XAT-2013 :My Experience

D'day - 6th Jan'2013

Centre: St.Patricks High School, Sebastian Road, Sec'bad

Parts:

Two parts.

Part-I: 140 min. VA,DM and QA sections

Part-II: 40 min. General Awareness and Essay. Surprise this time is introduction of GA section here.

Part-I:

A total of 91 Q's. All are multiple choice Q's having 5 options each.

This part is divided like this:

Sec-A: Verbal Ability

Total Q's: 30

Sec-B: Decision Making

Total Q's: 25

Sec-C: Quantitative Ability

Total Q's: 36

-ve Marking:

It's a surprise this time. It's a straight forward formula. One fourth for each wrong Q.

Differential Marking:

It's again a surprise this time.No differential marking. All Q's carry equal marks.

My strategy: Spending 35 min each on the three sections in the first round.

Depending on the experiences of first round, dividing the remaining 35 min - some time on weaker section to fill the gaps and rest on stronger one to increase the total score.

First Round of Attempts:

Step-I

I started with QA and spent 35 min on it and could read around 15-18 Q's but could answer 10 Q's.

Totally spent on math part of QA and left DI part. I committed a mistake while rounding answer for one Q. I had rounded it for the next Q. I came to know this while attempting to mark the answer for the next Q and unfortunately, the answer choices for the two Q's are different. To avoid negative marking I had to mark two choices for that one. I lost one mark here and I prepared to leave that at that point and proceeded further.

Step-II

Moved to VA (my weak area) and spent another 35 min. I could hardly read around 12 Q's and could answer 7.

Spent on Grammar and Para jumbles. Left LR and RC parts.

Step-III

Moved to DM and spent another 35 min. Generally, I am comfortable in this zone but I am slow at reading.

I could read 10 Q's and attempted all 10.This covered 3 sets in this section.

Excepting a little disappointment with my speed, first round is reasonably good. I maintained my time schedules.

Second Round of Attempts:

I left with some 25-30 min. My attempts in the 1st round are:

VA : 7/30, DM: 10/25 and QA: 10/36.

I am a bit content with my attempts in DM section and I thought of spending the remaining time first on VA and then on QA.

Spent around 15 min on QA and could read around 3-4 Q's and could attempted 2 Q's. I have spent on LR and left RC totally unattempted.

Last 15 min, I have spent on QA and could see 4-5 Q's and could attempt 2 Q's. This time I touched a set from DI part also.

Throughout the second round of 30 min, I was not stable. There was some underlying tension, don't know why.

That completed the First part of the exam. My overall attempts were: VA:9/30, DM:10/25, QA:12/36

Part-II:

GA: 30 Q's. All Q's carry equal marks

-ve marking: same as that of Part-I. one-fouth-of allotted mark.

Essay: "Corruption is the root cause of economic slowdown in Indi "

I have spent first 12-15 min on GA and could read around 22-25 Q's and could attempt 12 Q's. Then I moved to the essay.

I was very comfortable in writing it. Spent for 3-4 min on thinking on how to develop it. Spent next 5-8 min for completing the essay writing.

In the last 2-3 min time, I attempted 3 more Q's of GA section. overall attempts in GA: 15/30.

My accuracy in GA section is around 50%.

Final Say:

I am happy with my "above 80%" accuracy in VA, DM and QA sections. I am ok with my strategy as well. But my worry is my speed.

That may be mainly due to lack of practice.