“XAT announcement” – the phrase could trigger not-so-great memories, given how every ‘announcement’ pre-CAT 2020 did not give away the exact details of the examination pattern (That there is no bound rule forcing the officials to give away any detail about the pattern, is a discussion for yet another day).
Anyway, there were two emails sent to all the XAT aspirants yesterday (Happy New Year once again, everyone!), giving very specific and clear information/instructions on what the candidates should expect on the exam day.
XAT announcement – what do the two emails communicate?
Since most of us would have not been checking our emails on a holiday (even otherwise, it has become a headache to keep unsubscribing from a lot of emailers these days, thanks to data-sharing ‘with consent’ from us the users; we have had our fair share of discussion internally about data privacy. An outcome of one such internal discussion pertaining to CAT percentile prediction can be found, here), we thought it would be a good idea to clear it up for all the XAT aspirants.
The XAT Announcement #1 – the examination pattern
An announcement about the exact pattern of the examination before the day of the exam has become a praised posession these days. Thankfully, XAT administrators decided to reassure the aspirants with detailed instructions.
First things first…
The examination pattern remains the same (what a relief!). There are a total of 100 questions, split into two parts.
Part 1
This contains the three sections for which the aspirants should have been preparing with gusto – Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning (VALR), Decision Making, and Quantitative Aptitude & Data Interpretation (QADI).
Though this was not new information as such (the XAT 2021 official notification gave away these details as well), it is always good to know there are not going to be last-minute uncertainties and sudden, unexpected curveballs.
Part 2
This contains the General Knowledge (GK) section, which will not be taken into account for percentile calculations. The importance of the score in this section is that it acts as a tie-breaker when two or more candidates have the same overall score/percentile).
Other information
The XAT announcement email also mentioned about the marking scheme (+1 / -0.25) in general and the deduction of 0.1 marks for every unattempted question after the first eight unattempted ones.
The timing is also going to be the same as the last year, with 165 minutes allotted for Part 1, and 15 minutes for Part 2 (PwD candidates get more time).
The XAT announcement #2 – the clarity on carrying a pen
When the XAT 2021 admit card was released, there were some confusions pertaining to the instructions. Of particular interest was the one that had conflicting instructions on whether or not the candidates are expected to carry a pen with them to the examination center.
Now the second XAT announcement that arrived at our inboxes yesterday clarified this in as many words. It stated, “Please note that, for XAT 2021, candidates should bring pen by themselves.”
On your mark, get set, go!
Now that we have all the information that we will want to have clarity on before writing an examination as crucial as XAT, it is time to relax; the last day before the actual exam is not an ideal time to go berserk with preparations. Those days are gone.
Irrespective of your level of preparation for XAT 2021, go in with the mindset that you still have a great shot at this one. 3 January is going to be an important day for a chunk of B-school aspirants, thanks to the scores in CAT 2020; this could be your day.
Stay safe and best wishes for XAT 2021!
Written by Giridharan Raghuraman
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