CUET UG General Aptitude Test: Reasoning Practice

The arithmetic of −1

One in six

A correct answer is worth five and a wrong one costs one, so a question is worth attempting the moment you would be right more than once in six tries. That is a far lower bar than a coin toss. Five marks against one is not a symmetric bet, and students who treat every uncertainty as a reason to leave a blank finish with marks they could have had.

a blank                  0
a wrong answer          −1
a right answer          +5

break-even              right about 1 time in 6
after ruling out one option        comfortably worth answering
no idea at all, nothing ruled out  still very slightly positive

So the skill this paper actually rewards is not speed alone. It is knowing, quickly, which of three states you are in: I know this, I can narrow this, I have nothing. The first two are answered. Only the third is left, and only after the other forty-nine have had their turn.

Three habits get you there:

Rule one option out before you solve. Look for the option that is wrong on inspection: the wrong unit digit, the wrong direction, the wrong number of steps. Crossing it out first turns a blind guess into a bet you should take, and it takes seconds.
Answer the question that was asked. Marks are lost to arithmetic done correctly on the wrong quantity: solving for the value when the question asked whether the value could be determined, or for the son's age when it asked for the father's. Reread the last line before you mark.
One pass, then one sweep. Go through all fifty once, answering what you know and marking what you could narrow. Then come back. A question you skipped at minute six can look different at minute forty, and the second look costs nothing because nothing was scored in between.

None of this is a trick. It is what having practised enough looks like from the outside: you recognise the shape of a question before you have finished reading it, and the sixty minutes stop being the problem.

Where marks are lost

Three ways a prepared student still loses marks here

None of them is about not knowing the topic.

⚠

Writing like it is a board paper

Twelve years of school reward showing the working. Only the option you mark is scored here. Four lines of algebra on a percentage question that the options themselves could have settled is ninety seconds gone, and ninety seconds is a question and a half.

⇄

Refusing to leave a question unfinished

You are four minutes into an arrangement puzzle and two clues will not sit together. The sunk cost says finish it. The clock says you have now spent four questions' worth of time on one. Mark it, move, come back. The paper does not care in what order you answer.

⚙

Treating a blank as the safe choice

A blank feels careful. On a question you have narrowed to two options, five against one says it is not: the same student leaving eight such blanks has given away more than the wrong answers would have cost. Caution is only free when the penalty is equal to the reward, and here it is a fifth of it.

Works offline on Android

Practice anywhere. On Android, practice itself needs no internet.

On Android, all the questions live on your phone, so after install, daily practice costs zero data. The app needs the internet once to start, then at least once a week. In the web app, on a phone or computer, you practise in the browser while you are online.

Android works offline Full-screen web practice Progress saved online Zero data during practice

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In the browser: no account, no card, no install. Solve one full session, then decide.

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In 2007, in his second year at IIT Delhi, Vineesh wrote a book: Master Mental Ability in 30 Days. It has sold year after year ever since, without the publisher ever marketing it.

In the years since, he built other learning products and spent a decade working with children of every background in a holistic learning centre.

The General Aptitude Test is decided by judgement under a clock: which question to answer, which to narrow, which to leave. That is trainable, and it is what MMA practises.

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Fifteen minutes a day on series, coding-decoding, relations and applied arithmetic: the reasoning half of the General Aptitude Test.

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Frequently asked questions

Common questions about the CUET (UG) General Aptitude Test

How many questions are there, and can I skip some?

Fifty, in sixty minutes, and the bulletin is explicit that all of them are compulsory: there is no scheme where you attempt more and your best answers are counted. You can still leave one unanswered; it simply scores zero. With five marks for a correct answer and one lost for a wrong one, a pick between two options you cannot separate is worth two marks on average (half of +5, half of −1), more than the zero a blank scores.

What does the General Aptitude Test actually cover?

NTA lists general knowledge, current affairs, general mental ability, numerical ability, quantitative reasoning (simple applications of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, mensuration and statistics) and logical and analytical reasoning. The reasoning and mental ability parts are the ones that reward practice rather than reading, and they are what we train.

Should I guess when I am not sure?

The marking answers this for you. At +5 and −1 you break even by being right about one time in six, so a question where you have ruled out even one option is worth answering. Leaving a blank is the right call only when you genuinely cannot narrow the options at all, and even then it is close.

Is the app in Hindi? And what language is the paper in?

The app is fully Hindi if you choose Hindi: the questions, the options and the explanation after each one, not an English app with Hindi labels around it. CUET (UG) is offered in thirteen Indian languages: English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. You choose yours on the application form and it cannot be changed afterwards. The paper is then shown in English and your chosen language together, and NTA states that if the two ever differ, the English version prevails.

How much internet does it need?

On the Android app, very little. The questions are on your phone, so you can practise on a train, in a village with no signal, on a phone with no data pack. It needs the internet once to start, then at least once a week to keep your access active; that is also when your progress is saved online. If it goes longer than a week without connecting, practice pauses until it does, and nothing is lost. The web app needs a connection while you practise.

CUET UG General Aptitude Test: fifty questions, sixty minutes

The General Aptitude Test in numbers