XAT 2025 Analysis

XAT 2025 paper was conducted on 5^th January 2025. It was moderate in terms of level of difficulty. This time ‘ the Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation section was moderate to difficult. The RCs in Verbal section, as usual, had close options. This year, the number of MCQs was 75 for part 1 & 20 (GK) in part II. The total time for part I was 170 minutes and 10 minutes for part II. There was penalty for un-attempted questions (after 8 questions) and it was only of 0.10 marks. However, this feature is not going to affect the overall score significantly. There were no NON-MCQ (TITA) questions. The essays of only shortlisted candidates will be assessed. Primarily GK by XLRI & a few top colleges for selection. The GK section had no negative markings.

The paper had two parts: Part I and Part II.

Part I was the main question paper, and Part II was based on General knowledge. Part I had three sections A, B and C with 26, 21 and 28 questions respectively, a total of 75 questions. The three sections of Part I were followed by Part II that had 20 questions on General knowledge.  One was expected to answer the first three sections in 170 minutes and a General knowledge and Essay in 10 minutes. Students were required to answer questions from all sections and expected to maximize scores in each section. Marks in Part II can be used by selective institutes at the time of final selection. These scores will not be used to shortlist candidates for Interview/GD. The three sections were as follows:

Evaluation:  The Verbal section was easy to moderate but lengthy as there were 5 RCs. There were 15 questions based on comprehension & 11 questions based on verbal ability. The surprise element was a picture-based sentence completion question. The questions were based on Reading Comprehension, Critical Reasoning, Sentence Rearrangement and Grammar. There were 5 RCs in addition to one based on a poem with two questions. The length of the passages was moderate except for one or two, which were lengthier. The passages were based on personality & character, Human & kin selection, Greedy work & Gender norm, Comedy- absence of feeling, & Meritocracy is a myth. The options in the RCs were very close therefore this section was a little time-consuming. Almost half of the questions in RCs were based on inference. The grammar questions were based on finding correct or incorrect out of the given sentences. To answer the questions correctly the candidates needed to identify the traps set by the examiners. The section was dominated by Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. Passages were tougher in comparison to verbal ability questions.

Evaluation: All Decision-Making questions carried equal marks. Decision Making consisted of 21 Questions based on contexts. There were 7 sets of 3 questions each. The few sets had lengthy content in them. Most of questions were doable but options in a few sets were too close. The questions were based ‘Newspaper house, Students’ perspective for job & higher studies, gated society & rented shops, Training organizations, Hospital & its facilities & Event Management company. The cases primarily moved around ethics, managing resources & people.

Quant consisted of 16 questions, while DI had 12 questions divided into 4 sets of 3 questions each.In the Quant section, Geometry and Mensuration were prominent, with 5 questions based on them. Arithmetic and Algebra had 3 questions each, which were of moderate difficulty.  There were 2 questions on Numbers and one question each on Logarithms and Height & Distance.

The DI section included four sets: one set focused on Networking and another on Averages, both of moderate difficulty. There was also a scattered/line graph set that could be solved using basic observation skills. However, students found DI more challenging than Quant.

Effective question selection was crucial for achieving a good percentile in this section.

There were 20 questions in General Knowledge consisting of Static GK based questions covering Books, Geography, art forms of states, History etc. and Current Questions based on Science and Technology, Economic Data and General terms etc. Since there was no negative marking in this section so by using guesswork or by elimination of options, one could have got 6-7 questions correct in addition to what one already knew.

Disclaimer:All the above-given information is based on the personal opinion of Hitbullseye Expert faculty. Several factors have been considered before giving these cut-offs. However, it has nothing to do with original cut-offs.