The marking pattern put a premium on accuracy. Close to 89,000 management hopefuls took the exam across the country.
First, a bit about the overall construct of the paper. XAT 08 had 120 questions in total, split into three sections: Data Interpretation & Quantitative Ability (DI/ QA), Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning (VA/ LR) and Analytical Reasoning & Decision Making (AR/ DM). While DI/VA had 44 questions, other two sections had 38 questions each. In addition, there was an essay topic that aspirants had to attempt.
The negative marking pattern was interesting and put a premium on accuracy. As per XAT 08 questionnaire, negative marking was into two tiers. For the first 6 questions answered wrongly, the negative component was ¼ mark, but for next error negative marks moved up to ½ mark. MBAUniverse.com readers will remember that both Career Launcher and PT education had recommended, in their article on this portal, that XAT aspirants should attempt questions carefully. It pays to give heed to expert advice!
MBAUniverse.com spoke to test takers for a dip-stick on which sections were easy and which once tougher. On an average, most students found VA/ LR easy, while most students said that DI/ QA was a tough section. AR/ DM fell somewhere in the middle of the difficulty scale. Overall, the XAT 08 paper was termed as moderate to difficult. Said, Rahul Vyas, an aspirant who took XAT at Don Bosco School in Capital, "I thought the paper was a decent one and didn't have much surprises. I would rate it as 6 on a difficulty scale of 10."
Coming to essay topic, the topic was: "Consequences of Gender Imbalance - 3rd World War." Test takers had 20 minutes to attempt this part.
One possible error in XAT 08 was question # 49 in B series of test paper. As an aspirant showed MBAUniverse.com team, answer options B and D had same answer – "L". Can a question have same answers in two different options? Interestingly, another set of question paper -- "A" -- didn't have this inconsistency. Perhaps XAT officials and management test experts will have some clarifications to offer.
