XAT 2016 Analysis, Key & Score Calculator

XAT 2016, conducted by XLRI Jamshedpur for admission to their Business Management and Human Resource Management programmes, was conducted successfully today, Jan 03, 2016. XAT score is used by many reputed institutes as a part of the admission process, such as SPJain, XIM Bhuvaneshwar, and GIM Goa.

XAT 2016 was, as far as the pattern goes, similar to the last year. It had five sections (i) Verbal and Logical Ability (ii) Decision Making (iii) Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation (iv) General Knowledge and v)Essay. The marks of General Knowledge and Essay will not be used for determining the percentile and cut off at first stage of selection.

Part I of the test constituted three sections viz Verbal and Logical Ability, Decision Making & Analytical Reasoning, and Quantitative Aptitude & Data Interpretation. Part II had questions from General Knowledge and an Essay. The overall duration of the test was 170 min for the first part and 35 minutes for the second, with the two parts being sequentially administered. The students had to return the OMR sheet for part I before section II was administered.

All questions carried 1 mark with negative marking (one fourth of a mark for a wrong answer). There will be negative marking of 0.05 for un-attempted questions, subject to a maximum of 13 questions.

The key changes in XAT this year and the rationale for them ( as per XAT authorities) compared to the last year are summarised as below

The total number of questions has been brought down to 78 ( last year there were 84 questions, excluding 30 GK questions ).

• The time allotted has been increased by 20 minutes ( Last year for section 1 the time allotted was 140 minutes, ie excluding GK and Essay writing ).
• In order to enable students to attempt as many questions as possible and encourage them to demonstrate all-round skills, the difficulty level of the questions has been brought down.
• XAT-2016 has been designed in such a manner that that the top hundred students will be able to complete the test in 170 minutes.
• In XAT-2016 students have a choice of not attempting 13 questions. Beyond this, any un-attempted question will carry the negative mark of 0.05. There would also be negative marking of 0.25 marks for any wrong answer.
• The time allowed to answer both GK and Essay would be 35 minutes.Last year, the GK score of most candidates was on the lower side, and some candidates had complained about the time. Taking this feedback into consideration the number of questions in the GK has been reduced to twenty-five ( last year there were 30 questions ). All the questions would be "General" in nature rather than "specific". There would be no negative marking in this section

Even though it is not explicitly mentioned in the instructions, sectional cutoffs are expected to be looked at by the top schools like XLRI and therefore the candidates were expected to show their competence in all the areas. However, General Awareness and Essay writing shall be used for evaluation only after the initial screening, i.e., these will not be used for the short listing of candidates for the GDPI round.

The following is a brief snapshot of the question distribution:

• Official XAT 2016 Key


• Exam Snap Shot

Part-1


• Verbal and Logical Ability


• Decision Making


• Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation

Part-2


• General Knowledge


• Essay Topic