As already mentioned, this course is offered by School of International Studies. A student must be a graduate in Economics to apply for this course.

Preparation for this entrance is similar to the MA Economics degree offered by School of Social Studies. If i recall correctly, last year they had 8 questions out of which one had to answer 5. Keep the strategy for this same except that you need to write the answers in coherent manner. Note that the entrance for this course has subjective questions. On addition to the recommended topics for course at SSS (previous entry), go through 3rd year “International Economics” book by Paul Krugman. HO theorem, Specific factor model etc. are required to be done.

Last year, there was a question on money multiplier derivation. So, it is also suggested that you go through the basics of Money, Central bank instruments (CRR, SLR etc.) to control money supply.

Keep the answers terse and be clear with basics. For information regarding eligibility criteria, see here.

For any query/comments regarding MA Economics offered by SIS, post your comments on this blog entry. For queries in other entrances (JNU,ISI,DSE), put your comments in the respective blog entry. Please note that the comments are approved before being posted on the website so please don’t post your comments multiple times. Questions that have been already answered in the blog or in the comments will not be approved.

Here are some of the links which might help some people out here to prepare for general awareness part in entrances:

1. http://www.indiasummary.com/2010/02/19/general-knowledge-questions-with-answers-for-january-2010-current-affairs-questions-2010/

2. http://www.competitionmaster.com/category.aspx?ID=6c95efd4-997a-430a-b1fb-e438640cb80a

3.http://www.knowledgebase-script.com/demo/article-574.html

For those who are giving entrances that ask questions related to Indian Economics may also go through Economics edition of Pratiyogita Darpan. It has material on all the areas concerning Indian Economy.

All the best!

JNU has two schools that offer post graduation in Economics: School of Social Sciences (SSS) and School of International Studies (SIS). SSS has MA in Economics which is open to students from all streams. However, only graduates in Economics are eligible to apply for MA Economics with specialization in World Economicy offered by SIS.

SSS (MA Economics)

To crack JNU entrance, solving past years is extremely important. They essentially have the same trend of questions being followed over years. If you are preparing for ISI and DSE entrances, clearing JNU may not be that challenging. SSS entrance tests on basics and do not really focus on any sophisticated problems like ISI and DSE. Last year SSS entrance had objective as well as subjective questions.

Mathematics and Statistics part may be done from past years only. They have questions on probability, index numbers, Correlation, Mean, Variance, Coefficient of Variation, quantiles and other such topics from basic statistics (be clear with the properties of all the topics). My suggestion will be to go through DU Economics first year course on Statistical Methods for Economics.  In mathematics, cover topics like AP, GP, HP, Compound Interest, finding maxima and minima, basics about functions like finding inverse of a function, go through the properties of logarithmic and exponential functions etc.

For Microeconomics, utility maximisation, cost functions and various market setups (perfect competition, monopoly, oligopoly) shall be done properly (I fathom that one of the favourite question of JNU is to find equilibrium in perfectly competitive market given a cost function). Know the basics like what is Production Possibility frontier, what happens to MC or AC or some utility function at optimum, price elasticity of demand etc.

NIA used to be one of the favourite topics of SSS. But, last year they did not ask as many questions on NIA as earlier which was quite surprising! However, to be on safe side, go through the basics of NIA from 12^th class NCERT. Do first few chapters of NIA from Dornbusch and Fischer. They are necessary. You can also go through NIA chapter in International Economics by Paul Krugman. They usually ask atleast one question on National Income identity. Also know what appreciation, depreciation and terms of trade like terms are. Questions on IS-LM (goods market equilibrium and money market equilibrium), money multiplier are equally expected.

Lastly, for the social awareness questions, you need to know what poverty line in India is (they may ask what is the poverty ration suggested by Tendulkar Committee!), trend in labour share in different sectors, sex ratio, Five year plans etc. I believe for this section, it is important to be updated with current affairs through newspapers. Last year they had asked to write an essay as well. Financial crisis and Lewis model were one of the five topics on which the student could write on. This time as well they may give topics like Financial Inclusion, Keynesian Economics, something related to New Economic Policy etc.

An entry on MA Economics with specialization in World Economy offered by SIS shall follow!

P.S: Past year papers can be obtained directly from JNU while applying for the course. They are also available at DSE photocopy shop.

For information regarding eligibility criteria, syllabus etc., see here.

For any query/comments regarding MA Economics offered by SSS, post your comments on this blog entry. For queries in other entrances (JNU:SIS,ISI,DSE), put your comments in the respective blog entry. Please note that the comments are approved before being posted on the website so please don’t post your comments multiple times. Questions that have been already answered in the blog or in the comments will not be approved.

ISI conducts its entrance in April and has two papers:

• Paper 1: Focuses on Mathematics and Statistics
• Paper 2: Focuses on Microeconomics and Macroeconomics

Paper 1: The first step in preparing for any entrance is to go through the past year papers (you can access it from http://www.isid.ac.in/~pu/academics.html). For this section of ISI entrance, you may realize that ISI focuses on 11^th and 12^th class mathematics. Therefore, the first step in going about this section is to brush up on your school level concepts. I would further recommend readers to take up some Engineering entrance preparation book and solve questions from there. Do not go to IIT level questions, just focus on AIEEE kind of questions. Students may also see the past years of BSc Math entrance conducted by ISI. An excellent reference book is “TEST OF MATHEMATICS AT THE 10+2 LEVEL” published by Affiliated East-West Press Pvt. Limited. It is a collection of past 20yrs B.Stat Entrance questions which are very similar to the ones asked in MSQE entrance.

The key to clearing this section is having the concepts clear and focusing on solving as many types of questions as possible.

For Statistics, I would recommend SC Gupta and V.K.Kapoor’s book on Mathematical Statistics. This book has many questions on Probability and they are of the level asked in ISI entrance.

Paper 2: Microeconomics shall be studied from Intermediate Economics by Hal Varian and some concepts from Pindyck and Rubenfield. After getting hold of the concepts, make sure that you do the relevant chapters from Workbook, Varian. The questions that are asked in ISI entrance again target on the basics. So keep your concepts clear and for that practice as many practical questions as you can. Do not waste time in mugging up some formula. ISI focuses on how well you understand concepts and not on how well you can mug up.

If you have completed the Workbook and pretty confident about it then I would suggest you to do questions from MIT open courseware.

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Economics/index.htm

Just look at different microeconomic courses and see which ones ask concepts that you have done from Varian and Pindyck & Rubenfield. You may go through the lecture notes as well, they are good. I would suggest you to focus on solved assignments than go through the unsolved ones. And to have a stronger grip on the concepts, do solve all the DSE past years question papers.

For Macroeconomics, again, concepts are very important. Go through Dornbusch and Fischer for the same. Mankiw Macroeconomics is good as well. Last year, ISI had asked a question on macroeconomic modeling. If you have time, you may go through ‘Macroeconomic Theory and Policy’ by William Branson for the same. It will help you in DSE preparation as well. Moreover, try the macroeconomics questions from DSE past years. The question that was asked in ISI last year was somewhat similar to the kind of macroeconomics questions asked in DSE. Another recommended, albeit a little elementary, is Schaum series Macroeconomics. I found the growth models done well in it. You may complement Growth models from Mankiw with Schaum series one. A question on growth model (essentially Solow) is quite likely.

Cut off: I believe the cut-off in maths n stats section could have been around 22-23/30. Actually, it depends on the difficulty level of the paper. If you see 2008 paper, this section was quite easy and hence the cut-off would have been higher. For Micro, Macro section, my suggestion would be to target to attempt 80% of the questions.

For more information on ISI, see here. Details on eligibility criteria, syllabus etc. can be found here

Note: For students who did their graduation from non-DU college shall take up DU syllabus of Microeconomics and Macroeconomics taught in 2nd year (can access at http://econdse.org/ba09.pdf)

If anyone has any query about ISI MSQE entrance , you may leave a comment on this entry. For queries in other entrances (JNU,DSE), put your comments in the respective blog entry. Please note that the comments are approved before being posted on the website so please don’t post your comments multiple times. Questions that have been already answered in the blog or in the comments will not be approved.