Syllabus
NMAT — What the syllabus covers
- Language Skills
- Reading comprehension passages, para jumbles, para forming, error identification, sentence completion, sentence correction, synonyms and antonyms, analogies, prepositions and idioms. The section is more grammar- and vocabulary-oriented than CAT’s verbal section, which is almost entirely comprehension-based.
- Quantitative Skills
- Arithmetic covering percentage, ratio, averages, profit and loss, simple and compound interest, time and work, time speed and distance, and mixtures; algebra, number systems, geometry and mensuration; permutations, combinations and probability; and data interpretation through tables, graphs and charts along with data sufficiency questions. The largest section by question count and time.
- Logical Reasoning
- Critical reasoning covering statements and assumptions, arguments and conclusions; analytical reasoning through arrangements, distributions and puzzles; and coding, series, syllogism, blood relations and direction sense. Broader and somewhat more mechanical than CAT’s reasoning section.
Compared with CAT, NMAT is gentler in difficulty and stricter in pace. Questions are individually more approachable, but there are more of them per minute, and the sections are separately timed. That makes it a test of consistent speed rather than of peak problem-solving, which suits some candidates considerably better than CAT does.
Where NMAT diverges from a CAT syllabus
- Grammar and vocabulary are tested directly — error identification, sentence completion, synonyms and antonyms. CAT verbal has moved almost entirely to comprehension, so a CAT-prepared candidate has often not touched rules or word lists in months.
- Data sufficiency appears — a question type CAT does not use. The skill is judging whether the statements suffice rather than computing the answer, and it needs its own short block of practice.
- Reasoning is broader and more mechanical — critical reasoning alongside conventional arrangements and puzzles, at a level closer to a standard aptitude test than to CAT’s deliberately unfamiliar sets.
- Nothing is deliberately obscure — the questions are meant to be answerable. What is scarce is time, not tractability.
The consequence for planning is straightforward and worth stating plainly: a candidate preparing for CAT is over-prepared for NMAT content and may still be under-prepared for the paper. The binding constraint here is throughput — how many answerable questions you actually get to — and throughput is trained by timed practice at the real pace rather than by working harder problems.
Individually timed sections, in your chosen order
Each section carries its own clock, and you choose the order in which you take them. That is a genuine piece of control and it should be exercised deliberately: decide the order in advance, rehearse it in mocks, and keep the one that consistently produces a better total rather than the one that feels more comfortable at the start.
