  We use a calorimetric technique operating in sweeping magnetic field to study
the thermomagnetic history- dependence of the magnetocaloric effect (MCE) in
Mn0.985Fe0.015As. We study the magnetization history for which a "colossal" MCE
has been reported when inferred indirectly via a Maxwell relation. We observe
no colossal effect in the direct calorimetric measurement. We further examine
the impact of mixed-phase state on the MCE and show that the first order
contribution scales linearly with the phase fraction. This validates various
phase-fraction based methods developed to remove the colossal peak anomaly from
Maxwell-based estimates.
