of management. They are Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM), Post Graduate Diploma in Information Technology & Management (PGDITM) (MAT is necessary for admission to both the programmes). Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) offers specializations in Insurance Management, HR, Finance, Marketing, Operations, and International Business. PGDITM offers three specializations including IT Marketing, E-Commerce, Information Systems Management.

Other programmes offered by AIMA-CME include Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA), One-year Professional Diploma Programmes (PDs), Advanced Diploma Programmes (ADPs) and shorter duration Advanced Diploma Programmes in IT (ADPs).

ELIGIBILITY

The minimum qualification for appearing in MAT is graduation in any discipline from any recognised University or equivalent. A final year student in any undergraduate (i.e. B.A, B.Sc., B.Com., B.Tech., etc.)  can also apply.

Usually, there is a minimum percentage requirement in graduation which is different for different management institutes and universities. However, there is no restriction regarding percentages for taking the MAT test, no age bar and no experience required.

EXAMINATION

MAT is usually conducted 4 times in a year. i.e  in January, May, September and December,  in all major cities in the country and in about 12 leading cities abroad. For further clarification, see the MAT bulletin or contact the information centre at 

All India Management Association, Management House, 

14, Institutional Area, Lodi Road, New Delhi 110003.
Phones: (011) 24617354 (4 Lines), 24618107, 24618127
Fax: 24626689
PAN No : AAATA1644A . 

Activation of specific test centres is subject to registration of sufficient candidates. 

The two and half hour test usually comprise of Language comprehension, mathematical skills, data analysis & sufficiency, intelligence & critical reasoning and Indian & global environment.

The validity of the MAT score is for that particular session for most management institutes, but for AIMA Centre for Management Education (CME) postgraduate programmes, the score is valid for one year.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

Admission criteria for every institute  is different. The list of various MI's / Universities is available in MAT bulletin, along with their admission notification.

MAT Bulletin with application form can be obtained by post by sending a demand draft of requisite amount drawn in favour of AIMA-CMS payable at New Delhi with two self-addressed slips / adhesive stickers to

Assistant Director (CMS),
All India Management Association (AIMA),
Management House,
14 Institutional Area,
Lodhi Road,
New Delhi 110003.
Phone: 011-24617354 (4 lines), 24617355, 24618107 and 24618127).
website- www.aima-ind.org 

It can also be obtained against cash payment of requisite amount at AIMA Counter in Delhi (Phone:011-24653382), AIMA Nodal Centres (E-mail: Contact Us ) and select ICICI Bank branches all over the country.

To receive MAT Bulletin and form abroad and/or to appear for MAT at test centres abroad, candidates have to pay a requisite amount of US dollar by demand draft in favour of AIMA-CMS payable at New Delhi.

The last date for submission is mentioned in the MAT bulletin. The last date also appears in the notifications released by AIMA in various national & regional newspapers. Usually it is a month before the test date. The application forms will be available from 2 months before the test date.

MANAGEMENT APTITUDE AND SKILLS TEST (MAST)

INTRODUCTION

Management Aptitude and Skills Test (MAST) is organised by All India Management Association (AIMA) for the graduates who are aspiring for the management courses. MAST is a computer based test which evaluates the basic skills required to become an effective manager and to become successful in corporate world. The objective of MAST is to identify potential managers who are capable of making a difference in the management of the organisation and create path that is good not only for them, but also for the society. MAST will be conducted for the first time on 20th February 2011 in major cities across India.

MAST would be beneficial for both the students and the recruiters. Through the test, the students will understand their requisite managerial skill set. It also evaluate their employability skills, support them in making right career choice and also reaching out to the recruiters at pan India level. 

Leading organisations recruit suitable candidates from across the B Schools which is a huge challenge in terms of time and money. Management Aptitude and Skills Test is designed in a special way, keeping the current industry trends and practices which would assist the recruitment process more smooth and efficient. Though the MAST, the corporate can gain the best for hiring of young fresh management talents. Deloitte, Dabur, Metlife India, Idea Cellular, Camlin Ltd., Alembic Ltd., HLL, Pfizer, Parle, PWC India, Mcafee, Nokia, Lenovo, JM Financial, Reliance Industries, Suzlon and TATA Communications are some of the major recruiters, who are willing to avail the services of MAST.

ELIGIBILITY

The minimum qualification for appearing in MAST is 2 year full time or 3 years part time Master of Business Administration (MBA)/ Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) or equivalent degree/ diploma in management from a recognized University or Institute. There is no minimum percentage requirement for taking up the test. Final year students are also eligible. Those who have passed the examination through 3 year distance learning programmes can also apply. The courses/ programmes having duration less than 2 year are not eligible.

There is no age bar. Job experience is not necessary.

EXAMINATION

Management Aptitude and Skills Test is a computer-based objective type test which evaluates some major tasks of the candidates like critical thinking; cross-functional competence; communication skills; key personality traits and cultural awareness; competence in their discipline and technological competence. The 2 hours 30 minutes MAST test is divided into three main sections namely - General Aptitude; Domain Knowledge and Psychometric or Personality Assessment. 

General Aptitude 
General ability test is designed to assess logical reasoning or thinking performance of the candidate. It also evaluates numerical ability, managerial ability, reasoning and English language. It consists of multiple choice questions and are administered under exam condition. Test result will be compared to that of a control group, so that judgments can be made about candidate's abilities.

Domain Knowledge
Domain knowledge test is designed to evaluate the knowledge of candidate in the area of specialization during their 2 year Management Programme. The assessment is done to understand student's ability to apply management practices in real life situations. The section includes multiple choice questions as well as case study based multiple choice questions in the areas of finance, human resource (HR), Information Technology (IT), International Business, Marketing and Operations. 

Psychometric or Personality Assessment
Personality assessments is used to assess a candidate's abilities, personality, motivation, values and interests under standardized conditions in line with a particular role. This helps the recruiter build an overall profile of the candidate and understand how the candidate would fit within their workplace. Personality traits that are most commonly held in high demand by recruiters would be tested. Traits like leadership quality, decision making ability, team work, adaptability, stress management, initiator, ethical values, negotiation skills and stability skills are evaluated.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

Candidates can register for MAST online at the AIMA website www.aima-ind.org along with the demand draft of a requisite amount in favour of "All India Management Association" Payable at New Delhi from any Bank. The demand draft / credit card must be ready before filling up the registration form.

On successful submission of online registration form, an auto-generated registration number is allotted to the candidate which will appear on print version of the registration form. This registration number has to be retained to use for :
i) Downloading of the candidates admit card
ii) Reprint of candidates registration form
iii) All future correspondences.

All provisionally registered candidates can download their admit card from AIMA website fifteen days before the date of test. No separate special card is issued. Also, activation of a test centre depends upon the minimum no of registration.

Test Centers

The test will be conducted in the major cities like Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi and NCR, Dehradun, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Patna. The number of cities can be more depending upon the student registration.

The score card is also put on the AIMA website and the candidates can download his /her score card with his registration form number and roll no.

The validity of MAST score is only for one year. 

The details provided by the candidate in the registration form and the score details based on the test will be furnished to potential recruiters.

COMMON MANAGEMENT ADMISSION TEST (CMAT)

Common Management Admission Test (CMAT) is a National level Management Entrance Examination conducted by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for facilitating institutions to select suitable students for admission in all management programmes approved by AICTE. AICTE's mission is to reduce the burden of students in attending to multiple examinations. CMAT is the only test for admission in MBA Programmes in AICTE approved institutions and University Departments of all the states and one of the five tests for PGDM programmes.

CMAT is conducted as online twice in a year in various cities and students can sit for both the exams. CMAT will be beneficial for the students because they can choose their best score while taking admission in any B school. 

ELIGIBILITY

Graduates in any discipline or Final year students of Graduate Courses can apply for CMAT. 

Note: The eligibility criteria for admission to Management programs (Diploma and Post  Graduation) is as mentioned below : 

• Management (PGDM, MBA and similar) : Recognized Bachelor’s Degree of minimum 3 Yrs duration Obtained at least 50% (45% in case of candidate belonging to reserved category) at the qualifying Examination
• Management (PGCM) : Recognized Bachelor’s Degree of minimum 3 Yrs duration 
• Management (Executive PGDM) : Any recognized Bachelors degree of minimum 3 years duration and a minimum of 5 years relevant managerial / supervisory experience. Obtained at least 50% (45% in case of candidate belonging to reserved category) at the qualifying Examination.

TEST PATTERN 

The online CMAT consists of 100 questions designed to test the applicants capabilities in the Quantitative Techniques & Data Interpretation; Logical Reasoning; Language Comprehension and General Awareness. Duration of exam will be 180 minute.

Structure of CMAT

Type of Question	Number of question	Maximum Mark
Quantitative Techniques & Data Interpretation	25	100
Logical Reasoning	25	100
Language Comprehension	25	100
General Awareness	25	100

There shall be negative marking for wrong answers, for each wrong answer 1 mark shall be deducted.

A Trial test will be available in the website for the candidates to have a feel of the online test and navigation functionality. Candidates are advised to go through them carefully to familiarize themselves with the screens, layout, and navigation.

At the test venue, each candidate will be seated at a desk with a computer terminal and he/she will be provided with a scratch paper for calculations. After the test, candidate must leave the scratch paper at the desk. Rough work cannot be done on any other paper/sheet, as nothing will be allowed inside the testing room. No breaks will be given during the test.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

The candidates must have the following ready before starting the CMAT registration process

• A Computer with good Internet connectivity so that there is no breakage of Internet during registration
• All your qualification details as you need to enter them while registering for CMAT exam
• You need to upload your scanned photo while registering, hence keep ready a scanned clear photo of yours taken on a white background. The size of this photo should be 140 x 160 (60Kb)
• You need to upload your scanned signature while registering, hence keep ready your scanned clear signature done on a white background. The size of this signature file should be 60 x 90 (30Kb)
• A Valid e-mail id which you will be using at least for the next 6 months. All communication will be done on this e-mail id which you will enter while registering for CMAT exam
• A Valid mobile number as all information via sms will be sent to this number
• A valid Credit / Debit card in case you want to pay ONLINE
• A Printer connected to your system as you will have to PRINT 3 copies of CHALLAN in case you are planning to pay by CASH at the bank

CMAT Registration

Registering for CMAT is a 3 Step process :

Step 1 : Read Instructions and Self Registration:
First time you will enter as NEW USER. Here you will read the instructions carefully, accept the declaration and proceed. Now you need to do Self Registration. Here you need to enter few basic details. Please ensure you enter the correct details on this Self Registration form and verify it before you click on SUBMIT button on this page. Once you SUBMIT this page, you cannot edit any data entered on this page. Submitting this page will generate a unique 6 digit password. This password will be shown on your screen and will be sent to you via e-mail and sms. From now onwards, whenever you wish to login to the registration portal, you will come as an EXISTING USER and login with your e-mail id and this unique 6 digit password. This completes your self registration

Step 2 : Payment Process
You can do the payment in either of the two modes mentioned below

Mode i) ONLINE PAYMENT
You can select ONLINE PAYMENT mode and then do the payment using Credit card / Debit card / Net Banking
Once your payment is successfully done, you will receive a confirmation e-mail and sms. Once you have received the successful payment confirmation, you can proceed with the remaining part of registration process

Mode ii) CASH Payment in SBI bank
You can select this option to pay by CASH at any of the designated SBI bank branch. Once you select this option and proceed, you will see a CHALLAN on your screen with your details already filled in it. You need to take 3 PRINT OUTS of this CHALLAN, fill in the details wherever required in all the copies, and walk in to your nearest SBI bank branch with CASH on the next day of generation of Challan. Cash Deposit will be accepted only from the next day of your Challan generation

In return to the CASH Deposit, the bank will give you one copy of CHALLAN with their stamp and a JOURNAL number written on it. Please ensure the JOURNAL number written is clearly visible before you leave the bank. Now that you have deposited the CASH and got the acknowledgement CHALLAN, you need to wait for 48 hours. In these 48 hours, your payment will get updated in the registration portal.

You will receive an e-mail and sms confirming that your payment data has got updated in the registration portal. Then you need to re login to the portal proceed with the remaining part of registration process

Step 3 : 
Now that you are done with the payment, you need to fill the remaining part of the form. Once you have filled the complete form, we suggest you once again check the complete data entered by clicking on VIEW/MODIFY button. Clicking on VIEW/MODIFY button will allow you to modify your data in case you want to modify 

Once you are sure that all the data entered is accurate, you will have to accept a declaration and click on I AGREE. The system will re-confirm to you for SUBMIT. Once you confirm, your form will get finally SUBMITTED and no change in the data is possible after this SUBMIT
You will see a message on your screen stating “Thank you for successfully registering for the AICTE CMAT exam.

Common Admission Test (CAT)

CAT (Common Admission Test) is conducted by IIMs (Indian Institute Of Managements) for its admission to Post Graduate (P.G) Programmes and Fellow Programmes. Candidates aspiring to get admission to the Indian Institutes of Managements need to appear for the Common Admission Test. Apart from the IIM's, various other Management Institutes use the CAT score for short listing the candidates. CAT is conducted once in a year usually in the month of October-November.

Programmes

Post Graduate Programmes in Management (PGP)

• IIM Ahmedabad PGP and PGP-ABM
• IIM Bangalore PGP, PGSEM and PGPPM
• IIM Calcutta PGP-PGDM and PGP-PGDCM
• IIM Indore PGP and EPGP
• IIM Kashipur PGP
• IIM Kozhikode PGP
• IIM Lucknow PGP and PGP-ABM
• IIM Raipur PGP
• IIM Ranchi PGDM and PGDHRM
• IIM Rohtak PGP
• RGIIM Shillong PGP
• IIM Tiruchirappalli PGP
• IIM Udaipur PGP

Fellow Programme in Management (FPM) [equivalent to Ph.D.] 

• IIM Ahmedabad
• IIM Bangalore
• IIM Calcutta
• IIM Indore
• IIM Kozhikode
• IIM Lucknow 
• IIM Raipur
• IIM Ranchi
• IIM Tiruchirappalli

Note: Separate advertisements will appear for the Fellow Programme of each institute as well as PGP-ABM of IIM Ahmedabad, PGSEM and PGPPM. Programmes of IIM Bangalore, PGDCM Programme of IIM Calcutta, EPGP of IIM Indore and PGDHRM of IIM Ranchi. See the CAT Bulletin for further information.

ELIGIBILITY

The candidate must hold a Bachelor’s Degree, with at least 50% marks or equivalent CGPA [45% in case of the candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Differently Abled (DA) (It may also referred to as Persons with Disability (PWD) category)], awarded by any of the Universities incorporated by an act of the central or state legislature in India or other educational institutions established by an act of Parliament or declared to be deemed as a University under Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956, or possess an equivalent qualification recognized by the Ministry of HRD, Government of India.

The percentage of marks obtained by the candidate in the bachelor’s degree would be calculated based on the practice followed by the university/institution from where the candidate has obtained the degree. In case the candidates are awarded grades/CGPA instead of marks, the conversion of grades/CGPA to percentage of marks would be based on the procedure certified by the university/ institution from where they have obtained the bachelor’s degree. In case the university/ institution does not have any scheme for converting CGPA into equivalent marks, the equivalence would be established by dividing the candidate’s CGPA by the maximum possible CGPA and multiplying the result with 100.

IIMs may verify eligibility at various stages of the selection process, the details of which are provided at the website www.cat2013.iimidr.ac.in. Applicants should note that the mere fulfillment of minimum eligibility criteria will not ensure consideration for shortlisting by IIMs.

Prospective candidates must maintain a valid and unique email account and a phone number throughout the selection process.

REGISTRATION PROCESS

There are two ways to register

Candidates can purchase vouchers through any one of the following modes

(i)    Online(e-voucher)

(ii) Offline (Through Axis Bank Branches)

CONTACT DETAILS

Address	:	Indian Institute of Management Indore, Prabandh Shikhar, Rau - Pithampur Road Indore 453 556
Phone	:	0731-2439686, 2439687
Fax	:	-
Mobile	:	-
E-mail	:	Contact I
Website	:	www.cat2013.iimidr.ac.in