XAT 2026 paper was conducted on 4^th January 2026. It was moderate to slightly tough in terms of level of difficulty. This time ‘the Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation section was 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. Primarily GK by XLRI & 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 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:   This section was similar to what it was in last year.  The Verbal section was moderate but slightly lengthy as there were 5 RCs. There were 15 questions based on comprehension & 11 questions based on verbal ability. There were no surprise elements.  There 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 difficult poem with two questions. The length of the passages was moderate except for one which was lengthy. The passages were based on behavioral sciences, organizations’ behaviour inclined towards human resource, management, self –esteem’s roles in judging (philosophy), nuclear fission (science & technology), and discussion on leaders post world war -II etc. A few RCs had very close and confusing options. Most of the questions in RCs were based on inference and critical thinking based. The questions based on sentence rearrangements were manageable. 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 slightly 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 sets were based on B-school admissions, recruitments in Fintech firm, clash of interest in managing business (Gen Z vs., seniors), some person turning author, HR issues in some education service provider, new applicants not meeting eligibility criteria, and commerce graduates problems in college committee. This time almost all of the sets moved around business and b-schools issues. The cases primarily moved around ethics, managing resources, finding least embarrassing option stake holder’s interests & people.

Quant consisted of 19 questions, while DI had 9 questions divided into 3 sets of 3 questions each. In the Quant section, Geometry and Mensuration were prominent, with 4 questions based on them. There was one question each on probability, functions, equation, height and distance .The DI section included 3 sets: one set focused on employees and location, Second on numbers and one data table. However, students found this section very challenging..

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

There were 20 questions in General Knowledge consisting of 8-9 Static GK based questions & 11-12 questions based on current affairs. The questions were primarily based on sports, celebrities, awards, science & tech, start-ups, satellites, infrastructural development in India, & comets, 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.