MBA Exam Analysis - XAT 2005 Paper Structure and Analysis

As has been mentioned above, this was the first time that XAT (XLRI) has come out of its Time-Limit Model for sections to the more CAT-like model where there are no time limits for the sections.

This should have surprised many who went through the papers of previous years. But, if one understood the fiasco that happened last year, i.e. repeating questions from its own papers of yester years, it was clear that XLRI had to salvage the pride that was lost. One of the ways was changing the pattern completely as CAT did this year. And XAT was a surprise, though not really a surprise, as the students by and large were expecting the change.

This section was a surprise as it was so unlike XAT. XAT seems to have moved away from its traditional approach of giving 6 sets of 10 questions each for a total of 60 marks. There were about 36 individual questions with questions on Differentiation and Derivatives, Locus, Vectors, Sets, Functions and Relations and a liberal dose of Geometry and Mensuration thrown in.

The typical XAT paper never had so many such questions and hence the sheer surprise would have taken some people aback. However, there were some very simple questions in Arithmetic (Percentages, Averages, Numbers, Quadratic Equations) and were in Probability and Permutations and Combinations, which were easy to solve, and as expected.

Another surprise this time was the inclusion of Data Interpretation. There were 6 sets of DI out of which two of them (Industrial Index of Production (IIP) and the Pie Charts) were simple. Even though the set on Bid and Ask rates of Currencies was simple, the calculation intensity would have put people off from attempting the same.

There were 3 questions on Data Sufficiency too, of which 2 were easy. The three sets in this section (Subsets, Prime Factors, Demand/Cost) were actually very simple for students who had attempted them.

Overall, this can be termed as an easy to moderately difficult section with the cutoff expected to be in the range of 22 to 23

Expected Cutoff : 22 – 23

The general awareness section was probably the most difficult of the three sections. Economic and Business Current Affairs, Nobel Prizes (Eco), Sports, Five-Year Plans, Agriculture, and all sorts of questions were given in this section. Students were left wondering what the cutoff could be for such a section. It is expected that the cutoff for a general awareness section is normally about 30% of the total marks for that section. However, it may come down a wee bit this time for XLRI admission.

Expected Cutoff : 8 - 9

Section III – Verbal and Logical Ability (65 questions)

This section again was a surprise in that Logical Ability was clubbed with Verbal and the usual questions in Verbal which included lots of synonyms, antonyms and analogies were not there. In fact the number of RC passages (6) made one feel jittery about the whole section. The Paragraph Forming Questions (Jumbled Para) had no rhyme or reason as far as the links were concerned and were very difficult. To add to that, the logical Reasoning questions would have taken quite some time to solve.

Even though, the Words given for Synonyms as well as a new type where words were given and the choice which ‘did not convey’ the meaning of the word was asked to be identified, had were simple, the answer choices were not. That would mean that a few errors could have crept in if one had not been careful.

But in the time available, say around 45 minutes, attempting around 50 questions was possible and a score of 30+ can be considered very good. However, the cutoff is expected to be low.