# ISI MStat Entrance is not just an Examination. How to Prepare for it?

ISI MStat Examination is the postgraduate statistics program taught by ISI. The ISI MStat Entrance Examination is held during May (the time is not fixed from next year due to COVID-19).

Indian Statistical Institute (a.k.a ISI) is the pioneer of Statistics in the country. Holding the hands of Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, the institute achieved milestones after milestones, paving for us the way to fall in love with data, play around with it, and get immense pleasure. To read about one such story of P.C.Mahalanobis, you can explore here.

## ISI MStat Entrance > an Examination

Unlike the IITJAM's MCQs and ISI's objective portion, the ISI M.Stat entrance PSB (subjective) is something really more than an entrance examination. It reflects the beauty of data, math, and chance in their problems, just like the olympiads and the ISI B.Stat entrance examination. I will explain to you via their problems.

Let me discuss a little bit about the syllabus.

The Mathematics part involves

• Real Analysis
• Linear Algebra

But, truly speaking, you can do any math problem in the ISI MStat entrance, if you just focus on your college math portion. It is really super easy. You just need to know the basics. I can guarantee you this. The reason behind this is simple. You are going into a Statistics Program, which is an applied math topic, so to apply your knowledge in the industry, the bare minimum is this. So, you are really in a comfortable position, if you are confident in your non - random math part.

Let's come to the interesting topics of Probability and Statistics now.

The Broad Topics in Proabability and Statistics are

• Probability
• Estimation Theory
• Regression Techniques
• Sample Survey

### How we fall in love with data?

This is my personal take as a data enthusiast of Cheenta. I believe this is almost always the case of all data enthusiasts all over the world. If you have a story please share it in the comments.

If you ask me about the day, when I fell in love with data and chance, it is the day when, I was at a seashore, trying to calculate the time difference of the waves coming to the shore and when I plotted it, among the sheer randomness, I found the pattern of nothing (XD). That intrigued me ever since. I got something like the stock market, totally unpredictable. Yet, if you add these waves' differences up and take the mean, and keep on collecting data, you get a nice and beautiful bell curve (a.k.a Central Limit Theorem). Once you play with data, the idea of histogram comes naturally.

My relationship with randomness dates back to class 8 days when I used to think, that I can find the pattern in the sheer randomness in the primes, and but in fact, it turned out that there is a distribution of the primes, given by the prime number theorem. During these COVID-19, I was playing cricket and collecting data, the data of 0 and 1. 1 reflects that I played a shot well and 0 tells no I didn't play the shot well. This love for data combined with my old good cricket days is really beautiful. I just wanted to answer if my playing shots less are dependent on my playing shots not well. Of course, it is dependent and it is a simple time-series analysis, but there is a sense of ecstasy when you solve your own problems.

## More than an Examination...

The problems in MStat helps you understand the data and the math of chance more. For example, I will give you examples of three problems, where you can connect to your real life.

The Problem of Lock and Key makes me remember the nights where I was sleepy and have to open the door to my father and couldn't find the right key.

The Dice Paradox - which challenges your intuition displays the beauty of Conditional Probability.

As, rightly said, Conditional Probability is the central most important idea of Probability and Statistics. Since, it is just a simple interpretation of giving you some numbers back, once you know some information (Data).

The Problem which I asked myself, when I was a kid and solved it in my undergraduate.

Thus the problems are not stereotypes, you need to fall in love with Data and Chance and their beauty in your life. You might even answer your doubts in your childhood, while answering the questions in your childhood. This is the way, problems should be solved. We have to solve it playfully and that's how innovations march in.

So, I end with the idea - You have to be passionate about data and the randomness. You have to enjoy solving problems. So, this entrance examination and this course is always something more than an examination. It is about answering your problems, that troubled you decades ago.

## How to Prepare for ISI MStat Entrance?

I know you are waiting for this part. The truth is that, yes you can prepare yourself alone if you are enough motivated about solving problems on chance and data.

But the main problem is people don't know where to start. I will try to help you do so, in this post.

What will be my Focus?

Here, focus means with respect to your content. You have to be fully focussed on a single source for learning your topics. The best source is a book, where you can get it all. The easiest way in this information-rich world is to get lost. So, try to focus.

I always referred myself two books and therefore I recommend you to do so.

• A First Course in Probability by Sheldon Ross
• Mathematical Statistics and Data Analysis by John.A.Rice.

Just take this as the bible and you will do wonders. I can't guarantee you a position in the ISI MStat program, but I can guarantee you an enjoyable process of learning chance and data, which will put you in the top 10% of those in the preparation. The rest is left to luck.

For the Mathematics, portion be fluent in your 10+2 syllabus of mathematics and have a sound knowledge in Calculus and Linear Algebra.

### Preparation Tips six months before the Exam:

I believe that majority are in this window. So, I strictly against any windowless than six months for the beginning of your preparation. It shows your attitude towards life and even if you get into ISI, it will cost you big somewhere in your life. So, stop procrastinating. Don't believe in that stuff that procrastinating makes you creative. That's a myth.

1. Start solving your past year's paper.
2. Make a Separate Copy
3. Try to figure out what you can solve and what you cannot.
4. Take this feedback and try to work on your weak areas.
5. Try to take some guidance from some expert like seniors, teachers, etc ( Not Necessary )
6. Repeat.

All the best!

## Why Cheenta for ISI MStat Entrance Exam Preparation?

Suppose, you get into ISI / IIT or don't get into ISI / IIT after your years of hard work. We believe, that you shouldn't work hard. Working hard means, you are doing something hard against something. You are in this path of study, only because you are in love with data. Even if you are not, then try to fall in love with the path of learning and crunching information from data. We are there to help you.

Cheenta will just help you organize your study program. We will ensure that you are on the right track and don't get off track with so much information out there. We give you a study plan, which will help you complete the tasks one step at a time. We will discuss problems from past years in accordance with the theory.

Above all, we will help you to learn the applications of data and the theory you are learning. We believe, statistics and data science without applications is as boring as a kite without the thread.

So, with every bit of knowledge you gain, we will teach you the coding perspective of it.

For example You are learning Probability 1 in our curriculum and you are introduced to the idea of equally likely sampling/selection. Now the natural question comes, how do I select equally likely objects by a machine? It is just a simple line of code.

sample(10,2)
5 8

From, this will arise questions, does this give equally likely in both the steps or it is SRSWOR? Our curriculum is based on the principles of ancient india. We are all seekers. We seek more and more. That is the moto of Cheenta.

If you believe, you can do these by yourself, you can do self study, rather than joining our program. You will get much more freedom.

All the best.

Stay Tuned! Stay Blessed!

### 9 comments on “ISI MStat Entrance is not just an Examination. How to Prepare for it?”

1. Ritu says:

2. Risabh says:

Hello sir, I don't have maths and statistics in my 12th grade.so i have less idea about the same.Request you to help me what i need to do to be able to clear ISI Mstat entrance?..What all necessary materials etc

3. Ankit Mishra says:

Hi, I am a post-graduate in Statistics. But i want to learn statistics more and MStat from ISI is something more than any postgraduate program in Statistics. Can I appear for MStat entrance?

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