XAT 2017: Expected question paper released with new exam pattern; total questions reduced to 72

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MBAUniverse.com News Desk |
December 26, 2016
XAT 2017 exam pattern remains the same but there are significant aspirant friendly changes announced by XLRI while releasing the XAT 2017 expected question paper
XAT 2017 will consist of 72 questions instead of 78 last year and penalty of 0.05 marks for unattempted questions will begin from 13th question instead of 14th in last year exam

Expected question paper for XAT 2017 with number of key changes has been released by XLRI today on December 26. Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT) 2017 for admission to XLRI, SPJIMR, IMT, XIMB and other 150 top B-schools is to be held on January 8, 2017 in paper pen mode. Although XAT 2017 exam pattern remains the same but there are significant aspirant friendly changes announced by XLRI while releasing the XAT 2017 expected question paper.

XAT 2017 will consist of 72 questions instead of 78 last year and penalty of 0.05 marks for unattempted questions will begin from 13th question instead of 14th in last year exam.

XAT 2017 question paper will be divided into 2 parts. Part-1 with 3 sections will be taken into account to calculate the merit position and percentile score. These 3 sections of the first part in XAT 2017 will consist of MCQ on Verbal and Logical Ability; Decision Making; Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation. This part is to be attempted in 170 minutes.

Part-2 of XAT 2017 will comprise MCQs on General Knowledge and a subjective Essay Writing Test which will not be taken into account to determine the percentile score. This part is to be attempted in 35 minutes.

72 MCQs to determine merit in place of 78
Number of questions in Part-1 of XAT 2017 has been reduced to 72 from 78 last year. Prior to 2016 there were 84 questions in Part-1 of XAT exam. There is no change in time limit to attempt fewer questions. You are required to attempt 72 questions in 170 minutes as was available last year for 78 questions.

A comparison of sectional composition of questions in XAT 2017 to XAT 2016 is shared below-
XAT 2017: Exam pattern changes:

Exam year

Part-1 Time

Section-1 Verbal & Logical Ability (MCQs)

Section-2 Decision making (MCQs)

Section-3 Quant & DI (MCQs)

Part-1 Total MCQs

Part-II Time

GK section (MCQs)

Essay writing test

XAT 2017

170 min

24

21

27

72

35 Min

25

Essay on given topic

XAT 2016

170 min

26

23

29

78

35 Min

25

Essay on given topic

The decrease in number of questions has happened across all the 3 sections in part 1. Each section has a decrease of 2 questions totaling a total of 6 questions decrease. There is no change in the number of options for each question. This remains at 5 options for each question.

Marking Scheme Changes in XAT 2017

  • There is no change in terms of marks awarded for each correct question. This still remains +1.
  • There is also no change in terms of marks awarded for each incorrect question. This also remains at -0.25.

Penalty of 0.05 marks for unattempted questions
There is a small change in the negative mark awarded for each un-attempted question. This year, a student is allowed to leave a maximum of 12 questions without incurring penalty for leaving them un-attempted; this means from the 13th question onwards, there will be penalty for leaving questions un-attempted. Last year, this limit was 13 questions and the penalty was applicable from the 14th question onwards.

The penalty value remains the same at -0.05 per un-attempted question post the limit of 12 un-attempted questions.
 
According to XAT 2017 conducting authority “We also tried to counteract the phenomenon of students leaving too many questions un-attempted. We appreciate the fact that “leaving the question” is also a sign of intelligence but we are also concerned that students are becoming risk averse in attempting to answer difficult questions. We believe that if one aspires to be a good manager, one should be able to take reasonable risk. That is how one creates future possibilities.”

Accordingly, in XAT-2017 students have a choice of not attempting 12 questions. Beyond 12 unattempted questions, any unattempted question will carry the negative mark of 0.05 and in addition there would also be negative marking of 0.25 marks for any wrong answer. According to XAT Centre “We believe this would encourage the risk taking ability of the students while making XAT robust in differentiating a good student from the not-so-good student.”

Question LOD lowered
XLRI has announced that the level of difficulty of the questions has also been carefully designed.

In order to enable students to attempt as many questions as possible and encourage them to demonstrate all-round skills, the difficulty level of the questions has been brought down.

In the previous years, students would attempt only half of the questions reducing the range of marks scored among students. However if the examination is made very easy, many would finish the test before time.

 If ten thousand students finish the question paper in time and if all of them get most of the questions right then it would be difficult for XAT associated colleges to choose from these ten thousand students. Therefore XAT-2017 has been designed in such a manner that that the top hundred students will be able to complete the test in 170 minutes.

This way, the examination would avoid 2 possible errors:  low range of scores and excellent students not getting enough opportunities to showcase their ability because of too easy a question paper.  

Experts’ take
According to Prof Arks Srinivas, CEO VistaMind Education,With fewer questions to solve, the students who are non-engineers will find the paper a bit difficult. Besides, the decrease in the number of questions and no change in exam time may imply that the paper can be expected to be a bit more analytical in nature where answers will not be straight forward. This should not come as a surprise to students as anyone who has analyzed XAT for the past 3 years would have noticed that the number of questions have been decreasing and the average difficulty level of the exam has been increasing.”

Impact on cutoffs
In view of Prof Srinivasthis pattern change will lead to a decrease in cutoffs compared to XAT 2016. While the last year cutoff for XLRI was around 29-31, assuming a similar paper, these figures could go down to 27-29.

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