IRMA maintained the paper structure with respect to number of sections and questions but the level of difficulty has gone up noticeably. There were quite a few surprises in types of questions.
English Comprehension – This year IRMA stressed on questions based on inferences. The section had 40 questions. There was one RC Passage (Rational thinking in politics) with only 4 questions from Vocabulary (2 Synonyms, 2 Antonyms). There were 10 questions of sentence correction with questions on articles, tenses, superlatives etc. IRMA threw a surprise with a new question type where the students were asked to select probable paraphrases of given sentences. (There were three sentences given which were to be combined into a single sentence. Five different ways of paraphrasing the given sentences were given. Each option was an introductory phrase, not a complete sentence. Students had to infer which sentence fragment is viable.) Like last year there was a cloze test with 10 blanks and very easy options.
| Topic | Number of Questions | Difficulty Level |
| RC Passage on “Rational thinking in politics” (including 4 questions on synonyms/antonyms, 1 question on title). | 15 | Moderate |
| Sentence correction | 10 | Moderate |
| Paraphrase | 15 | Difficult |
| Cloze Test | 10 | Easy |
Quantitative Ability - This section came as a huge surprise as there were very few questions from quantitative ability. Most of the questions were of Data Interpretation. There were quite a few questions with one option as ‘none of these’. This compelled students to solve the questions entirely rather than rely on approximations. Most of the DI sets were calculation based.
| Topic | Brief Description | Number of Questions | Difficulty Level |
| Data Interpretation | 3 sets (table based), 1set on double pie chart, 1 set on vertical bar graph, 1 set on horizontal bar graph, 1 set on combination of pie chart and bar graph, 1 set on line chart | 40 (8 sets with 5 questions in each set) | Moderate-Tough |
| Quantitative Ability | 1 set of 3 questions on probability, 1 set of 2 questions on percentages and fractions. | 5 | Easy |
| Data-Sufficiency | 5 individual questions (Age, PLD, TSD, Quadratic equations, Geometry) | 5 | Easy-Moderate |
Analytical Reasoning – This section was tough as compared to previous years. There was a new kind of set where students were asked to select statements containing data as answers to given questions.
| Topic | Number of Questions | Difficulty Level |
| Sitting arrangement (2 sets) | 12(7+5) | Tough |
| Data Sufficiency (reasoning based – blood relations, directions etc.) | 5 | Easy |
| Statement – conclusion (syllogism) | 6 | Moderate |
| Logical Reasoning Set | 7 | Tough |
| Coding-Decoding | 5 | Easy |
| Linear Arrangement (Alphabet based) | 4 | Easy |
| Odd word/letter out | 5 | Easy |
| Formation of meaningful word | 1 | Moderate |
| Logical reasoning set based on sentence inferences | 5 | Moderate |
Issues of Social Concern – The section had questions that were of primarily easy to moderate difficulty level. Only a few questions in this section were tough. Most of the questions asked were from development programs, agricultural organizations, personalities, economy, awards and environmental issues.
| Topic | Number of Questions | Difficulty Level |
| Agricultural and Rural development | 17 | Moderate |
| Economy (Rural economy) | 18 | Moderate-Tough |
| Organizations | 8 | Moderate |
| Personalities, awards and important days | 8 | Easy-Moderate |
| Misc | 9 | Moderate |
Estimated Cut – Off Marks (IRMA 2011)
| Section | Marks | Expected Cut off |
| English Comprehension | 40 | 14-16 |
| Quantitative Ability | 50 | 18-20 |
| Analytical Reasoning | 50 | 15-18 |
| Issues of Social Concern | 60 | 20-22 |
| Overall | 200 | 80-85 |
