IPMAT quant: a topic-wise strategy that fits the paper
Forty quant questions in a shared 120-minute paper, with negative marking. How to order the topics, what to drill daily, and which questions to leave alone.
4 Nov 2026 · 3 min read · Draft - not indexed
At IIM Rohtak the quantitative ability section is 40 questions, part of a 120-question paper with a 120-minute limit and a 1-mark penalty for a wrong answer. IIM Indore states that its entrance examination tests proficiency in Mathematics without publishing a breakdown. Either way, quant is where most students lose and win the paper.
Order the topics by what they pay
Not all topics deserve the same time. Arithmetic repays practice fastest and appears most, so it goes first.
First: arithmetic
Percentages, ratio and proportion, averages and mixtures, profit and loss, simple and compound interest, time and work, time speed and distance. Most of this is Class 8 to 10 mathematics you have already seen. The difficulty is speed, not concept, which is exactly what daily drilling fixes.
If you have eight weeks, give three of them to arithmetic alone.
Second: algebra
Linear and quadratic equations, inequalities, progressions, logarithms, functions. This is where Class 11 and 12 school work overlaps with the exam, so you get both syllabi for one effort.
Third: modern maths
Permutations and combinations, probability, set theory. Scoring, but only once the basics are in place. Students who start here get discouraged and conclude they are bad at maths, when they were simply out of order.
Fourth: geometry and mensuration
Lines, triangles, circles, areas and volumes. Formula-heavy and worth a focused fortnight rather than a trickle.
Last: number system
Divisibility, remainders, factors, HCF and LCM. Useful, but there is less of it than its reputation suggests.
The daily routine
Thirty focused minutes on one topic, every day. Ten to fifteen questions, timed, then a full review of the ones you got wrong.
Keep a single notebook of your own mistakes, written as a sentence each: "forgot to convert months to years", "misread 'at least' as 'exactly'". Read that notebook before each mock. Most students lose more marks to repeated carelessness than to unknown topics, and nothing fixes that except seeing your own pattern in your own handwriting.
Three habits that add marks without new knowledge
Learn to skip in the first ten seconds. Read a question, decide whether you have a method, and move on if you do not. Returning to a hard question at the end costs nothing. Grinding at it for four minutes costs you three other questions.
Approximate before you calculate. With multiple-choice options, rough work often eliminates three options. You do not need the exact value; you need the right option.
Know your tables, squares and fractions cold. Squares to 30, cubes to 15, fractions to percentages, and the common conversions. Mental arithmetic is the cheapest speed you will ever buy.
What to do with a bad mock
A bad quant score is information, not a verdict. Split the wrong answers into concept gaps, calculation slips and bad selection. Each needs different work: revision, drilling, or a change in how you choose questions. Students who skip this step repeat the same score for months.
This is the step our batches build a discussion around after every mock, because a mock nobody analysed was a mock nobody needed.
Check the official pattern for your cycle before planning around any of these numbers.
Want this applied to your own preparation?
Send us your class, your target exam and your last mock score, and we will tell you what to change first.