The Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT), for admission to management programmes in XLRI and XAT associated institutes, was held on January 5. This year, for the convenience of candidates, the exam centre was increased to 72. For more than 60 years XLRI is conducting XAT at all India level to select the most appropriate students for management education. The XAT score is being used by more than 150 institutes for the admission. XAT result will be announced on January 31.
'Zero penalty marking'
It has come to fore that few questions in the question paper didn't have any penalty marking. Non-negative penalty marking has confused candidates, as it is not a common practice in competitive exams. Entrance and competitive exams do have penalty marking for wrong attempts and candidates are penalised for answering a question wrong.
According to candidates who have shared the dilemma on social media, few questions had instructions that wrong answer would deduct 0.25 marks from the total marks assigned to that particular question, whereas for few other questions the instructions read that the question carried zero negative marking.
Usually candidates hesitate to attempt questions carrying negative marking with the fear that they may lose marks. However when the question doesn't have negative marking candidates don't mind attempting it.
"Attempted XAT as per the marks allotted per question, stated above each question. There were questions having non negative as well as negative marking scheme across all the sections and we have attempted accordingly. Hope XLRI doesn't penalise a candidate for following rules," a candidate has tweeted to the XLRI Jamshedpur.
XAT 2020 Exam Analysis
This year the paper was difficult, according to Mr Ramnath Kanakadandi, National CAT course director, T.I.M.E.
XAT 2020 was a computer based test and had three sections: Verbal and Logical Ability, Decision Making Ability and Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation.
"The Verbal and Logical Ability section was a mixed bag of moderately easy/difficult and difficult questions," said the expert. The questions were subjective and the answers choices were not too easy to eliminate in the Decision Making section, the expert added. "This year's DM section is as difficult as it was last year," he said further.
"The section had a mix of a few easy and mostly moderate-difficult questions. A few questions turned out to be challenging and lengthy and required a thorough understanding of concepts. In contrast to the last year, almost no question in this set required intensive calculations," the expert said about the Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation section.
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