Topics for the General Test of CUET (UG) 2022

The General Test (Section 3) of CUET (UG) 2022 is very important as it is mandatory for many popular courses, e.g. all undergraduate courses of University of Allahabad, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Jawaharlal Nehru University, etc. It is mandatory for some very popular courses at some other universities too, e.g. Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS), Bachelor of Business Economics (BBE), B.Tech (Information Technology & Mathematical Innovation), etc. of University of Delhi; B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) of Banaras Hindu University (BHU), etc.

The NTA first came with a syllabus for this section that had clearly mentioned that it would have 75 questions divided in 5 sections- General Knowledge and Current Affairs, Numerical Ability, Quantitative Reasoning, Logical & Analytical Reasoning and General Mental Ability- and you would need to attempt 12 out of 15 questions from each of these sections. This condition was later withdrawn and it appears that though the exam would still be having 15 questions from each of these sections, you would be allowed to attempt any 60 questions out of the 75 (in 60 minutes). Moreover, the NTA has NOT mentioned the topics in any of these areas (Numerical Ability, General Mental Ability, etc.).


The confusion

The problem is that there can be a major overlap between General Mental Ability and Logical & Analytical Reasoning. Similarly, there can be a major overlap between Numerical Ability and Quantitative Reasoning. In fact, there can be some overlap between General Mental Ability and Numerical Ability as well. Is this the reason why the structure of the test was changed?


Topics to be done

  1. General Mental Ability: analogy, odd one out, coding-decoding, order and ranking, series (on numbers as well as letters), direction-sense, calendar, cubes and cuboids, dice, figure-counting, etc.

  2. Numerical Ability: face and place value, remainder, divisibility, cyclicity, LCM and HCF, simplification, square roots and cube roots, fractions & decimals, number series, etc.

  3. Logical Reasoning: Venn diagram, puzzles, input-output, inequalities, decision making, sitting arrangement, data sufficiency, etc.

  4. Analytical Reasoning: syllogism, assertion & reason, statements & conclusions, statements & arguments, statements and assumptions, course of action, cause & effect, etc.

  5. Quantitative Reasoning: Geometry (lines & angles, triangle, rectangle, square, rhombus, parallelogram, kite); Mensuration (triangle, quadrilateral, rectangle, square, parallelogram, rhombus, trapezium, circle, polygon, cube, cuboids, cylinder, cone); Algebra (factoring and simplifying algebraic expressions, algebraic expressions and identities, linear equation in one variable, exponents and powers); Arithmetic (percentage, ratio and proportion, profit-loss-discount, simple and compound interest); Number System (odd & even integers, prime numbers, rational numbers, number line, divisibility)

    We at CUET100 believe that doing the NCERT Mathematics books of grades 6-8 should be sufficient for the Numerical Ability and Quantitative Reasoning sections.

  6. Current Affairs: You need to cover Current Affairs of the period January 1 to June 15 of 2022. If you have been regular with newspaper (very unlikely), then this sub-section should be a cakewalk for you. If you do not read newspaper, do NOT try to inculcate this habit now (for the purpose of CUET UG 2022) as it may not be a very good investment of time. Please cover Current Affairs from some monthly or quarterly news digest.

  7. General Knowledge: We do not think that you should be investing much time on it as it is difficult to improve in this area in a short time. If you have time, you may revise Social Science (History + Geography+ Civics) books of grades 9 and 10. You may get a few questions from General Science (Physics+ Chemistry+ Biology) as well.

    The biggest relief for you is that you can leave 15 questions (out of the 75) in this test and these questions can protect your weak areas to a great extent.

    We hope the NTA releases some sample papers for the General Test and Language Tests at least.

    Doing the General Mental Ability part of some actual NTSE (National Talent Search Exam) papers of stages 1 and 2 can be a good preparation for the General Mental Ability part of the General Test of CUET 2022. Please bear in mind that the NTSE (stage 2) is conducted by the NCERT.

All the best!
Team CUET100