Understanding the exam pattern of an exam would require a candidate to research well on aspects concerning the exam pattern as reading alone would give him a very vague idea of the same. The Decision-Making Section particularly, which is an insight into the real and holistic world with its problems that would have to be understood in-depth to arrive at reasonable solutions.
XAT and other MBA exams such as CAT and IIFT have incorporated this section to highlight how challenging the world of a leader is. A leader would be required to take a lot of decisions for the greater good of the candidate apart from giving benefit to the corporation. It additionally tests the ethical and moral values of the candidates on the basis of their suggested decision in a stressful situation.
These are the following kind of questions in a typical Decision-Making Section:
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Data would be given, answer should be based on the analysis
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A scenario where the candidate would be tested on his ethical standing
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A mixture of the above mentioned
Understanding the motives behind any section would help a candidate align his thinking approach to that of the expectations set by the person evaluating him. A candidate should typically read, understand and analyze the motive behind any question given. The candidate can frame the answer after taking all the relevant factors into consideration.
The candidate can also eliminate the options that are incorrect. The questions in XAT had five options until last year. For every question, not all five options can be relevant. Once a candidate does a basic reading of the question, options can be eliminated, and in most cases, at least two options would be easily be eliminated by the candidate.
Overall, factors given in the question should be considered to the maximum by the candidate for the same to be considered. The candidate should follow only his intuition.
The year-wise difficulty level analysis of the Decision Making Section is as below:
|
Year |
Question Count |
Difficulty Level |
|
2016 |
23 |
Moderately tough |
|
2015 |
23 |
Tough |
|
2014 |
24 |
Tough |
|
2013 |
25 |
Moderately Tough |
|
2012 |
25 |
Tough |
|
2011 |
24 |
Tough |
|
2010 |
24 |
Tough |
|
2009 |
31 |
Tough |
|
2008 |
38 |
Tough |
|
2007 |
40 |
Tough |
|
2006 |
43 |
Tough |
|
2005 |
No such question |
NA |
Some of the tips that have to be followed by the candidates in order to prepare well for the XAT Examination have been described as below:
Read the Question Well:
Data Interpretation Questions would be consisting of a bunch of questions, statistics and numbers that might look scary to candidates but are definitely not very tough to solve. However, students should look for caselets that look easy to attempt on the face of it to avoid wastage of time.
Calculation Proficiency:
The Data Interpretation Section in most of the cases is known to be very calculation-intensive. The students should be strong in Math and compute important variables in a quick manner. This can be done, either by knowing shortcuts, additionally, methods like Vedic Maths can also be used.
Familiarity with Data Interpretation:
While you may be practicing DI Questions for a while, there can be different types of formats available in this case. Figures like bar diagrams, tables and pie charts would be available for candidates. Questions with long portions of data would also be asked to candidates to solve them the right way.
Practice
Practice would help enhance reading skills and will also boost the confidence of the candidate so that he does well in the examination. The candidates can also refer to reference material published by Tata McGraw-Hill, Arihant and R.S. Aggarwal for a better understanding of the concepts.
This section is designed to test the managerial aptitude of the candidate.
The candidate should prepare for Data Interpretation section well and ace the examination!
