Amidst chaos surrounding CAT 2009, the repeated passages in FMS, wrong questions here and there in other major entrance tests, XAT 2010 managed to hold its head high and lived up to the expectations of numerous MBA aspirants last season. Will it be the case this time around too? We will know come 2^nd January 2011.

The trends:

XAT has been continuously reducing the number of questions from the 175/200-question blitz papers in the pre-2006 era to the latest, most condensed 101-question version in XAT 2010. Also, the questions aren’t evenly distributed across the three sections. So, one can’t really expect anything beforehand and hence, forming a rigid strategy is not possible and certainly not advised.

The paper used to have a General Awareness section till 2004 but it has not been a part of the paper since XAT 2005.

The patterns of the last few years’ XAT have been as follows:

QA-DI: Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation

AR-DM: Analytical Reasoning and Decision Making

VA-LR: Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning

The instructions page:

The most important part of the paper. This needs to be read carefully so as to design a proper strategy which would help maximise the score. A careful observation of the number of questions, the number of sections, the allocation of questions and the negative marking is a must before moving on to attempting questions.

The progressive negative marking:

XAT 2006 introduced the progressive negative marking scheme and has stuck to it since then. One of the two major things, the other being the overall difficulty level of the paper, which makes XAT appear to be an accuracy based test. The negative marking scheme is section wise i.e. You are allowed the minimum wrongs per section before it gets harsher.

Now, the negative marking scheme last time around wasn’t harsh at all. For a five option paper, the marking scheme is generally +4/-1 which is to assure that no one benefits from random guessing. In XAT 2010 however, the negative marking started with +1/-0.2 (which is similar to +5/-1). This should have encouraged one to attempt more questions and improving one’s score in the process. It was a bit harsh is XAT 2009 with 1/4^th of a mark deducted for the first six wrongs and 1/3^rd for each proceeding wrong answer in each section. So, one has to judge how to go about the paper according the negative marking. Not every paper having progressive negative marking is difficult and neither is it the case vice-versa.

Data Interpretation and Quantitative Ability:

With the number of questions hovering around 40 and the cut-off around 8-10, the only thing needed, along with a hold on the basic concepts, in this section is a good selection of doable questions. The questions cover almost all the major areas and so, if one is comfortable solving the basic questions across many areas, one will find plenty of questions to play around with.

Few of the topics focused on in the previous XAT papers have been:

1. Simple interest, compound interest

2. Percentages, profit and loss

3. Geometry

4. Time and work and time, speed and distance

5. Permutations, combinations and probability

6. Equations

7. Arithmetic

The other part in this section consists of Data Interpretation caselets. The caselets have plenty of data and close options with tiring calculations most of the time. If one doesn’t find doable caselets, it would be wiser to stick to the quant part of the section and attempt as many questions as possible.

Analytical Reasoning and Decision Making:

Regarded as one of the toughest sections in any entrance paper last season, this section consists of two parts. The analytical reasoning part is similar to the logical reasoning part in the other entrance tests. There are 4-5 caselets which have to be solved to get the answers to the questions. The level of difficulty is high and one has to be very clear regarding which questions to attempt and which ones to leave. The returns are high but the time taken is also more to solve these questions and the high chances of getting the caselet wrong make these type of questions the ones which people tend to leave during the exam at first glance.

The other part of the section the decision making part is one of the unique features of the test. In these questions, a short story is given (involving entrepreneurship or business deals or simply an event) followed by some questions. The questions involving have to be answered so that the actions are ethical and don’t mean harm to any of the concerned people. The caselets are generally easy to read and the questions seem attemptable most of the time. However, sometimes the options can be confusing which can make things a bit difficult. This is the more attemptable part of the section and a relief for those who simply loathe the reasoning caselets.

Practice for both the types can be done from previous year XAT papers. The decision making caselets involve solutions which are ethical and not something one would have done for personal benefit. Calculations if any in such caselets should be done keeping an eye on the data given. Last time XAT had a caselet which required one to notice that the year in question was a leap year and the options were confusing too. One has to be careful about these things while solving the questions. The analytical reasoning caselets can be practised from mocks and other entrance test papers. The questions are generally based on constructing a table representing the given data and may or may not have multiple possibilities.

Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning:

This section had something for everyone last time around. There were questions on Reading Comprehension, parajumbles, critical reasoning questions, vocabulary based questions, fill-in-the-blanks, analogies, questions based on grammatically correct usage, a question on fact, inference and judgement and also an advertisement.

The Reading Comprehension passages are short, crisp and dense. One has to read between the lines to rule out options and things can get very confusing if one doesn’t read and interpret the passage with a calm head. The questions are inferential almost every time and so, it might be difficult for someone to read all the passages properly and attempt everything. So, the rest of the section needs attention too. And it is indeed a relief from the dense passages. The questions are fun to read and attempt and the strategy to be followed here is that of eliminating options. But, sometimes, the answers to these questions are open to multiple interpretations and so, one cannot sure of which one is ‘the’ best answer.

XAT 2009 had a few questions on sentence correction which were absent in XAT 2010. The same year, there were a couple of questions on the type of argument (Inductive generalization, predictive argument, generalization based on authority, deductive generalization, argument from analogy, causal argument, etc.). Also, there were a few questions based on figures of speech. So, it would help if one is thorough with these aspects of verbal ability too.

The Essay:

This is one of the neglected parts of the process as this plays no part in one receiving/not receiving a call. That’s indeed true. But, during the Interview stage, the panel is in possession of the candidate’s essay. In case there are some good points made in the essay, it might just give you that edge while making a close call. If the essay isn’t good enough, they might get a bad impression about the candidate. The essay just denotes your awareness about topics and your ability to pen down your thoughts in a logical manner. The things to be taken care of while writing the essay are:

1. Legible handwriting

2. No corrections/grammatical errors

3. Crisp and to the point without any deviation from the topic

The essay is done after the OMR sheets are collected and one has 20 minutes to gather one’s thoughts, make a rough summary and then pen it down. The essay should be around 250-300 words. The paper with the essay topic printed on it is provided by the examiners.

The last few years’ essay topics have been:

2010-Earth provides enough to satisfy mans need, but not mans greed

2009-The Inherent vice of Capitalism is unequal sharing of blessings and the inherent virtue of Socialism is equal sharing of misery

2008-The consequence of gender imbalance The Third World War

2007-Economic growth without environmental damage mirage or reality

2006-India has one of the largest pool of talented manpower but few innovations and patented products

The Cut-offs:

XAT doesn’t provide raw scores. They just provide the candidates with their percentiles. Plus the options are subjective in some cases and so, the opinions about the right answer might differ. So, it is really difficult to say what percentile a certain raw score would fetch. But past trends show that a two-digit score in every section with an overall score of around 33-35 should be good enough to clear the cut-off for XLRI (BM). But again, these are just previous year trends and hence cannot be used to judge one’s performance in XAT 2011.

For strategies and test taking tips, you can refer to the XAT ready reckoner.

Wish all the readers a very Merry Christmas from everyone at the PG HQ.