The test was divided into two parts. Part A was the usual XAT paper that would be evaluated for the percentile calculation. Part B would be evaluated at the discretion of the college that a student would apply to for the second stage of selection.

Part A

The test was not less challenging than the previous years. There were 91 questions in the paper and unlike past few years, XAT did not have differential marking. Hence, these 91 questions were worth 91 marks. Each question had 5 options. The penalty for incorrect answers was 25% of the marks allotted to the question. Despite the increase in time, the average number of attempts is not likely to increase as compared to last year.

The Verbal and Logical Ability Section was not easier than last year but was different in quite a few ways. Most importantly, vocabulary questions (that have been a consistent feature in XAT) were missing this year. Instead, the test saw a few questions on articles that were very easy and could have been attempted by all. Also, the ever-feared Critical Reasoning questions were very few in number and came in a new avatar. There were only three questions of this kind but they were tough and could have been avoided. In Critical Reasoning, question based on strengthening, weakening and assumptions were also almost missing. There were two passages of approximately 300-350 words each. These, although not easy, could have been attempted. The next two passages were of about 600-650 words each. These were difficult and one had to carefully select questions that one wanted to attempt. Para-jumbles came as a relief for the test takers as all the three questions of this kind were doable. The test also saw three questions of grammar, two of which could have easily been attempted.

The section of Decision Making distressed a few as the level of difficulty rose up by a few notches. The section, although named ‘DM’, did have 8 questions of Analytical Reasoning that were extremely tough (two questions out of eight were incorrect) and the wisest course of action for a test taker would have been to leave these questions in favor of the Decision Making questions. Even then, this decision to leave AR completely will cost one at least 10 minutes.  There were seventeen questions on Decision making which could be categorized into two distinct categories- Easy and Tough. There were eight questions that were easy and could have been done easily by everyone. An interesting thing to note is that the Decision Making questions were fabricated out of the real life situations like Anna Hazare movement and 2G Spectrum case.

The section of Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation may have given a few test takers a reason to smile as the level of difficulty went down. As compared to last year, this section may have allowed greater number of attempts. One could have attempted around 15 questions in 50-55 minutes by a careful selection of questions. One could have done well in this section by focusing on questions from Arithmetic. The questions on Data Interpretation were quite a few and almost all of them were tough. Two questions in this section were incorrect and one question could be attempted only by looking at the answer choices and by approximation. XAT conducting bodies might want to proof read the test a little better next time as a question had a remark “is it a repeat” written at the end of it.

The details of the sections and the likely cut-offs are as given below-

XAT 2013 Cut-offs
Section No. of Ques. Possible attempts Good score Estimated cut off
XL

BM

XL

HRM

SP Jain XIM/GIM
Verbal & Logical Ability 30 19-20 12-13 10

70%ile

12

80%ile

10

70%ile

NA
Decision Making 25 15-16 10-11 6

80%ile

6

80%ile

5

70%ile

NA
QA & DI 36 18-20 14-15 11

90%ile

6

70%ile

6

70%ile

NA
Total 91 50 40 30 28 26 25-26

Part B

This part of the test consisted of General Awareness questions and Essay. There were 30 questions in General Awareness section. These were of moderate level of difficulty and the 15-16 questions could have been attempted easily. The focus of the section was towards Business and Economy. The topic given for the essay was ‘Corruption is the root cause of economic slowdown in India’. As was there in Decision Making, the topic of the essay was also from an area much talked about in 2012.

Disclaimer: All information on cut-offs, analysis, answer key and scores are based on independent analysis and evaluation made by Career Launcher. We do not take responsibility for any decision that might be taken, based on this information.

All the best!

Team CL