Xavier Aptitude Test is a national level MBA entrance exam conducted by XLRI, Jamshedpur every year, for more than 70 years now. Some of the top colleges that accept XAT scores are XLRI Jamshedpur, Xavier Institute of Management (XIM) Bhubaneshwar, MICA, BITS Pilani, TAPMI, IMT Ghaziabad and 150 others. In terms of difficulty, XAT is considered to be the toughest of all MBA entrance exams, even tougher than CAT.
There is negative marking for every incorrect answer and a penalty of 0.10 marks after 8 unattempted questions. The part 2 of XAT, however, General Knowledge section does not have any penalty
Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT 2021) Exam was conducted on 2nd January 2022 from 09:30 a.m. and 12:40 p.m. XAT Exam Paper Pattern was similar as the previous year. Only one additional section was introduced such as the Essay Writing. The section had 2 topics from that student had to select only 1 topic and write on it. The section had 2 topics among which one topic had to be chosen.
Exam Sections | Number of questions | Overall Time Duration |
Part-1 | 75 Total MCQ’s | 165 Minutes |
Verbal and Logical Ability | 26 | No Sectional Time Limit |
Decision Making | 21 | No Sectional Time Limit |
Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation | 28 | No Sectional Time Limit |
Part-2 | 25 Total MCQ’s | 25 Minutes |
General Knowledge (No negative marks) | 25 | |
Essay | 1 | |
Total questions (Part 1 + Part 2) | 101 |
In the above Part 1 questions had negative marks of 0.25 for every incorrect answer attempted. In addition, there was a penalty of 0.1 mark for every unattempted question after 8 unattempted questions in a row. XAT Exam Analysis 2022 section wise is as given below:
XAT Exam Analysis 2021 for the Verbal and Logical Ability section was similar to the previous year’s paper. There were total of 14 questions based on Reading Comprehension. The Verbal ability and Verbal Reasoning questions were a fair mix of grammar, vocabulary, and reasoning based questions such as Critical Reasoning, Correct or Incorrect statements and Parajumbles. The Reading Comprehension included passages and also poem based questions.
Area | No. of Q’s | Doable Q’s | Level of Difficulty |
Verbal Ability/ Reasoning | |||
Grammatically incorrect sentence | 3 | 2 | Moderate |
Fill in the blanks | 1 | 1 | Moderate |
Jumbled Paragraphs | 2 | 1 | Moderate |
Critical Reasoning | 4 | 2 | Difficult |
Poem-based Inference | 1 | 1 | Moderate |
Cloze Passage | 1 | 1 | Moderate |
Reading Comprehension | |||
RC 1 – How lying differs from bullshitting | 3 | 2 | Moderate |
RC 2 – A psychologically rich life can be a good life | 3 | 2 | Moderate |
RC 3 – Stupidity as a cognitive failing | 3 | 1 | Moderate |
RC 4 – Publicness is as important to progress as sociability or privacy | 3 | 1 | Difficult |
RC 5 – Poem – Immigrant by Tabish Khair | 2 | 1 | Difficult |
An overall attempts of about 12-14 questions in this particular section in about 50 to 60 minutes, with high accuracy would be considered a good attempt.
XAT Exam Analysis 2021 for the Decision Making section consisted of 21 questions but none of them was based on Quantitative and similar to that of the last years paper. This section had 7 sets and each set had 3 questions. Most of the questions were to test Ethical Dilemma. The sets were easy to read and also short in length. The selection of sets and questions to solve must be depended upon personal preferences and strengths.
Area/Questions | No. of Qs. | Level of Difficulty |
Allotment of accommodation to scientists of 3 different seniority levels in a research institute | 3 | Moderate |
Regarding an individual’s use of a vehicle (diesel-based) that is non-compliant with pollution rules | 3 | Moderate |
Regarding recruitment and confirmation of faculty members in an engineering college | 3 | Moderate |
Running a dosa Stall in a hospital | 3 | Difficult |
Regarding school fees payment by financially able parents during the pandemic | 3 | Moderate |
Regarding an assignment submission in a management college | 3 | Difficult |
Regarding the concerns of residents of an island village about how a proposed new bridge connecting their island to the mainland might impact them, business and also ethics | 3 | Difficult |
An overall attempts of about 12-13 questions in this particular section in about 50 to 55 minutes, with high accuracy would be considered a good attempt.
XAT Exam Analysis 2021 for the Quantitative Ability section had 4 sets of Data Interpretation and it consisted of 3 questions each. The questions were tricky and it was moderate in terms of the difficulty level. 2 sets of DI also was very calculation intensive. It also had 16 questions based on Quantitative Ability which are given as below.
Topic | No. of Q’s | Doable Q’s |
Modern Math | 4 | 2 |
Arithmetic | 1 | 1 |
Geometry | 2 | 1 |
Algebra | 1 | 1 |
Numbers | 8 | 5 |
Table | 3 | 2 |
Bar Graph | 3 | 2 |
Candlestick | 3 | 1 |
Line Graph | 3 | 3 |
An overall attempts of about 16 to 17 questions in this particular section in about 55 to 60 minutes, with high accuracy would be considered a good attempt.
There was no break in between of both the parts of the Examination.
XAT Exam Analysis 2021 for the General Knowledge (GK) section consisted of 13 questions based on current affairs and 12 questions based on static GK. Overall, this section was of the same level of difficulty as per the previous year’s exam. Approximately 14 to 15 questions were based upon national events, 7-8 questions were based upon international events and rest on miscellaneous topics. The questions covered a wide range of sub-topics and gave no special advantage to students who like only one particular area of interest.
To maximize the score in this particular section, one should attempt minimum of 14-15 questions seriously. In addition since there was no negative marking in this section, all the remaining questions should also be attempted.
XAT Exam Analysis 2021 for the Essay Writing was re-introduced in the XAT Exam. 2 topics were given and from that only 1 was to be answered. The total words need to write was of approximately 250-300 words.
The topics for the essay writing were as follows:
1. Capitalism and democracy follow different logics such as unequally distributed property rights on the one hand, debate, compromise and majority decision-making within democratic politics versus hierarchical decision-making. Therefore, Capitalism and democracy cannot co-exist.
2. In management we do not need people who did not experience setbacks. Such people are highly risk averse. Because B-schools mainly focus on stellar academic achievements during the admissions and the selected students turn out to be average managers.
Overall, XAT Exam Analysis 2021 was similar in the level of difficulty as compared to previous year XAT Exam 2021. The DM Section was on the similar terms with the last year and only few questions in DM section were difficult. The VALR section was slightly more challenging than the previous year XAT 2021.
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