XAT 2010 Analysis

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Exam Snapshot

No. of Questions	101
Total Marks	101*
Marking Scheme	1*
Negative marking	0.20 marks for first 5 incorrect answers in each section & 0.25 marks for each incorrect answer thereafter
Number of Sections	3
Number of Choices	5
Duration	120 Min + 20 Min for Essay
Essay Topic	Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need but not every man’s greed

*The marks per question were not clearly specified. An assumption of 1 mark per question has been made here

XAT2010 was easily the toughest paper of the management exam season so far this year. XAT 2010 was similar to XAT2009 - the paper had three sections viz. Verbal & Logical Ability, Analytical Reasoning & Decision Making and Data Interpretation & Quantitative Ability with a total of 101 questions. However students would have really liked this paper as it gave them an opportunity to showcase their preparation, something which CAT denied them! This was a very difficult paper with all the ingredients of a Bollywood potboiler; lengthy questions, difficult questions, tricky questions and yes, easy questions too. Students would have come out of the exam hall not knowing how well they fared. The key to approaching this paper was to keep cool and follow the tested ‘TIME-allocation’ strategy. Those who left the difficult questions and did not target a ‘pre-fixed’ number of questions would have been able to find the easy questions and have a good, balanced performance in all three sections – which is the key to get the coveted call from XLRI.

Snapshot of the paper

The break-up of the XAT2010 paper and an optimum time allocation strategy are given in the table below.

Section	No. of Questions	Difficulty level	Optimum Time Allocation
Data Interpretation & Quantitative Ability	40	Very Difficult	40
Analytical Reasoning & Decision Making	30	Very Difficult	40
Verbal & Logical Ability	31	Difficult	40

Data Interpretation & Quantitative Ability
No. of Questions: 40

This was by far the most difficult set in the paper. The key to this section was to analyse the question and decide quickly whether to solve it or not. Students who did not get “Stuck” on any question would have done quite well in this section. The DI sets were almost ‘undoable’ and should not have been attempted. The caselet on “Sales of Small cars” looked lengthy and contained confusing symbols, but once the concept of “Expected value” was understood, it was simple. The caselet on “Books and More” was one of the easier ones and could have been attempted. The set on “Portland cement” appeared easy, but contained some tricks, especially the definition of “Profit Rate”.The caselet on “Bond prices” was lengthy and was better left alone. The case on “Flowers” was very straightforward, but needed some horrendous calculations. There were two tricky questions on DS. QA was the saving grace in this section. The questions covered a wide variety of areas and many of them were tricky and time consuming to say the least. However, there were some simple questions (e.g. Circular field, four digit positive number, Amarendra and Dharmendra) and should have been attempted. Locating such easy questions and solving them would be the key to scoring well in this section.

The expected score for this section should be around 4-5 in about 40 min. A score of 11+ should be considered excellent. The cut-off is expected to be around 6-7.

Area		Description	Marks	Difficulty level	Good Score
QA	All Areas	All Areas	24	Difficult	5-6
DI	Table	Flowers	3	Difficult	2-3
	Table	Portland Cement	3	Very Difficult
	Caselet	Sales of small cars	3	Difficult
	Caselet	Bond Prices	3	Very Difficult
	Caselet	Books and More	2	Moderate
DS	Arithmetic		2	Moderate	1
Overall			40	Very Difficult	8-10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Analytical Reasoning & Decision Making
No. of Questions: 30

The Analytical & Decision Making section was one of the tougher sections in this paper. The section was extremely lengthy and was a ‘black hole’ in terms of the time it consumed. Students should have budgeted for an extra 10 mins in this section on account of the lengthy and difficult Qs sets in it. The Qs on ‘Puppies and Pens’ and the ‘Crossword’ were amongst the easier ones and should have been attempted. The set on binary logic involving ‘9 Financial accountants’ was one of the toughest in the paper and should have been avoided. The Decision Making area has always troubled students in XAT and XAT2010 was no different. The Decision Making sets though ‘easy’ to read always had two close options which made the process of selecting the right answer a very tedious and time consuming one. The set on the ‘Racket club’, though an oblique reference to the current WADA controversy involving the Indian Cricket team was one such set where the options were just too close for comfort. The sets on 'Guruji's Guidance' and the one on 'LAM disease' were amongst the easier ones and should have been attempted. All in all this was a tough section and the right strategy for this section was to identify a few sets and aim for a high level of accuracy. Identifying the time consuming logic puzzles and leaving them out would have been the key to doing well in this section.

The expected score for this section should be around 5-7 in about 40 min. A score of 12+ should be considered excellent. The cut-off is expected to be around 7-8.

	Area	Description	Marks	Difficulty Level	Good Score
AR & DM	Puzzle	Pet store	3	Moderate	5-6
	Puzzle	BPO-Operators	5	Very Difficult
	Puzzle	Financial scam in NWC corporation	2	Very Difficult
	Puzzle	Cross word Puzzle	5	Difficult
	Puzzle	Bands performing at XLRI	3	Difficult
	Decision Making	Aviation Industry	3	Moderate	4-5
	Decision Making	Racket club	3	Moderate-Difficult
	Decision Making	Guruji's Guidance	4	Moderate-Difficult
	Miscellaneous	LAM disease, environmentalists	2	Moderate
Overall			30	Very Difficult	9-11

Verbal & Logical Ability
No. of Questions: 31
This was probably the one section that would have helped students maximise their score and lend some respectability to the total number of attempts. Once again XAT has bowled a ‘doosra’ by setting a paper which tested students not just on their ability in language but also in their logic and analytical skills. The answers were also quite difficult to arrive at, primarily because they tested interpretation, the understanding of implications, and reasoning. This section had questions from the Reading Comprehension, Verbal and Logical Reasoning areas. The passages were quite short but were quite difficult to read given the off-beat nature of the topics. The 5 choices per question further complicated things. The passages on ‘Silver & Particles’, ‘Neo & Morpheus’, ‘Kant and Moral worth’ and ‘Fashion’ belonged to this type. However one could attempt atleast 3 of the passages if one read carefully and between the lines. The passage on ‘Probability’ tested the logic skills of the students and this is one set where students could have ended up making mistakes. There were quite a few LR questions - while some of them looked at analysis and evaluation of argument, the others looked at familiarity with reasoning method. Those who had prepared extensively for CAT should have been able to solve quite a few of these Qs. There were 2 Qs on Para Formation that were quite difficult to work out and they took time, careful reading and some thought. A welcome change in this paper over those of the previous years was the complete absence of the Qs on ‘Figures of speech’ however these Qs were replaced by some equally difficult Qs on Vocabulary. All in all this was a difficult section and the cut-offs should be on the lower side.

The expected score for this section should be around 5-6 in about 40 min. A score of 15+ should be considered excellent. The cut-off is expected to be around 9-10.

Area		Description	Marks	Difficulty level	Good Score
VA	Fill in the Blanks	4 blanks and 1 blank	4	Moderate-Difficult	3
	Analogy		2	Difficult
	Vocab/Grammar	Usage	1	Easy	8-9
RC	Passage 1	Fashion & Custom	2	Moderate
	Passage 2	Transcript from ‘Matrix’	2	Difficult
	Passage 3	Inflammability of words	2	Moderate
	Passage 4	Kantian Ethics	2	Difficult
LR	Reasoning	FIJ, Inferences, Arguments, Para-Jumbles	17	Difficult
Overall			31	Difficult	11-12

 

 

 

Estimated Cut-offs for Sections (for XLRI)

Data Interpretation & Quantitative Ability	6-7
Verbal & Logical Ability	9-10
Analytical Reasoning & Decision Making	7-8
Overall	32-34

Expected Overall Cut-off

 

Institute	Expected Cut-off	Sectional Cut-offs	Flagship Program	Number of Seats	Overall Cut-off in 2009 (Percentile)
XLRI - BM	34+	Sectional Cut-offs considered (QA= 94.9%ile VA= 90.03 %ile LR = 90.21 %ile overall = 98.03)	BM &  PMIR	120	98.03
XLRI - PMIR	31+	Sectional Cut-offs considered (QA= 84.58 %ile VA = 92.69 %ile LR= 80.13 %ile overall = 95%ile)		120	95
XIM-B	31+	Sectional Cut-offs considered (78.77 in Quant; 76.08 in English and 75.99 in Reasoning)	PGDM	120	96.21 (89.55 for Orissa Quota)
SP Jain	23+	Profile based; Sectional Cut-offs considered	PGDM	120	85
IFMR	23+	NA	PGDM	60	85.29
GIM	26+	Sectional Cut-offs considered (60 in each section)	PGDM	120	93
LIBA	24+	NA	PGDBM	120	91.5
KIAMS	20+	NA	PGPM	60	72 (Girls); 79 (Boys)
XIME	23+	NA	PGDPM	120	85
XISS	15+	NA	PGDPM	75	55