This years XAT

Analysis by IMS

http://imsindia.com/cat2006/xat_analysis.htm

XAT 2007 - An Overview

The XAT, held on 7th January 2007 differed from that of XAT 2006 in terms of the number and the nature of questions. Instead of 127 questions, this year XAT had 130 questions. A distinctive feature this year was that the questions had 5 options instead of 4.

The highlight of the test was the business judgement component in the reasoning section. There were four business situations [cases], with the options designed in a unique way. One of the cases cleverly combined elements of PS, DI, LR and English. Certainly, those of you who had taken the IMS SimCAT 7, would not have encountered any difficulty in deciding an appropriate attempt strategy.

The three-section format was maintained but Data Interpretation was combined with Quantitative Ability as opposed to a Data Interpretation-Logical Reasoning combination in 2006. The instruction page clearly stated that the questions were not of uniform difficulty and negative marks [1/3 of a mark] may be deducted for the first five incorrect answers in each section and 0.5 [half a mark] for each incorrect answer thereafter.

The test taker had to answer questions from all three sections and was expected to maximise scores in each section, though there was no section-wise time limit.

Overall, the paper was of medium level of difficulty, testing the nuances of language, reasoning, data interpretation and quantitative ability, in an effective way.

Overall Test Structure

Total Duration of the exam	120 minutes + 20 minutes for Essay
Total number of questions	130 + 1 Essay
Number of choices per question	5
Number of Sections	3
Sectional Timings	No sectional Timing
Marks per question	1 Mark (Assumed)
Negative Marking	Differential (as explained above)
Mode of marking the ovals	HB pencil

Section Wise Test Structure

The test had 3 sections.

Section	Section	Number of Questions
A	Reasoning Ability and Decision Making	40
B	Verbal Ability	41
C	Quantitative Ability	49
	Total	130

REASONING ABILITY AND DECISION-MAKING

This section had 40 questions. There were 30 questions of Logical Reasoning with sets of 6 and 5 questions. Overall, the sets were simple to interpret but the options were designed in such a way that every option had to be weighed properly before arriving at the correct answer. This made the sets appear tough. At least two options in every question could be eliminated but the remaining options had to be worked out in order to arrive at the correct answer.

Of the 4 business cases, 3 incorporated typical corporate situations like problems in employee selection strategy and personnel policies and had mostly inferential questions, while one case was a combination of problem solving, logical reasoning, Data Interpretation and English and had questions of a higher level of difficulty.

Type of question	Number of Questions	Level of Difficulty
		Easy	Medium	Difficult
Matrix Arrangement (2 Sets)	11	2	5	4
Linear Arrangement	5	2	2	1
Case Study (4 Sets)	20	0	7	13
Single Questions	4	4	0	0
Total	40	8	14	18

A reasonable attempt in this section would be 17+ with an estimated cut-off of 12+ marks.

VERBAL ABILITY & READING COMPREHENSION

This section had 23 questions on reading comprehension and 18 questions on verbal ability. Overall this section was moderately difficult primarily because some of the RC passages required intensive reading and strong reasoning ability. The topic-wise beak-up of the reading comprehension passages is given below:

Topic of RC passage	No. of Questions	Level of Difficulty
		Easy	Medium	Difficult
Socialism	5	0	5	0
Understanding oneself	4	4	0	0
Communication between two poets	4	4	0	0
British capital in India after 1850	6	0	6	0
Science – Bayesian Theory	4	0	0	4
Total	23	8	11	4

Simple passages were interspersed with abstruse ones. Most of the questions were inferential with very few direct questions.
Out of the five passages, the one on an exchange between two poets and the other on 'understanding oneself as true education’ were comparatively easier and should have been attempted first before moving on to the other passages.

The verbal ability questions were quite easy. The reasoning based questions were somewhat tricky but not very difficult. Most of the grammar and usage-based questions were easy and should have been attempted at the beginning. The construct-wise break-up is given below:

Type of question	No. of Questions	Level of Difficulty
		Easy	Medium	Difficult
Jumbled Paragraph (6 sentences)	4	0	2	2
Statement with correct punctuation	1	1	0	0
Identify the incorrect sentences	1	1	0	0
Revision of a wordy sentence	1	1	0	0
Sentence Combination	1	1	0	0
Critical Reasoning	5	4	0	1
Contextual Usage (Synonym/Antonym)	5	5	0	0
Total	18	13	2	3

Jumbled Paragraph
They were of the 6-sentence type. In two questions the links were not easily discernible. The options were also close, which added to the difficulty level.

Statement with correct punctuation
This was a new variety where the elementary knowledge of punctuation was tested. One had to identify the statement that was punctuated correctly. A must – attempt.

Identify the incorrect sentences
This was another easy question, which tested the basic concept of grammar - another question worth an attempt.

Revision of a wordy sentence
Another question that tested the student’s knowledge of usage and grammar. Here the student had to select the option that presented the idea stated in the stem sentence in most concise and grammatically correct way. Since the other option had obvious errors, one could have easily arrived at the correct answer.

Sentence Combination
It was a variation of a typical grammar and usage question where two independent sentences had to be combined effectively without losing the essence.

Critical Reasoning
Four out of five questions were easy and tested the usual constructs like, which of the following it true would seriously weaken the argument, the information strongly supports, etc. Only the passage on “prediction as the hallmark of natural science” was difficult. There was one passage, which was quite different from the others – it had a dialogue between two friends where one had to find how the second speaker challenged the first speaker’s reasoning.

Contextual Usage
All the five questions were easy. The words were quite simple like: juvenile, spurious, assumption, crucible, etc. While solving this set one had to carefully consider the context and read the instructions carefully.

A reasonable attempt in this section would be 20-22 and an estimated cut-off of 13+ marks.

QUANTITATIVE ABILITY

The number of questions on Quantitative Ability has decreased to 36 as compared to last year’s 44, but the difficulty level was slightly higher. The questions based on functions were solvable. The sets based on 3 x 4 grid and the cryptarithm were tricky and could be solved by working with options. There were two questions based on equations of hyperbola.
One of the data sufficiency questions was arrangement based.

In Data Interpretation, the bar chart on “Electronic Commerce Transactions” was simple. The set on “Queen Airlines” was data-intensive but not calculation-intensive and 2 questions were observation based and could have been attempted. The set based on “Aggregate Financial Ratios” and “Export and Import of Commodities” were calculation-intensive

Type of question	No. of Questions	Level of difficulty
		Easy	Medium	Difficult
Quantitative Ability
Arithmetic	4	0	1	3
Algebra	5	1	2	2
Modern Maths	12	3	4	5
Geometry	6	1	2	3
Puzzles	5	0	2	3
Data Sufficiency	4	2	2	0
Data Interpretation
Tables (3 Sets)	11	3	4	4
Bar Chart (1 Set)	2	2	0	0
Total	49	12	17	20

The reasonable attempt in this section would be 15+ with an estimated cut-off of 10+ marks.

After the test, students were given the following topic on which they had to write a one-page essay in 20 minutes:

“Economic growth without environmental damage – a mirage or a reality.”

An overall reasonable attempt will be around 53 questions with an estimated cut-off of 35+ marks.

Expected cut-offs of various institutes:

Institute	Cut-off
XLRI BM	35+
XLRI PM & IR	30+
XIMB	30+
GIM	25+
Praxis	20+

Disclaimers: Institutes may use other criteria such as academic background, participation in extra & co curricular activities and work experience apart from score in the test to shortlist students for group discussion & personal interview.

We do not take responsibility for any decision that might be taken, based on this information.