XLRI Admission Test '08

Executive Summary
In a nutshell, the XAT 2008 paper failed to live up to the promise of XAT 2007. The three sections
continued to be largely lengthy, providing the test-taker with no respite at all. A few problems in the
Quant/DI section were quite ambiguous. Also, the DI questions with conventional, bulky charts were
monotonous. The problems in the AR/DM section were not very exciting, either. The DM cases were
simple, though some of the questions could have ambiguous explanations. By and large, the RC
passages in the English section entailed time-consuming reading. However, many of the questions were
easy. In contrast, the sentence completion questions were fairly simplistic. The paper had its share of
critical reasoning questions, and, even here, the language of the questions was often vague and unclear.

Overall, the cut-offs can be expected to be close to last year’s level though the paper was nowhere near
to being as exciting as last year’s.

Number of Suggested Possible XLRI BM Cut-

Section Topics
questions time Attempts offs
1 EU and RC 38 40 minutes 21+ 11 - 12
AR and Decision
2 38 40 minutes 14+ 7-7.5
Making
3 QA & DI 44 40 minutes 14+ 7.5-8
Total 120 120 minutes 49+ 32-33

Likely Cut-Offs for other institutes:

Institute Cut-off
Expected cut-off XLRI – PMIR 30-31
Expected cut-off SP Jain 29-30
Expected cut-off XIMB 29-30
Expected cut-off GIM/BIM 25-26
Expected cut-off LIBA 22-23

Disclaimer: These cut-offs are decided by our expert faculty, who have attempted the XAT 2008 paper
and might not be the actual XAT cut-offs. These calculations are based on our experience and expertise.

Comparison with Last 3 year’s XAT:

Parameter XAT 2008 XAT 2007 XAT 2006 XAT 2005

Number of sections 3 3 3 3
Number of questions 120 130 127 175
Difficulty level (Overall) Difficult Difficult Difficult Average
Expected cut-off (BMD) 32-33 35+ 32+ 70+
Expected cut-off (PMIR) 30-31 33+ 28+ 65-68

Section-wise Analysis

Section I: English Usage & Reading Comprehension

There were 38 questions, to be attempted in 40 minutes. The questions ranged between average and
high in terms of difficulty level. Surprisingly, grammar was not tested. Critical reasoning questions
were in the form of case lets. There was an increase in the number of these questions, as compared to
the past XAT papers. The Para- jumbles should have been best left alone. A good command over
homophones would have been required to tackle the contextual vocabulary questions.

Reading Comprehension
A good mix of passages! Two passages, viz. the ones on Psychology and Science, were difficult to read
and the questions in these, being mostly inferential, would have given one a tough time. The relief was
provided in the form of direct vocabulary and fact-based question in the remaining two passages.
Overall, an attempt of 21 questions & a score of 12+ was definitely possible.