MAH - CET 09: Students should look to attempting all the questions

The Maharashtra CET is the first in a long line of State Level MBA entrance examinations that are conducted by individual states for entrance to MBA colleges affiliated to State Universities. Normally, these State level tests are meant only for students who are domiciled in that state, but the Maharashtra CET gains some significance among students from other states because of the following reasons:

A percentage of seats being kept open for students from other states (called as OMS candidates)
The presence of premier institutes like JBIMS (Mumbai), KJ Somaiya (Mumbai), PUMBA (Pune), Sydenham College (Mumbai) and many more colleges in the twin cities of Pune and Mumbai.
Scores of MAT being also accepted in lieu of the CET scores.

Before looking at a strategy for CET 2009, let us look at the paper structure for CET 2008.
Logical Reasoning 75 questionsVisual Reasoning 30 questionsNumerical Ability 10 questionsArithmetic 5 questionsQuantitative Comparison 5 questionsData Interpretation 20 questionsData Sufficiency 5 questionsReading Comprehension 15 questionsEnglish Usage 35 questions
If this indeed is the pattern for this years test too (as in all probability, it would be) then the smart students should seek to score from the following areas.

Data Sufficiency
Logical reasoning
Numerical ability
Quantitative comparison
English usage

Questions from these sections could be called having an easy to moderate level of difficulty and more importantly, can be solved in the least possible time.
Students who are comfortable with their Vocabulary should look towards the English Usage section too as there are questions dealing with Synonyms Antonyms, Verbal Analogies etc. that can be done in the least possible time. Ditto with the Reading Comprehension section which has 1 passage followed by 15 questions based on the passage itself. Even here, there are some vocabulary based questions based on words sourced from within the passage.

Questions from Visual reasoning can prove to be a stumbling block for many. Our advice to the students would be that they should not spend too much time on these questions. If the logic/pattern/sequence does not hit you immediately, then chances are that it would not strike you even after 10 minutes.

One positive trait of the CET much appreciated by the students! is that there is no negative marking. Therefore, students should look to attempting all the questions.
Our advice to students would be to genuinely attempt at least 140-150 questions and the balance can be left to chance. But, remember, this advice would become invalid, if this year the CET decided to introduce negative marking!!