Students’ Speak: 20 days to XAT 2020. This is what you need to do

By: Divyang Goswami

XAT is considered as one of the toughest exams for getting admission into a B-school. But since the exam is tough, there are chances that you can score more by attempting only a few questions rightly. All you have to do is to manage your time.

XAT is considered as one of the toughest exams for getting admission into a B-school. But since the exam is tough, there are chances that you can score more by attempting only a few questions rightly.

All you have to do is to manage your time. Let us think about what the perception is of an examiner, questions are asked to the candidate to check their time management skills because these are prime. So, you should have the skills to manage the three most important hours of an exam.

Now, first, you have to understand the exam pattern and identify your strengths and weaknesses. These can be identified by giving mocks. Giving mocks are important but analysing them is more important in order to see where you stand. Since there are 15-20 days left for the exam, it is the right time to analyse your mocks, if you have given- let’s say 20 mocks, you should analyse at least 10 mocks in which you have low percentile. After understanding the mistakes, you should try not to repeat by giving another mock the next day. By analysing the mocks, you will get an intuition of your accuracy, which is important while attempting the number of questions in the exam.

One thing to understand is that there are different sectional cutoffs in XAT and to score in each section, you should identify which question is easy and which question is tough. So, attempt easy questions first, then move to moderate ones. The question paper will have all kinds of questions (by the level of difficulty) and as per my experience, you will get some good amount of easy/easy to moderate questions. So, identify easy questions or the questions which you are comfortable to do and try solving them. The number of questions to be attempted in XAT is dependent upon your accuracy. Remember, it depends upon the difficulty level of the exam, you can even score a high percentile by just attempting 10-12 questions correctly with decent accuracy.

At this time, the most common mistake a candidate does is to learn a new concept from scratch. Instead, you should spend some quality time to revise your concepts and try to concentrate on reading skills. It is the right time to read newspapers and articles so that you can improve your reading comprehension as well as scores in the GK section of the exam. I would suggest to not take the GK section for granted. You will get 15 minutes to solve 25 GK questions and it would not take more than 10 minutes to do the section if you are updated with current affairs. Even if the GK scores are not considered for calculating percentile, you will have an edge over others in the interview process.

Since there is no sectional time limit, by scanning the exam as early as possible, you can maximise your score by allocating the time to each section. Again, I would suggest to not spend much time on a particular question and try to move on from the sticky questions, even if they seem easy to you.

A super last-minute tip for you: Stay calm and focused and Report on time at the examination center so that you can avoid anxiety.

About the Author:

Divyang Goswami is a student at IFMR GSB, Krea University, pursuing MBA. He has completed his graduation from Hansraj College of Delhi University. He is passionate about Data Science and Finance and terms himself as an animal lover.