IBA Entry Test – How to ace and prepare for Math Section

Reading Time : 4 minutes

I find the following words very apt to begin the article on the IBA Entry Test:
“Sir yeh kya sawaal hai?” the annoyed student complains to the teacher.
Sir Faisal “Sawaal ka bhi aapkey barey mein yahi khayal hai!”

Are you as lost as Mr. Trump? Are you sick and tired of hearing your teacher constantly tell you “It is all about practice!!”? Are you tired of taking demos of tuition teachers who you know will end up playing games on their phone for half an hour during your tuition timings? Well worry not, I got you.

1. Don’t Panic

The first thing is, do not panic. Go to the book store, or any IBA Entry Test prep-academy and get their notes. See, a tuition, or academy can only hammer in so much discipline within you. Imagine this, instead of spending 3 hours at an academy where the teacher is half an hour late, it takes an hour for you to concentrate cause your friend is dropping some lit memes, and the travel to and back from academy takes about an hour itself, why don’t you make your own hours. For my SAT, I had a 6 hour regiment that I followed with discipline and it worked better for me than my friends who took tuition. Moral of the story, organize and don’t panic.

2. Important Topics and Tips

Is this not all of us during every mathematics class ever? Well, here is what I have found out over the years of teaching IBA test to students and guess what?

Geometry

Of all the topics that repeat themselves on IBA test, geometry is one of the most easiest. Yet, I have seen so many students struggle with it. After going through the past 5 years of the test prep material, geometry, on average, makes up at least 6 questions on the test guys. And yet, many students ignore geometry for the traditional algebraic topics. Here is a suggestion: don’t do that, get the easy marks in first my man. It is honestly just a line on an xy-plane. Furthermore, a lot of students have trouble with geometry because so many of us deal with it like numbers. But remember, although it may be numbers, they still work on a xy-plane, so you can imagine it. Use that white stuff – I do not mean cocaine – and draw on that extra space available on the paper. A gradient of 2/3 for instance means, for every 2 units the line moves up on y-axis, it travels 3 units across the x-axis. So don’t just solve it, draw that. Geometry also includes line equations. Check them out here and Khan Academy.

Do the ratio questions first

Ratios are the easiest topic by far on the IBA Entry Test. They are simple, elegant and usually involve a person in a question who does not know how to divide up things. Again, think about the scenario and visualize it. Don’t go for the traditional number of balls over total number of balls stuff. Think and then use the formula, if you are using it. Once you are done with geometry and ratios, you should probably be done with about 10 correct questions. Given the average entry score you need to have, you need to get about 14-16 more questions right.

Algebraic Simplification

Now go for these in the IBA Entry Test. These questions usually appear in the form of quadratic equations that first have to have their middle term broken, before some of the brackets are cancelled off by one-another. Eventually, the question will lead to a quadratic equation that you can again solve by middle term breaking. Here is a link to a video that explains this brilliantly: and yes, it is yet another Indian teacher saving the day. Although your Algebra teacher may have been wrong – I mean technically he is right – that don’t mean you don’t try to find your ex, I mean the x.

The iota – i

Another mistake you wanna make is not remembering iota and how to solve questions related to it. It’s easy: if iota has a power of an odd number, it will usually end up as –i; if iota has an even power say i raised to the power of 26, if this number is divisible by 4, it means iota’s value will be 1. If the even number is not divisible by 4, then iota’s value will be -1. Above is a chart just in case you wanna visualize it.

Leave the hard questions

Trust me, there are at least 5-7 questions in the IBA Entry test that will always take over 10-15 minutes each to solve. Ditch them like you wanna ditch those little suta/cigarette breaks between classes. You will only get out of breath.

Learn properties of shapes

See, there will always be a couple of questions that will check your knowledge about the properties of shapes. For instance, a triangle with 3 sides, x, y, z respectively will always have its sides follow the following rule: x + y > z and z – x < y. Much like this, there are properties of a cube, cuboid, square and rectangle. Learn those. Additionally, pay special attention to trigonometry. Attempt as many trigonometry questions you can. The test cannot add a lot of variation to these so these will be easy to solve.

Arithmetic Progression, Geometric Progression and Averages

Lastly, this. The arithmetic and geometric progressions is an easy topic that can be solved by just remembering four formulas: posted below. Don’t waste your time solving the hard ones, and move on to questions about averages. These questions can again be solved by using the formula for average which would usually require you solving for a number that is missing in the list of numbers that have been averaged out. Practice these. These are easy and will get you the boost of points you want.

And this is all you need to know folks for the math part of the IBA Entry Test. This is again, purely an opinion and for sure, do not completely rely on my understanding. These are observations that i wanted to share with you guys – for free btw, jk.

But if you liked this and want us to cover more stuff like this, let us know in the comments section or contact me at bilsajcha@gmail.com.