XAT 2010 First Take

XAT 2010 was overall a difficult and time consuming test with very few quick shots. Like last year, there were 3 sections – Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning: 31 questions, Analytical Reasoning & Decision Making : 30 questions, Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation : 40 questions. There were total 101 questions.

XAT has come up with a different kind of differential marking this year – for the first five incorrect answers in each section, 1/5 th of the allotted would be deducted and for the subsequent incorrect answers in the section 1/4th mark would be deducted.

The Verbal section had a major focus on reasoning based questions like critical reasoning, syllogism, jumbled paragraph and there was also a set on fill in the blanks. There were 4 RC passages – 2 lengthy ones and two medium. Understanding the passages and negating the close options were time-consuming jobs.

In the Analytical Reasoning & Decision Making section, there were 2 caselets and 2 single questions, which could be solved with the help of verbal reasoning skills. In the Analytical Reasoning part, there was 1 caselet, 4 sets of Matrix Arrangement types of questions and 1 set on True-False types. Again, it was a difficult section.

The Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation section was had 2 sets of Data Sufficiency and 4 Data Interpretation sets. There were questions on higher mathematics and there were very few sitters (easy variety) of questions.

Since overall XAT was a difficult test with very few easy questions, a smart approach would be first identifying questions pertaining to your strengths and attempting them.
The essay topic was:
“Earth has enough for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed”