Section A : Verbal Ability

The Verbal Ability section was on the tougher side, compared to the last year's XAT. It was more a test of the logical and analytical skills of the students than only language ability. The questions, as is expected in XAT, were very clever and had close options. The RC passages had particularly close answer choices.

The following questions had particularly close answer choices and had to be thought through very carefully:

RC passage: Neural circuits and networks
Q: Learning for nursery students: The passage does not suggest that learning leads to complex behaviour. It only says that learning leads to an ability to understand complex behaviour. Therefore (C) can not be the answer.

RC passage: Orchids and dandelions
Q: Growth of orchids: Saying that orchids end up weaker is a definite/unconditional statement and can not be implied. Saying that they may end up weaker would have been appropriate. The meaning of anaesthetised conditions can be understood from the context to mean tempered/controlled growth environment and that would make option (C) appropriate.

Q: Echoing the author's view: Choice (D) is clearly implied from para 3, where the author speaks about the orchid kids's enhanced functions in favourable conditions.

Q: Mr. Good and Mr. Evil: A person who has been raised in a good environment and does well in career can be either an orchid or a dandelion, so nothing can be said about Mr. Good. Similarly a person who is not doing well in his career and has been raised in a poor environment could be an orchid or a dandelion, irrespective of the growth environment. Therefore option (E) would be the correct answer choice.

RC passage: Faria and Abbe
Q: Sarcasm of destiny: if we read the second para, the author is clearly speaking of having struggled thus far and allowing destiny to have its way by commiting suicide (and that tempts him to fight back, if only to prove a point). Therefore, option (E) would be the appropriate answer choice.

One could have attempted around 15 questions in 40 min with an accuracy of 70%. A score of 8 marks can be considered good in this section.