Students’ Speak: XAT preparation tips you must follow

XAT 2020 is an upcoming management entrance exam to be conducted on January 5, next year. For students appearing for the exam, the preparations would already be in full swing. However, there are certain things that you must keep in mind for the last days of your preparation. Here’s what you could do:

General advice

• My advice for the XAT aspirants would be to have a thorough understanding of all the important formulae, calculation tricks and shortcuts in the next three weeks. Refrain from studying any new topic at the last moment; rather focus well on whatever you have covered before.
• Henceforth, attempt at least eight mocks, say, once every three days and analyse them thoroughly to eliminate the mistake, if any. Also, make a note of such mistakes to avoid losing both marks as well as morale on the exam day. Watch out for the videos and articles on the Internet of the previous XAT toppers and understand how they leveraged their time and resources, and which strategy they used to score so well.
• XAT being a high-pressure test, I advise aspirants to unwind themselves a day before the exam by indulging in activities such as meditation, which would both calm their nerves as well as refresh them for the exam day.
• Focus more on accuracy than the total attempts. Try at least meeting the sectional cutoffs, which would take care of the overall score. Anything above 95 percentile could be good enough to get calls from many leading B-schools such as XLRI, SP Jain, etc.

Section-wise strategy

• Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning: Take a quick glance at the Reading Comprehension passages to know whether it is easily interpretable and solvable or not. While attempting the questions here, solve the questions first which are more objective or factual in nature. Skim reading would prove handy here. Aim for those puzzles first which comprise more accurate information to save time.
• Decision Making: Though this section entirely depends upon your point of view and presentation of facts, it is advisable to go through questions on decision making from the past XAT question papers. Before the exam, revise the important points and tips to have them fresh during the exam.
• Quants & DI: The DI-based questions are usually quite calculation-intensive. So ensure that you are good with ratio calculations, fraction-percentage conversions, tables (up to 30), etc. Also, make a note of all the important formulas and revise them properly. Usually, by glancing at a question or a data set, one can get an idea of whether it is doable or not.
• General Knowledge: Even if this section may not be considered while calculating the XAT score, it comes into play during the GD-PI rounds. Read newspaper daily and keep a track of the most recent events. In the next three weeks, take out time to go through static GK regularly. Be aware of the major incidents that have happened in the past 4 - 6 months in India as well as in the world. GK questions are asked on various topics such as Economy, Politics, Science, Current Affairs, etc.

Always remember that a cool mind will any day perform much better than a stressed mind.  

About the Author:

Abhishek Desai is currently pursuing Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) in e-Business from Welingkar Institute of Management.