How I prepared and scored 70% in NBSAT, says Dhruvi (Batch: 2022-24)

Narayana Business School is one of the leading B-School which is ranked among top 10 in India.

To get into the college one needs to clear the entrance exam called NBSAT i.e. Narayana Business School Admission Test and in the year 2021, I cleared this and got into NBS.

Let me tell you how I prepared myself to score maximum to crack this college. Coming to the syllabus part of this exam, it’s not so easy nor so tough to get through. It's somewhere in between moderate which tests our knowledge in four major fields that are Quantitative Ability, Verbal Ability, Data Interpretation and Analytical Reasoning. I started my preparations two months prior to the exam date with a well-organized plan and lots of confidence to execute the same with utmost effectiveness.

Talking about quantitative ability, for me, this was the toughest part to conquer since I don’t belong to a Mathematical background. But surprisingly, I did manage to cover up the syllabus because it majorly focused on the topics which require basic conceptual clarity over in-depth knowledge. What I like the most about NBSAT is that they did not focus more on any one field because quants is something which most of us are afraid of but in fact studying quant for NBS improved my perspective as well knowledge of quantitative ability.  For the topics like profit and loss, interests, and number systems which are very generic I preferred online content as well as class 10^th books of Mathematics. For topics which are pretty application based like time and work, time speed and distance I had to refer to YouTube videos and a few other books which had broad theoretical and conceptual clarity. Books for aptitude enhancement helped me prepare for topics like permutation and combination and probability.

Jumping over verbal ability, to enhance my vocabulary I used to read the dictionary. As well as increased the reading habit. Majorly I focused on non-fictional books which are pretty much tough to interpret but helped me understand comprehension passages to a greater extent. I made a habit of writing 10 new words along with their usage in sentences and meaning to learn as many new words as possible and started using them in daily conversation. To increase my reading speed, with the help of a timer I used to keep track on my reading and pointed out my mistakes and improved accordingly. I used to read articles daily and summarize them as crisp and precise as possible to make out the core out of it.

Analytical Reasoning has been quite confusing initially because it is about determining the truth of the converse, for example, conditional statements and it assesses a person’s ability to use critical thinking and logical reasoning skills. At the beginning, it was tough to make out the exact meaning from the data but with practice, I managed to do well in the exam.

Data Interpretation is a topic which always fascinates me a lot. I love to study graphs, diagrams and data and make out things from them by analyzing, understating and evaluating. Data interpretations are sometimes time-consuming and sometimes quick to solve if it is hit on the point. So I firstly read and observe the whole question and then start the solving part to avoid time wastage and unnecessary confusion. Without fail I used to solve five sets on daily basis of data interpretation when is started my preparation to maintain speed and consistency to manage the time efficiently during the exam. 

This is how I prepared myself to be best on D-Day. But simultaneously, it is also necessary to plan time management of the 4 sections which cover whole exam. After lots of observation and my interests, I decided to focus more on the data interpretation part and lesser on the quantitative ability part to maintain a healthy balance of my score. I gave equal timing to the remaining two sections which are analytical reasoning and verbal reasoning. I was pretty much sure to finish my exam on time so thought to give the excess amount of time to quant after completing all the questions since I am very slow with calculations. And with this statement, I can say that NBSAT also teaches how to cope up with weaknesses and take the best out of it.

Just preparing for exam and giving it is not enough and does not fulfil the original criteria of the NBSAT. It focuses on general awareness which a person should have along with basic conceptual clarity to give a green flag for being a post-graduate student and access knowledge to become corporate-ready.

About the author

Dhruvi Dinesh Kantariya is a PGDM student of batch 2022-24 at Narayana Business School.

Note: The views expressed in this article are solely author’s own and do not reflect/represent those of Shiksha