With a few days left for Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT) 2022, here is a golden opportunity especially for those who feel their CAT may not have gone to their liking and are looking for another way to get into top B-schools of the country. Most of the XAT aspirants must have been done with their preparations. Now is not the right time to start anything new but to ensure that candidates are able to ensure one utilises the prepared content to the best.
Let’s look at the common errors students are prone to make in XAT, and how best to avoid them.
No sectional time limits
Several students fail to realise that, unlike CAT, when it comes to strategy, XAT is a different ball game altogether. They make the mistake of approaching the three sections in the XAT exactly the same way as they would in the CAT, that is, attempting within the confines of a limited time frame. What many overlooks is that, unlike CAT, XAT has no sectional limits.
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XAT 2022 will have 75 questions split into three sections — verbal, LA, QA/DI, and DM with 26, 28, and 21 questions respectively to be done in 165 minutes. A 15 minutes extra time would be given for the 25 GK questions.
Adopting the wrong strategy
It has been noticed that many students sit for XAT without being fully aware of their areas of strength and weakness. As such they end up attempting either too few or too many questions and to top it, quite a few of them are the ‘tough’ ones.
One just needs to get 40-50 per cent of the total questions correct to get 90 per cent or above.
The XAT has 75 questions with one mark allotted for every correct answer and 0.25 deducted for every wrong answer. There is also a penalty of 0.1 marks for every question left beyond 8 questions. Now if a student were to get 40-50 per cent of the total 75 questions correct which translates to 35-36 correct answers, he can safely clear the overall cut-offs.
A student first needs to clear the sectional cut-offs which based on the previous year’s evaluation is around 6-7 questions correct per section. Though, the cut-offs can vary as per the difficulty level of the paper.
Attempting all questions in an order
This is a very common error on the part of the student. Quite a few students who otherwise would have done well in the XAT fail to do so as they have poor exam intelligence. This means they don’t adopt a three-pronged approach that is absolutely necessary whilst sitting for as challenging an examination as the XAT.
First target: Clear the individual sectional cut-offs. Target 8-10 questions that are sure shot and get them correct.
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Second target: As there are no sectional time limits, the student can now go to the section that he is strongest at, and try to maximise his score. Try to create a delta of 11-16 extra marks.
Third target: The last gasping moments of the paper are very crucial. The student makes a very common error when he attempts a group question, say from a DI set. This must be avoided. It is very time-consuming. For instance, if you have around 2-3 minutes, why not attempt a question or two from your strongest section. Remember, that one extra mark or two could be the difference between the prized BM/HR seat in XLRI or some other top-tier B-School.
— Authored by Neel Anil Panicker, Senior Faculty, T.I.M.E.
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