XAT 2022 Analysis

The difficulty level of XAT 2022 was almost similar to that of XAT 2021. This time ‘Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation’ was moderate. The RCs in verbal section, as usual, had close options. This time essay writing was again introduced by XAT. It was included in part II of the paper. This year, the number of MCQs were 75 for part 1 & 25 (GK) in part II. Total time for this section was 165 minutes for part I and 25 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 this year also. The essay of only shortlisted candidates will be assessed. Primarily GK & essay writing is considered by XLRI & a few top colleges for selection. The overall feel of the paper was moderate.

The paper had two parts: Part I and Part II. Part I was 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 25 questions on General knowledge. The time available for completing the three sections and General Knowledge was 190 minutes. One was expected to answer first three sections in 165 minutes and General knowledge & Essay in 25 minutes. It was required for students to answer questions from all sections and expected to maximize score 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 for shortlisting candidates for Interview/GD. The three sections were as follows:

Evaluation: The Verbal section was easy to moderate. The questions were based on Reading Comprehension, Critical reasoning, Sentence Rearrangement, & grammar. There were six RCs including two based on a poem. The length of the passages was moderate. There was one RC based on short a poem. One RC was based on ‘How lying differs from bullshitting’. One was based of criteria of a good life. One was based on ‘stupidity as a cognitive failure. One was based on ‘importance of public versus private life. The options in the RCs were very close therefore this section was a little time-consuming. Almost half of the questions in RCs were inferential. In order to answer the questions correctly it was imperative for the candidates to identify the traps set by the examiners. The section was dominated by reading comprehensions and critical reasoning. The questions on grammar were based on fundamentals. The overall feel of this section was easy to moderate as choices were too close and tricky.

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. Most of questions were quite tricky and options were too close. The questions were based on Caselets and Case Studies taken from various areas like business organization, small business units, Ethical Dilemmas, and context-based problem and solution. The cases ranged from recruitment, use of vehicles, school fees during pandemic to running a food business in a hospital & environmental concerns. The cases primarily moved around ethics. Overall difficulty level of the section was moderate.

Evaluation: The level of Quant and DI was moderate to tough. In Quant there were 16 question and in DI 12questions. DI was comparatively tougher than Quant. The questions were from varied topics like Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Number system, Clock and Calendar and one DS equation. There were some questions in Quant having close choices. In DI there were 4 blocks of 3 questions each. One was on line graph, one Bar, one LR set and one on Maxima Minima. The DI blocks were of moderate to tough in difficulty level. Again selection of question was very important to score decent marks in this section.

There were 25 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. The level of this section was moderate. 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 knew actually.

The students have to select one topic from two given topics. One of topics was ‘capitalism and democracy cannot co-exist and other was ‘In a management we do not need people who have never experienced setbacks. Such people are highly risk averse because business schools mainly focus on stellar academic achievements during admissions, the selected students turn out to be average managers’. The essays required critical reasoning to analyse the topics. However, both the topics were easy in terms of understanding them and then to reflect on them in writing.