XAT 2013 held in new pattern:Students found uneasy

The Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT 2013) was conducted on sunday, Jan 06, 2013. The test was conducted by XLRI, Jamshedpur on behalf of the Xavier Association of Management Institutes (XAMI). More than 100 institutes including 16 member institutions and 86 other participating institutes will accept the XAT 2013 score.

XAT 2013 was conducted across 44 cities in India and 3 cities in abroad. Students appeared for the XAT on sunday found major changes in the entrance exam pattern this year.

The major changes was including General Awareness section along with essay section in paper 2. Paper 1 have some changes with the number of questions increased from 85 to 91 with all questions carrying equal marks unlike last year when they had a mix of 1, 1.5 and 2 marks questions.

The number of questions in quantitative ability and data interpretation increased from 28 to 36, verbal and logical ability had two questions less than last year at 30, and decision making remained at 25 questions. Each question was of 1 mark and negative marking for all the questions in every section was 0.25 marks, said an official from TIME, a coaching institute.

In paper 2, general awareness was brought in this year which might have caused trouble among the test takers but the difficulty level in the section was similar to that of the other management entrance test, said the Official. It constituted of 30 questions with 18 static and 12 current affairs questions. The questions ranged from the business, sports, economy, politics, trade, international bodies both at national and international level. Part B was an essay topic on"Corruption is the root cause of economic slowdown in India".

Initially, test consists following pattern:
Part A: Quantitative Ability, English Language Ability and Logical Reasoning and Decision Making in 140 Minutes.
Part B: General Awareness in Business, Economics and Politics and Essay Writing in 40 minutes.