XAT has been emphasising more on the Decision Making skills of MBA/PGDM aspirants. How they take decision in a given situation and how good is the decision, is the very purpose of testing the future managers on Decision Making in XAT 2015. In fact, XAT 2015 is all set to place a separate section of 25 questions on Decision making with equal weightage as given to Verbal and Quant sections.
Before proceeding to attempt the problems on Decision Making, XAT 2015 aspirants should understand the fundamentals of Decision making problems. In fact a decision is a choice of a course of action. A person who has to make a decision, faces a situation. He has 4-5 alternatives to choose from the most appropriate alternative.
There are certain objectives he has to fulfil. Every course of action he/she chooses has different consequences. Therefore, at the time of making the decision, the decision maker is acting based on his individual assessment of the cause-effect relationship between his actions and the attainment of his objective. He is also acting in the context of his information and knowledge of the situation. Following steps are needed to crack the problems on Decision Making
Update the Information and knowledge
The decision maker gets the information and update the knowledge based on the 2 main parameters
Facts: The information which is given in the problem
Deduced information: Arriving at the knowledge on the basis of logical reasoning by deducing from the given information is another important part to arrive at the right decision. To deduce such knowledge a careful and close reading of facts leading to reasonable presumptions that may be made related to the situation and the people concerned is needed.
Assess the course of action
The decision maker always faces uncertainty. He does not know the future but wishes it to be something specific that he considers more desirable. On account of this uncertainty, he cannot even be certain that his choices will necessarily lead to attainment of his objectives. Nevertheless, his understanding tells him that his choices are necessary to attain his objectives and are therefore to be carefully made based on his assessment of how useful each course of action is likely to be with respect to satisfaction of his ends.
This process of evaluation is based on certain criteria that the decision-maker himself needs to draw up. Decision-making will therefore require a systematic assessment of each course of action against the objectives of the decision-maker against specific criteria.
How to complete the incomplete knowledge
Problems on Decision-Making are mostly placed with incomplete knowledge. The background of the situation on which the decision is being made may not be offered with complete information. Completing this information is surely a tricky task but it has to be completed based on the facts shared in the problem and after deducing and presuming the other information gaps from the incomplete information shared in the problem.
Now each context could require a different course of action. The decision-maker, therefore faces the possibility of error and needs to get a better grip on the different possible scenarios before making a final decision. The decision, however, is contingent upon the context and may be possible only upon confirmation of the actual prevailing scenario.
Expected Type of Questions in XAT 2015
The questions that may appear in the Decision Making section of the XAT 2015 could be about different aspects of such analysis of a given situation leading to a decision. The Decision Making problems in XAT 2015 could involve evaluation of a decision, identification of alternatives, background assumptions and deductions, possible scenarios.
Example Questions from earlier XAT exams
A few problems on Decision making with explained answers would bring home the strategy to solve such questions
Text of the problem
To the Chairman:
Dear Mr. Sailesh,
At the December 3, 2011 meeting, it was decided that no two officers would hold positions on the same committee. It has recently come to my attention that both Chaitanya Rao and Ajit Singh will be serving in some capacity on the Cultural Committee, and both have been nominated for officer status. As you know, this is in direct disregard for the rules as voted by the Members Council last December 3, 2011. I would hope that sufficient action is taken by the Disciplinary Committee (on which committee both of the above are members) so that this problem will be remedied.
Sincerely,
Arvind Singh
Question
1. Which of the following is an essential flaw that the writer of the letter overlooked?
(1) Rao and Ajit are already serving together on the Disciplinary Committee.
(2) The Chairman has no power in the matter.
(3) The Members Council cannot pass rules limiting members.
(4) Rao and Ajit are yet to be confirmed as officers.
(5) Cultural Committee is only active during the annual festival.
The situation
The decision of the Members Council pertains to cases of two persons serving in the capacity of officers simultaneously serving on the same committee. The rule may be stated as-
No committee may have two officers holding posts on that committee simultaneously.
The implication of this rule is that in any situation involving 2 or more officers holding posts on a single committee, all but one or all the officers would have to resign from their membership of that committee.
Explaining the question
A flaw is an error in reasoning. An error in reasoning essentially involves identification of a statement as necessarily true given that systematic application of logic would not lead to such identification. Errors in reasoning involve factual errors and logical errors. Factual errors are an identification of the status of one or more causal factors as being different from that required to justify the identification being made.
Logical errors would be of the following kinds
1. Saying B=>A or A’=>B’ given that A is a sufficient condition for B
2. Saying A=>B or B’=>A’ given that A is a necessary condition for B
3. Mistaking correlation for causation – Saying A’=>B and B’=> A given that the condition is an observation of simultaneous occurrence of A and B.
How to arrive at the appropriate answer option
The appropriate answer option is (4). Now know how to arrive at it.
Option 1 – For the moment, let us assume that Rao and Ajit are officers. Even if they are serving on the disciplinary committee, identifying that action needs to be taken about their simultaneous membership on the Cultural Committee does not lead to an error in reasoning, factual or logical.
Option 2 – Stating that the Chairman has no power is meaningless because if so, the very act of passing the resolution concerned is questionable. Since the situation described is to be taken as a given and the facts may not be questioned, we cannot consider this as possible and hence a flaw in the reasoning.
Option 3 – If the Members Council cannot pass resolutions limiting members, it could not have passed the original resolution itself. This contradicts the fact that it indeed passed the said resolution. This in turn means that the Council may pass such resolutions and hence that this answer choice is not correct, leave alone appropriate.
Option 4 – The resolution being referred to is clearly applicable only to officers. Therefore, if this is true (given that it does not contradict the facts presented), it would mean that the resolution is not applicable to Rao’s and Ajit’s simultaneous membership of any committee and hence cannot be used by the Members Council to make any decision on the same. Hence, it may be considered a flaw in the reasoning.
Option 5 – The resolution limiting simultaneous membership of multiple committees does not have any relation to the duration of operation of the committee. Hence, this may not be considered a flaw in the reasoning.
Question 2.
If both the nominations are confirmed, which of the following exhaustively and reasonably describes actions that may occur in the near future?
(1) Arvind resigns his membership.
(2) Either Rao or Ajit resigns from his membership.
(3) Ajit resigns from his post on the Cultural Committee.
(4) Rao resigns from his post on the Cultural Committee.
(5) Either Rao or Ajit resigns from his post on the Cultural Committee, and the other resigns from his post on the Disciplinary Committee.
Arriving at the answer:
The right answer option is (5). Now know how to choose it.
This question addresses the ambiguity identified in the previous question. It is now clear that the resolution is applicable to the complaint being raised. The correct course of action in keeping with the resolution is that the situation of simultaneous membership is eliminated. Since they are members of both the Disciplinary and Cultural Committees, one or both of them has to resign from each committee.
Therefore, the action to be taken has to deal with the resignation of one or both people from each of the two committees identified. Only Option 5 deals with such a situation and must therefore be considered the correct answer choice.
3 Quick tips to prepare & crack questions on Decision Making
The set of question in Decision making problems as discussed above are based on a passage with some information followed by the questions. According to Prof S K Agarwal Expert on XAT preparation test takers have to closely read and understand the answer options as they are very close ones to choose from.
There could also be paragraphs followed by 1-2 questions also instead of 3-4 questions. Losing the track of systematic analysis will put you in a maze of choices. So be focused while reading the problem.
You may have to derive more than what is given and that is the skill which is going to be tested in XAT 2015 in Decision Making section.
XAT aspirant is expected to develop problem solving skills, prioritizing, organizing, resilience, emotional intelligence, ability to work with people from different fields, how to react as a team leader and arrive at an appropriate decision in a given situation.
While Most of the questions in XAT 2014 and XAT 2013 were in sets a few were individual questions that were not in sets.
Key tips
XAT aspirants are expected to follow the below given 3 key tips while preparing for the questions on Decision making
- Study the material to build the basics on XAT Decision Making questions
- Clarify all your doubts with an expert in this section
- Practice as many questions of different types as possible
Related Links
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Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more preparation tips on XAT 2015
