Exam facts verified 23 August 2026 against g.a.s.t. (d-mat.de) and APS India (aps-india.de). Answer formats checked against the official dMAT demo exam. The dMAT is a first-year exam and its rules move — confirm anything date-sensitive at the official source before you act on it.
Verified 23 August 2026 against g.a.s.t. and APS India.
If you are reading this after 15 September 2026, the decisions are made. You are registered, you have a centre, and the exam is on 26 September 2026. The only question left is what to do with the days in between.
This is the part of the cycle nobody writes about. Almost every dMAT guide online is aimed at the person deciding whether they need the test at all, which is a question that stopped mattering the moment registration closed. What follows assumes you are past that.
Take a free full-length dMAT mock test. Mock 1 is the complete 56-question Core Module paper — 20 Figure Sequences, 20 Mathematical Equations, 16 Latin Squares — with enforced per-subtest timers and a worked solution on every item. Free account, no card. Start Mock 1 free · See all five mocks.
The dMAT Core Module tests reasoning under a hard clock with nothing to write on. Split that into two parts and the plan writes itself.
Your underlying reasoning ability is not a ten-day variable. Nobody becomes measurably better at spotting a three-figure movement rule in under a fortnight. If a guide promises that, it is selling something.
Everything around it is. How fast you recognise a format. Whether you burn ninety seconds on an item worth the same mark as one you could have taken in thirty. Whether you leave blanks on a test with no negative marking. Whether you can hold four values in working memory without reaching for a pen you are not allowed to have. All four are trainable inside ten days, and together they are worth more marks than any amount of last-minute theory.
Ten working days, assuming the exam is on the eleventh. Adjust for your own job or college; the sequence matters more than the calendar.
| Day | Focus | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Full timed mock, cold | You need a baseline measured under real conditions, not an estimate of one |
| 2 | Review that mock in full | The review is worth more than the mock. Every wrong answer has a reason |
| 3 | Weakest subtest, untimed | Rebuild the method before you rebuild the speed |
| 4 | Weakest subtest, timed | Method under a clock is a different skill from method |
| 5 | Second-weakest subtest | Same two-step: method, then clock |
| 6 | Full timed mock | Check the repair held under full-length conditions |
| 7 | Review, plus guessing discipline | Count your blanks. On this exam a blank is a wasted mark |
| 8 | Strongest subtest, timed | Protect what already works. It is where your marks actually are |
| 9 | Final full mock | Last one. Sit it at the time of day your exam is scheduled |
| 10 | Light review, then stop | No new material. See the day-before guide |
The instinct in a short runway is to sit a full mock every day. It does not work, for a reason that has nothing to do with stamina: a mock is a measurement, and measuring more often does not make the thing you are measuring improve. What improves it is the work between measurements.
A full Core Module mock takes 70 minutes. A proper review of one takes longer than that, because you are not checking a score, you are asking of each wrong answer: did I not know the method, did I know it and run out of time, or did I know it and misread? Those three failures have three different fixes, and you cannot tell them apart by looking at a number.
| Subtest | Questions | Time | Per question |
|---|---|---|---|
| Figure Sequences | 20 | 25 min | 75 s |
| Mathematical Equations | 20 | 25 min | 75 s |
| Latin Squares | 16 | 20 min | 75 s |
| Core Module total | 56 | 70 min | — |
Two mocks reviewed properly beat six sat carelessly. Three is the ceiling in ten days, and the last one should be no later than 23 September — close enough to be a rehearsal, far enough that you still have time to act on it.
Practise the real thing, free. Mock 1 is a full 56-question dMAT Core Module test with enforced timers and a worked solution for every question. Free account, no card. Attempt the free mock test.
This is where most preparation quietly fails. The exam allows no notes, no paper and no calculator at any point. If you have been solving equation systems with a pen in your hand, you have been training a skill the exam forbids, and the first time you meet the real constraint will be on 26 September 2026.
Every practice session from here should run with an empty desk. It will feel worse at first. That drop is the honest measurement, and the ten days are for closing it.
Two more conditions worth matching: the timer runs per subtest and closes that subtest when it expires, so time saved on Figure Sequences cannot be spent on Latin Squares. And you may not leave and come back — if you practise with the tab in the background, you are not practising the exam.
There is no negative marking anywhere on the dMAT. A blank scores zero. A guess on a four-option Figure Sequences item scores zero three-quarters of the time and a full mark the other quarter. Eliminate one option and it is a coin flip on a free bet.
Every blank you leave in a practice mock is a mark you gave away for nothing. Count them at the end of each attempt and drive the number to zero before 26 September 2026. It is the single cheapest improvement available in ten days and it requires no new knowledge at all.
Every Indian APS candidate sits the same General Academic Module after the break, whatever their degree was. It is not an engineering paper, a data science paper or a commerce paper, and any site offering you a degree-matched subject syllabus is describing an exam you are not sitting.
It presents short academic scenarios — a passage, a small dataset, a described study — with single-choice questions tied to that material. It tests reading and reasoning about unfamiliar academic content under time pressure, not recall.
Preparing for it in ten days means practising the skill, not the subject: read a short piece of academic writing outside your field, then answer questions about what it actually says rather than what you assumed. Do not spend these ten days revising your bachelor's syllabus. It is not on the paper.
Sit the whole thing once, end to end, at the time of day you will actually sit it. Three and a half hours of screen work with a thirty-minute break in the middle is a physical event as much as an intellectual one, and the fourth subtest is where unprepared candidates lose marks they were perfectly capable of scoring at 9am.
If you do nothing else from this page, do that.
It is enough to change your pacing, your format familiarity and your guessing discipline, which together are worth a meaningful number of marks. It is not enough to change your underlying reasoning ability, and any guide claiming otherwise is overselling.
Two or three, each followed by a full review. A mock is a measurement; measuring more often does not improve the thing being measured. The work between mocks is what moves the score.
No. Registration for the 26 September 2026 sitting closed on 15 September 2026, and no second sitting has been announced for this cycle. Check the official g.a.s.t. portal for anything that has changed since.
No. The exam allows no notes, no paper and no calculator at any point. Practising with a pen trains a habit the exam forbids, and the first time you meet the real constraint should not be on exam day.
A full 56-question dMAT mock with real timers and a worked solution for every item. Free with an account.
Start the free mock test