XAT exam analysis@ Know exam patterns before planning for XAT 2013

Aug. 17, 2012 - PRLog -- XAT 2013 is the latest MBA entrance examination that has been announced recently. The registration process will start from August 20, 2012. Before deciding on taking the test, one must be aware of the pattern.

XAT is a paper- & pencil-based test and there is no plan to change the format to a computer-based one. The duration of XAT is 2 hours and 20 minutes. The sections are data interpretation & quantitative ability, analytical reasoning & decision making and verbal & logical ability. Apart from the three sections, one has to write an essay in 20 minutes.

XAT 2008

XAT 2008 had 120 questions with high difficulty level. The data interpretation and quantitative ability section had 38 questions. It had questions on line graph and tables. While the questions on line graphs were easy, the ones on tables were calculation-intensive and tough.  Most of the arithmetic questions were tough.

The verbal & logical ability section had 38 questions. There were 4 RC passages. The other questions were fill in the blanks and para jumble which were tricky. The logical reasoning caselets were of ‘moderate’ difficulty level.  

The analytical reasoning & decision making section had 38 questions which were of moderate difficulty level. The questions were on puzzles, quantitative reasoning and decision making.

XAT 2009

The number of questions was reduced to 101. The difficulty level was very high. The DI & QA section had 38 questions which were extremely tough. The DI questions involved more of thinking than calculation. The arithmetic questions covered a wide variety of areas and were difficult and time consuming.

The number of VA & LA questions was 35. There were 3 RC passages which required careful reading. The questions on grammar were on sentence correction, figures of speech and para jumbles which were difficult in nature. The logical reasoning caselets were of moderate difficulty level.  

The AR & decision making section had 31 questions. The AR questions were of moderate difficulty level and the decision making questions were tricky.

XAT 2010

The number of questions was 101. The DI & QA section had 40 questions. The DI sets were very tough. The QA questions were easier compared to DI and DS questions.

The VA & LR section had 31 questions. The difficulty level of this section was tough. There were 4 RC passages which were of moderate to difficult level. Other questions were on fill in the blanks, analogy, vocabulary and grammar. They were of moderate to difficult in nature.

The AR & DM section had 30 questions. The difficulty level was very tough and the section was lengthy. The questions were on puzzles, decision making and other miscellaneous topics.

XAT 2011

The total number of questions was 101. The QA & DI section had 43 questions which were of very tough difficulty level. The DI questions were from table, line graphs and bar graphs. The QA questions were from pure maths area.

The VA & LR section had 34 questions. The difficulty level was tough. There were 2 RC passages. The VA questions were on fill in the blanks, PFQs, vocabulary, analogies and grammar. The LR questions were on inferences, strengthening/weakening arguments, etc.  

The AR & DM section had 24 questions of tough difficulty level. The section was pretty time consuming. The questions on puzzles were very difficult.

The essay writing section was presented in a different manner. There was a statement given and one had to make a judgment on it.
XAT 2012

The  number of questions reduced to 85. The difficulty level reduced too. The quantitative ability & data interpretation section had 28 questions. The topics included numbers, statistics, bar charts, geometry & mensuration, simple & compound interests, averages, mixtures & alligations, special equations, ratio, proportion, variation, time & distance, Venn Diagram, pie chart, percentage, profit & loss.

The English language ability & logical reasoning had 32 questions. The reading comprehension area had two passages with nine questions in total. The verbal reasoning area consisted of PFQ and fill in the blank questions. Vocabulary questions consisted of analogy, synonyms, antonyms and fill in the blanks. The grammar part consisted of questions on fill in the blanks and identification of correct & incorrect options.

The logical reasoning area consisted of questions from strengthen/weaken arguments and sentence-based inferences.

The data sufficiency section had 25 questions of 30 marks. Unlike previous years, analytical reasoning questions were not there. This section was quite tough.