XAT 2016 Analysis

The difficulty level of XAT 2016 was almost similar to XAT 2015. This year the number of questions was reduced to 78 from 83(previous year) and on the other hand allotted time was increased, by 30 minutes. Due to these two reasons the cut-offs this year will be slightly higher in comparison to last year's cut-offs. This year another feature was that there was penalty for unattempted questions and it was only of 0.05 marks. However this feature is not going to affect the overall score significantly.

The paper had two parts: Part I and Part II. Part I was main question paper and Part II was General knowledge and Essay Writing. Part I had three sections A, B and C with 26, 23 and 29 questions respectively, i.e. a total of 78 questions. The three sections of Part I were followed by Part II that had 25 questions on General knowledge and an Essay topic. The time available for completing the three sections and general knowledge and Essay writing was 210 minutes. One was expected to answer first three sections in 210 minutes and General knowledge and Essay writing in 35 minutes. It was required for students to answer questions from all sections and expected to maximize score in each sections. General knowledge and Essay marks would have been used by all institutes at the time of final selection and not for short listing candidates for Interview/GD. The three sections were as follows:

The Verbal section was moderately difficult and tested the candidates on their knowledge of the basics. Questions were asked on various concepts like Reading Comprehension.

The Verbal section was moderately difficult and tested the candidates on their knowledge of the basics. Questions were asked on various concepts like Reading Comprehension, verbal reasoning, Critical reasoning, verbal analogies, sentence rearrangement, contextual understanding and one question was based on pronunciation skills as well. In order to answer the questions well, it was imperative for the candidates to identify the traps set by the examiners.

 

All Decision Making questions carried equal marks. The Decision Making consisted of 23 Questions; including 5 Table based reasoning questions. The questions were relatively easier than the previous years, as most of them were easy to moderate, with very few difficult questions. They were based on Caselets and Case Studies taken from various areas - politics, district administration, business organization, small business units and retail shops -dealing with HR issues, Ethical Dilemma, Customer retention, Personal decisions. The length of the passages was shorter than those of the past few years. There were 2 sets on Analytical Reasoning. 1st set based on Simsys real estate project was of moderate level while the 2nd set based on Crop rotation was difficult to arrange. Overall the feel of the section was moderate to tough.

The feel of this section was moderate to tough. Except 2-3 direct questions, all others were molded to form difficult questions. In DI also, the graphs were moderate to interpret but the questions required intensive understanding to answer them correctly.

There were 25 questions in general awareness consisting of Static GK based questions covering Books Awards, Geography, History etc and Current Questions Based on Sports, Politics, Science and Technology, Economics Data and General terms etc. The difficulty level was tough.

"Technology and nature are natural enemies"