1. Maths Questions in UGC-NET/JRF 2017 exam
  2. Data Interpretation in UGC NET exam: How to prepare?
    1. DI-SET#1: virus corrupted HDD
    2. DI SET #2: Publication revenue
  3. RC Passage: literature, partition and great war

Maths Questions in UGC-NET/JRF 2017 exam

  • In NET exam, UGC asks hardly 1 or 2 MCQs from basic maths. [and 6 from DI, 6 from RC and ~10 from reasoning]
  • Unlike other competitive exams, in UGC you don’t have to prepare entire maths but only following topics:
    1. Linear equation (coin problems, age problems etc.) usually in two variables (x,y). only this year, UGC asked linear equation in three variables (x,y,z). but quite easy calculation as you can see below.
    2. Percentages, Profit-loss, Discount, product consistency rule.
    3. Averages: Both simple and weighed average. (But ignore alligiations- it’s not asked).
    4. Pipes and cisterns. (only occasionally asked)
  • How to prepare Mathematics for future exams? If you’re already preparing for exams such as UPSC, SSC or Banking then no separate preparation required here. Same books / material will suffice. If you’ve no book, then I would recommend FastTrack to objective arithmetic by Rajesh Verma [icon type=”shopping-cart”]

Anyways, let’s solve the MCQ asked in Jan’17 paper:
Q1. Imtiyaz Ali buys a glass, a pencil box and a cup and pays ₹ 21 to to the shopkeeper. Rakesh Roshan buys a cup, two pencil boxes and a glass and pays ₹ 28 to the shopkeeper. Preeti Zinta buys two glass, a cup and two pencil boxes and pays ₹ 35 to the shopkeeper. the cost of 10 cups will be?

  1. 40
  2. 60
  3. 80
  4. 70
Let’s make equations
Imtiyaz Ali 1g+1p+1c=21
Rakesh Roshan 1g+2p+1c=28
Preeti Zinta 2g+2p+1c=35

Rakesh minus Ali =>p=7; substitute values
Preeti minus Rakesh=> g=7.
Substitute these values in Ali’s equation, you get c=7.
Therefore, cost of 7 cups will be 7 x 10 = 70 rupees.

Data Interpretation Qs in UGC NET exam: How to prepare?

UGC Trend 3 years ago Nowadays
One set with 6 MCQs.
  • Nowadays, they ask two data sets with 3 MCQ each = total 6 MCQs from DI. But mentally you’ve to switch from one data set to second, thereby decreasing your speed..
quick and simple pie charts and single digit divisions
  • Calculations would require additions upto four digit numbers, multiplication and division upto three-digit numbers.
  • So, DI is very time consuming for those who don’t practice at home.
  • People who take exam casually, rely on following strategy: RC+DI = 6+6=12 Qs तो मैं पक्का करके आऊंगा.. But due to lack of practice, and lengthiness of the sets, they waste 40 minutes on 12 Questions only.

How to prepare Data Interpretation for future UGC-NET exams?

  • As such no special book required. The level of these RC and DI are a bit higher than SSC and a notch lower than Banking exams.
  • So just solve previous papers of UGC-NET/JRF, SSC and Bank exams, and you’d have sufficient skill over these two segments.

Anyways, let’s solve two data sets theyasked in January 2017’s NET exam

DI-SET#1: virus corrupted HDD

A University professor maintains data on MCA students tabulated by performance and gender of the students. The data is kept on a computer had disk, but accidentally some of it lost because of a computer virus. Only the following could be recovered:

Gender Average Good Excellent Total
Male 10
Female 32
Total 30

Panic buttons were pressed but to no avail. An expert committee was formed, which decided that the following facts were self-evident:

  1. Half the students were either excellent or good.
  2. 40% of the students were females
  3. One-third of the male students were average

Filling the missing values

Before we can solve the questions, we’ve to fillup the missing values in above table, using “self-evident” facts, we know that:

Gender Average Good Excellent Total
Male M ÷ 3 10 M (60% of total)
Female 32(40% of total)
Total 30

Fact-B: Since 40% of students are females; so male are 60%: 60/40=m/32=>m=48. update the table

Gender Average Good Excellent Total
Male 48 ÷ 3=16 10 48
Female 32
Total 30 80

Fact-A: Half the students were either excellent or good.
Since total students are 80, so 40 are (either excellent or good.) and within them 30 are good. So no. of excellent students are 40-30=10. only. Now fillup the missing values in the cells.

Gender Average Good Excellent Total
Male 16 (48-16-10)=22 10 48
Female 32-8=24 (30-22)=8 0 32
Total 40 30 10 (Fact-A) 80

Now our table is complete, so let’s solve the questions
Q1: How many female students are excellent?

  1. 0
  2. 8
  3. 16
  4. 32

Answer: ZERO female students are excellent!! Where are thehindu columnists to criticize this misogynistic / “trump-waadi” mindset walla examiner? Had UGC asked any question about Cow, then indeed these columnists have jumped into their britches to critisise the saffornization of higher education!

Q2. What proportion of female students are good?

  1. 0
  2. 0.25
  3. 0.50
  4. 0.75

8 good females ÷ 32 Total females  = 8/32=0.25

Q3. Approximately, what proportion of good students are male?

  1. 0
  2. 0.73
  3. 0.43
  4. 0.27

22 good males ÷ total 30 good students= 0.73

DI SET #2: Publication revenue

The table below embodies data on the sales revenue (in lakh) generated by a publishing house during the years 2012-15 while selling books, magazines and journals as three categories of items. Answer the questions  based on the data contained in the table.

item 2012 2013 2014 2015
Journals 46 47 45 44
Magazines 31 39 46 51
Books 73 77 78 78
Total

Q1). The number of years in which there was an increase in revenue from at least two categories of items, is

  1. 0
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3

This happens only twice

  1. 2013 (over 2012) : sales of all items increased
  2. 2014 (over 2013):  sales of only two items increased
  3. 2015 (over 2014): journals declined, magazines increased and books stagnant.

So only in two years (2013 and 2014), we see increase in the revenue from at least two categories.

Q2). If the year 2016 were to show the same growth in terms of total sales revenue as the year 2015 over the year 2014, then the revenue in the year 2016 must be approximately :

  1. 194 lakh
  2. 187 lakh
  3. 172 lakh
  4. 177 lakh

Let’s update the table:

item 2014 2015 2016
Journals 45 44
Magazines 46 51
Books 78 78
Total 169 173 A

Let “A” be the total sales in 2016.
IF % wise the growth is same for 2014-15 and 2015-16 then, the ratio should also be same. i.e.

Sales of [2014 ÷ 2015]= sales of [2015 ÷ 2016]
(169 ÷ 173)=(173 ÷ A)

A=(173*173) ÷ 169

In calculator or mobile, we can easily solve this but in actual exam, both are prohibited! So how to proceed?
You should know that square of 13=169. therefore,
A=(173/13)*(173/13)
Only once you do manual two digit division and it turns out 173/13=13.3
A=13.3 x 13.3
A=~177 lakh.

Q3). In 2015, approximately what percent of total revenue came from books ?

  1. 45%
  2. 55%
  3. 35%
  4. 25%

From previous question, we know the total sales in 2015 are 173.
So, out of them books are %=(78/173) x 100
Again, we can’t use calculator or mobile in real exam, so how to do a three digit division by hand!?
You know that 173<180.
So when we are dividing a number with them as denominators: a/173 > a/180
now let’s try guestimation:

This will be bigger This will be smaller
78*100/173 78*100/180
(13 x 6) x 100 / (6 x 3 x 10)
130/3
From the options, the nearest big amount than 43% is 45%.
Hence our answer is 1)		 43.33%

Cross check from calculation: (78/173) x 100=45.08% so our answer is correct.

RC Passage: literature, partition and great war

  • In January 2017 UGC-NET/JRF paper, they asked single passage with 6 MCQs
  • For convenience in referencing, I’ve given bullet numbers to the statements.

Read the passage carefully and answer following questions

  1. The last Great War, which nearly shook the foundations of the modern world had little impact on Indian Literature
    1. beyond aggravating the popular revulsions against violence and
    2. adding to growing disillusionment with the ‘humane pretensions’ of the Western World.
    3. This was eloquently voiced in Tagore’s poems and his last testament, ‘Crisis in Civilization’.
  2. The Indian intelligentsia was in a state of moral dilemma.
    1. On the one hand, it could not help but sympathize with
      1. the England’s dogged courage in the hour of peril,
      2. with the Russians fighting with their backs on the wall against ruthless Nazi hordes, and
      3. with the China groaning under the heel of Japanese militarism;
    2. on the other hand their own country was practically under the military occupation of their own soil and the Indian army under Subhas Bose was trying from the opposite camp to liberate their country.
  3. No creative impulse could issue from such confusion of loyalties.
  4. One would imagine that the achievement of Indian independence in 1947, which came in the wake of the Allies victory and was followed by collapse of colonialism in the neighboring countries of South East Asia, would have released an upsurge of the creative energy.
  5. No doubt it did, but it was soon submerged in the great agony of partition with
    1. the inhuman slaughter of innocents and the uprooting of the millions of the people from their homeland
    2. followed by the martyrdom of Mahatma Gandhi.
  6. These tragedies along with Pakistan’s Invasion of Kashmir and its later atrocities in Bangladesh, did indeed provoke a pregnant writing,
    1. particularly in the languages of the regions most affected Bengali, Hindi, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Sindhi and Urdu.
  7. Both poignant or passionate writing does not by itself make great literature.
  8. What reserves of enthusiasm and confidence served these disasters have been mainly absorbed in the task of national reconstruction and economic development.
  9. Great literature has always emerged out of chains of convulsions. Indian literature is richer today in terms of volume, range and variety than it ever was in past.

Q1) What was the impact of the last great war on Indian literature?

  1. It had no impact
  2. It aggravated popular revulsion against violence
  3. It shook the foundations of literature
  4. It offered eloquent support to the Western World

Read passage sentence no. 1/A. hence answer is B.

Q2) What did Tagore articulate in his last testament?

  1. Offered support to Subhas Bose
  2. Exposed the humane pretensions of the Western World
  3. Expressed loyalty to England
  4. Encouraged the liberation of countries

Read passage sentence no. 1/b and 1/c. hence answer is B.

Q3) What was the stance of Indian intelligentsia during the period of great war?

  1. Indifference to Russia’s plight
  2. They favored Japanese militarism
  3. They prompted creativity out of confused loyalties
  4. They expressed sympathy for England’s dogged courage.

We’ve to go by elimination. Read passage sentence no. 2 and 3 and accordingly answer choice 1 to 3 are eliminated.
We are left with answer D.

Q4) Identify the factor responsible for the submergence creative energy in India literature.

  1. Military occupation of one’s own soil
  2. Resistance to colonial occupation
  3. Great agony of partition
  4. Victory of Allies

Read passage statement 5. hence answer is C.

Q5) What was the aftermath that survived tragedies in Kashmir and Bangladesh?

  1. Suspicion of other countries
  2. Continuance of rivalry
  3. Menace of war
  4. National reconstruction

Read passage sentence no.8. hence answer is D.

Q6) The passage has the message that

  1. Disasters are inevitable
  2. Great literature emerges out of chains of convulsions
  3. Indian literature does not have a marked landscape
  4. Literature has no relation with war and independence.

Read passage sentence no. 9. hence answer is B.
Any corrections in the Answerkey? Do post in the comments but with authentic reference and explanations.
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