Eyeing B-school? Master your emotion

Now, your ability to score well in mathematics, English and general knowledge, and reasoning sections, won’t be enough to qualify for the Common Management Admission Test (CMAT). You will also have to prove your mastery over emotions to get into B-schools.

All India Council for Technical Education, the apex body of professional education, which conducts CMAT, is planning to introduce a section to test applicants’ Emotional Intelligence (EI). EI is the capability to perceive, control and evaluate one’s own as well as others’ emotions. CMAT will be first entrance test in the country which will test non-cognitive skills.

CMAT was introduced by AICTE in 2012 to abolish multiple tests for admission in management courses. The test is currently conducted twice a year. Over 1.2 lakh candidates appeared in February 2013 test.

The EI test will comprise questions on real-life situations to test how intelligently a person uses and controls her/his emotions and also if s/he is capable of handling emotions of others in the team while taking certain decisions. This means, candidates will have to prove their capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of others.

SS Mantha, AICTE chairman, said, “A leader or manager has to give his/her best in different situations keeping himself/herself mentally stable. Emotional intelligence helps to tackle different situations.”

An expert committee is still mulling over nuances of the EI section, which could be worth 25-30 marks out of 400, but passing in this section will be mandatory.

“Even the Common Entrance Test for IIMs doesn’t have an EI section,” said Mantha, adding that this section will be there in the September 2013 test.
Currently, CMAT consists of four sections — quantitative ability, reasoning, English and general knowledge, each worth 100 marks.

Even though traditional definition of intelligence emphasised cognitive aspects, such as memory and problem-solving, several researchers in the field of study on intelligence stress on the importance of the non-cognitive aspects.

Dr Shubhangi Parkar, head of the psychiatry department at KEM hospital, said, “To handle real-life situations where a lot of people are involved, you are supposed to take decisions after proper judging others’ emotions. Here, intelligence hardly works. Only an emotionally intelligent leader is able to judge emotions of the entire team and take strategic decisions.”

@kanchanDNA