I'm planning to appear for ICET this year and I'm trying to put together a study schedule that actually makes sense. I've been out of college for 2 years working, so my analytical reasoning is rusty. I started mock tests last week and scored 58% overall - Communication Ability came in at 65% but Analytical Ability dragged everything down at around 51%.
My target is a seat in a decent MBA program in Andhra Pradesh. I've been told anything above 85 percentile is competitive for the better programs. That means I need to significantly improve my score from where I am now in about 10 weeks of consistent preparation.
I'm planning 3 hours of study per day - 1 hour on Analytical Ability, 1 hour on Communication, 30 minutes on Mathematical Ability, and 30 minutes of mock test review. Does this split make sense given my weak areas or should I be putting more time into analytical?
Also - does the ICET penalize for wrong answers? I've seen conflicting information and it changes my test-taking strategy significantly if there's negative marking involved.
No negative marking on ICET - attempt every question. That alone should bump your score a few percentile points on sections where you're unsure. Never leave a blank.
10 weeks is enough to hit 85+ percentile from where you are if you're consistent. I started at 54% overall and finished at 91st percentile. The key is doing full-length timed tests twice a week from week 4 onward.
Data sufficiency problems in the Analytical section take the most practice to get fast on. I spent 2 weeks just on those and went from 48% to 71% on that specific question type. They follow patterns once you recognize them.
Analytical Ability is the section that most separates scores at the top percentiles. I'd shift to 1.5 hours there and trim Communication down to 45 minutes since you're already decent on that section. Front-load the harder work.
Failed my first attempt with 54% and honestly the biggest mistake I made was treating all three sections equally. Communication Ability feels easy so you end up neglecting it, but that's exactly where I lost easy marks because I didn't practice enough reading comprehension under time pressure. Second time around I flipped my approach and spent the first two weeks doing nothing but Analytical Ability, like really grinding the data sufficiency and number series problems until they felt automatic.
The thing that actually moved the needle for me was timed sectional tests, not full mocks. Full mocks were exhausting me and I wasn't learning from them. Once I started doing 30-minute focused sets on just Arithmetic or just Analytical, my accuracy went up way faster. If you're already at 58% after one week of prep you're in a decent spot, just don't ignore the MA section thinking it'll take care of itself. It won't.