How to crack XAT : tipsNtrics

How to crack XAT

                                                 

With most of the MBA exams like CAT, SNAP, NMAT, TISS-NET, IIFT entrance over now, you must  be focused now on cracking XAT which brings you admission opportunities at many top B-schools including XLRI, XIMB,  IMT, TAPMI. In this special column, Gautam Puri, Vice President, Career Launcher guides XAT 2014 aspirants on the exam pattern and shares preparation tips for the coveted exam which is being accepted by over 110 B-schools to shortlist candidates for second stage of admission process. 

Apart from being a pen and paper exam (a fast vanishing medium of exam taking), XAT is also one of the most difficult B-School entrance exams to crack.  If a student is appearing for XAT, he/she needs to focus on General Awareness also and he/she should be well-versed with decision making. A student must also hone his writing skills, for he will have to write an essay along with the objective –type questions.

The exam has roughly 90-100 questions on English, Quantitative Aptitude, LR-DI and Decision Making. General Awareness was also included last year. This year, this part is supposed to be completed in 150 minutes. There will be a test on Essay writing also to be done in 20 Minutes. The number of questions is distributed evenly between the sections, with the Quantitative Ability section usually carrying a slightly larger section of the pie. The distribution of questions in last year’s XAT is as follows:

SECTION	NUMBER OF QUESTIONS
A: Verbal Ability	30
B: Decision Making	25
C:  Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation	36

The paper has sectional cut-offs decided on the marks scored by all the students. The difficulty level is also at least a few notches higher than that of most exams. And with the inclusion of the General Awareness section this year in the main examination, unlike in the previous year when it was clubbed with the essay section, for which another additional 30 minutes were allotted, the first-timers might feel overwhelmed. Moreover in North India, the winter chill has no intentions of making it any easier for the students.

The marking scheme is most likely to be similar to that of last year, with all questions carrying equal marks and a penalty of 25% of the marks allotted to the question for every wrong answer. Though XAT has gone with a differential marking scheme in the past, there are little chances that it might be repeated this year.

However, the picture is not all that dismal. There are ways to beat the examination blues this winter. For cracking the Quantitative Ability section of XAT, frequently regarded as one of the toughest quantitative ability sections in any B-School entrance examination, it is absolutely vital for you to get familiar with the kind of questions which make their presence felt in XAT.

You need to pick your questions wisely, for unlike some examinations where the imperative is on doing as much as possible, XAT demands you to attempt the question paper as efficiently as possible. Same is the case with the Decision Making and the Verbal Ability sections. Since questions are many and time is of essence, not to mention the hiked difficulty levels, someone completely oblivious to the examination pattern might be caught unawares. So, it is very important that you rigorously solve the actual XAT examination papers at least from the previous five years (one paper in every 3 days including proper analysis of the same). This will improve your ability to adapt to “XAT’s type of questions”. Moreover, it will help if you try to attempt the examination papers with a timed approach, for this will help you gauge the level to which the time constraint multiplies the difficulty, enabling you to make any changes in your approach, if required.

Another way to ensure that you do well in XAT is to lay stress on the Decision Making section, a section unique to XAT. It carries a sectional cut-off and also can be useful in improving the overall score. Apart from looking up questions in the previous years’ papers, you can go to the Harvard Business Review website (http://hbr.org/) and read sample cases to enhance your knowledge and also to arch your thinking in a way to facilitate better reasoning.

Though the General Awareness section will not be included in determining the percentiles and the cut-offs in the first stage of the selection process, it still is paramount. This time, the General Awareness section will eat into your main examination time unlike in the previous years, wherein it was clubbed with the essay section following the main examination and was a separate 30-minute test.  Keeping abreast with the latest happenings in the business world will help your chances of scoring big in this section.

Practicing essays are crucial to doing well in the essay section, for writing a coherent, crisp 200-word essay in 20-30 minutes is by no means a cakewalk. The evaluators not only look for language skills, but also for the thought process involved, the spectrum of ideas, and your knowledge pertaining to the topic at hand. Having a fair knowledge of the contemporary topics will give you an edge. So reading newspapers, especially the editorial columns, is highly advised.

To sum up, XAT surely is difficult but not impossible to crack. With only about less than a month to go for the D-day, paucity of time becomes the natural enemy. So, the next 10 odd days will decide who all get left out and who all emerge victorious.