A Comprehensive Guide to Preparing for the Xavier Aptitude Test

Do you want to study at one of the country's best business schools? Is the CAT (Common Aptitude Test) insufficient for your goals? There is, however, a remedy. There will always be one. The XAT (Xavier Aptitude Test) is an entrance exam that screens candidates for admission into management courses at XLRI (previously known as Xavier Labour Relations Institute) and over 100 B-schools across India.

It is held in January by XLRI, and the results are normally announced by the end of the same month. The XAT is regarded as one of the most difficult admission exams in India. And the procedure does not finish with passing the written exam. The XLRI interview is a difficult nut to crack, with a success rate of roughly 1:10. So, for every ten candidates called for an interview, one has a chance of getting a job. How difficult can that be? However, if you do everything correctly in preparation, you have a high chance of qualifying. Before we get into how you can improve your chances, let's learn everything there is to know about XAT.

Exam Pattern and Syllabus

The examination procedure of XAT is split into two parts:

• Part A
• Part B

Part A extends for a duration of 2 hours and 20 minutes. The questions in this part are multiple choice questions (MCQ) and cover the following sections:

• Quantitative aptitude
• English language and logical reasoning
• Decision making

Part B is 40 minutes long and covers the following areas:

• Essay writing
• General awareness

You would need to have a complete know-how of the syllabus to be able to crack the exam at one go. The penalty for every wrong answer is 0.25 marks. What makes the exam all the more difficult is the high cutoff marks set by XLRI and other management schools which are subject to change every year. Qualifying candidates are required to go through a rigorous phase of Group Discussion (GD) and Personal Interview (PI) to finally enter the coveted corridors of XLRI or other institutes.

Registration Procedure of XAT

The registration process isn't that difficult. I'll take you through the steps. Eligibility trumps over the admission procedure, so that needs immediate attention.

• Candidates are required to hold a Bachelor's degree from a recognized university, the course duration of which must be a minimum of three years.
• The Bachelor's degree should have been completed by June 10^th of the previous year. For example, to appear for XAT 2016, candidates are required to have completed their graduation by June 10, 2015.

Now for the registration procedure, you would need to visit the website: www.xatonline.net.in/ and click on XAT Registration. You will have to fill out a preliminary form and enter a password. Your XAT ID and password will be sent to you via email. You can now use this to login to your profile and complete the full registration form. While filling up the form, you would also need to keep handy a copy of your photograph and signature of the right specification. You would be required to upload these. The registration fee is INR 1000 and payment can be initiated via the following three modes.

• Online payment mode
• Cash payment (it is accepted in IDBI bank only)
• Demand draft (in favor of “XLRI Jamshedpur A/c XAT”, payable at Jamshedpur)

Admit cards are usually available for download in the month of December.

A Little About XLRI

Established in 1949, XLRI is a prestigious management school in Jamshedpur. It is now known as Xavier School of Management. Some of the academic programmes offered by this institute include:

• Full-time residential MBA
• Research programme
• Masters programme
• Post-graduate certification programmes
• Executive fellow programmes
• Executive post-graduation programmes
• General management programme

Seats are limited in each of these programmes and candidates for each of those spots are filtered through a rigorous screening process to ensure that only the deserving ones triumph. The placement record of XLRI is pristine and always rising. This year XLRI holds the record for 100% placement in just 3.5 days. And the number of companies visiting XLRI for recruitment of its students has been on a steady rise. In 2013, 77 companies visited XLRI for placements. This year the number rose to a whopping 108. The median salary offered to students placed this year has been 17 lakhs per annum with the minimum being 12 lakhs per annum. With such alluring prospects, the competition is tight. Add to that the overwhelming number of candidates appearing for the meager amount of seats available. For example, 2015 saw 90,000 candidates appearing for XAT. Therefore, you need to be completely prepared to face the mounting challenges. Watch the toppers of XLRI speak about their experiences and how they managed to ace XAT.

Preparation Strategies for Every Section in XAT

As you can already deduce by now, it is extremely important to prepare well for the exam. Stiff competition and a shot at a lucrative future catalyze the process even more. Here are a few tips that you can follow to ace the exam.

Brush up on Your Math Basics

Basic Math skills are absolutely important to clear the quantitative aptitude section. Therefore, it is important to get back to those books that you have stashed right at the back of the cupboard. As a quick heads up, following are the portions of Mathematics that the questions tend to feature from:

• Algebra
• Arithmetic
• Geometry
• Data Interpretation (DI)

For the DI portion, you need an ample amount of concentration to get the answers right. And it is going to be quite lengthy. To stand a chance in the numerical section, your quantitative fundamentals need to be absolutely spot on. Here's a quick DI test that you might want to take. Do not forget to time every sum you solve at home. This will give you a push to speed up the process. And you would end up solving difficult problems by the minute.

Your General Awareness Needs to be up to the Mark

The general awareness section serves up a loaded mix of diverse questions that cover topics like:

• famous personalities
• business economy
• awards
• government policies
• sports and so on

For this, you would need to follow the newspapers regularly and diligently. Remember, to ace this section, bite-sized information of news is not enough. You would need to have a detailed and comprehensive knowledge of the goings on, so that you can elaborate on them.

A Thorough Decision-Making Ability is Necessary

The decision-making section is the pride of XAT. It is the gem of the exam, outshining the other portions. And unfortunately, this is where most candidates face a roadblock. Some of the questions in this section demand numerical analysis or rigorous reasoning, while some are based on pure decision-making. Some of the questions are a page long, so you would need to go through those carefully before you arrive at hurried conclusions. My advice is, devote 3 minutes to reading the question carefully and the calculation.  

Practice Essay Writing

In this section, you would be given a topic to attempt a write-up on, in around 200 words or so. That certainly seems doable, doesn't it? But wait till you see the questions. Year 2013: “Corruption is the economic slowdown in India "Year 2012:

1. “Poverty is a big menace in India. Due to its complexity and magnitude, most of the government's initiatives fail.”

2. “Poverty is a consequence of failure of government policies due to the fact that governments do not target the root causes.”

I have two personal favorites:

• “Asked at the age of 83, as to which of his projects would he choose as his masterpiece, Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect answered, 'The next one'.”
• “By the third or fourth week of the term, business school had succeeded in afflicting me with a variation of the Stockholm syndrome, named after the incident in which a hostage in a Stockholm bank robbery fell in love with one of her captors.”

As you can already understand, your essay needs to be resourceful and valid. On top of that, you would need to battle the thousands being submitted to emerge successful. So buckle up and practice. Here are some more tips on how to tackle the essay writing section.

You Need to be Quick with Verbal and Logical Ability

Logical ability questions require a bit of racking of the brain and that takes up time. However, it can be avoided to quite some extent if you devote enough time to solve as many reasoning problems as you come across. They are tricky and must be slayed in not more than one minute each; the lesser time required, the better. For the verbal section, you would need to have a good grasp over the English language. Grammar is where most go wrong, make sure that isn't even an option.  

In addition, you might be asked to read a passage and draw inferences and the likes. It shouldn't be that difficult, but it could be time consuming. So, balancing out time cleverly among the questions is what you need to do.  

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