XAT Decision Making Section: Practice Questions & Strategy

What is XAT Decision Making?

In Decision Making section of XAT, questions are based on long passages pertaining to business and ethical decision making only. One is required to read and understand the passages and answer questions that includes logically interpreting and/or rearranging arguments, events, information presented.

Decision Making questions for XAT are the test of your interpretation skills and thinking ability viz-a-viz the given business problem. It requires you to provide/choose the best solution in favour of the larger good. This decision making requires ethical judgement which is essential to being a good manager or an entrepreneur.

Types of Decision Making Questions Expected in XAT 2026

There will be mainly two types of Decision Making questions in XAT exam 2026. They are:

• Mathematical questions
• Behavioral and managerial questions

Mathematical questions are often based on Data Interpretation or Logical Reasoning sets. One can apply techniques of DILR to solve such questions of XAT Decision Making section but should remember that since these questions are data-intensive, they might consume more time. Thus, one must solve these type of questions only if they are sure they can do it accurately in the given time limit.

Behavioral and managerial questions are often based on a situation where multiple problems arise and have to be addressed. The candidate is required to choose the most correct course of action. These types of questions are essentially a test of ones interpretive skills. The passages for these types in XAT are mostly based on ethical/ management/ human dilemmas. To crack this section, one must have good English comprehension and critical reasoning skills.

Also Read:

• XAT syllabus 2026
• XAT exam preparation 2026

XAT Decision Making Questions for Practice

Given below is a sample questions to provide you an idea of the type of Decision Making passages in XAT 2026.

Question 1: Ava is the CEO of Ratan Brothers, a bicycle manufacturing company. The organization is doing well financially, with a steadily increasing share price. Recently, Ava promoted Bhushan, her nephew, to the position of head of procurement after he completed five years in the organization. After the promotion, he was automatically inducted into the quality council headed by Ava.

Dev and Sons is a supplier to Ratan Brothers. It supplies “ball bearings”, an important part of any bicycle. After Bhushan took over, he switched to a new supplier citing quality deficiencies in Dev and Sons’ product. Dev and Sons responded by publicly declaring that quality was not compromised. Further, it alleged that its competitor bribed Bhushan to get the contract.

Under pressure from media and suppliers, Ava constituted a cross-functional committee of senior executives to investigate Dev and Sons' allegation against Bhushan. The committee exonerated Bhushan. However, rumors within the organization began to spread that the decision was influenced by nepotism.

Which of the following should be the best response from Ava?

(A) Do nothing, as the committee has exonerated Bhushan.

(B) Force Bhushan to resign temporarily. Make an independent enquiry, if found innocent, reinstate Bhushan.

(C) Communicate to all shareholders that these kinds of practices are very common in organizations.

(D) Sack all those employees who questioned the authority of Ava.

(E) Explain in a town hall meeting, open to all the employees, how the decision to exonerate Bhushan was taken.

You can take the free XAT mock test below to know the types of questions asked, difficulty level of questions and your exam preparation level.

Question 2: Ms Deelipa has asked you to conduct a non-teaching staff induction training. You are to call for a tender from various agencies with specifications that include the contents, duration, experience, budget and other relevant information. You then need to shortlist five agencies from the list of 20 and make a presentation within 2 days.

Review the following responses:

1.Rate all 20 agencies on a scale of 1 to 5 on information available and select the top 5.

2.Select the five lowest bids based on the price quoted.

3.Seek selection criteria from Deelipa and the HR Director and shortlist the bidders accordingly.

4. Follow the advice of a person who has completed a similar task.

Select the best of the following responses in the descending order effectiveness.

Options:

A. 4, 1, 3

B. 1, 2, 3

C. 3, 2, 4

D. 1, 3, 4

Question 3: The Vikas Trust has recently been plagued by a high turnover of teaching assistants with many looking for higher salary and better facilities. You have been asked to design and run a campaign to attract and appoint 10 teaching assistants. One of your measures of success will be the retention of the new recruits. You have 4 weeks for the interview. Review the following:

1. Shortlist the apt candidates who reflect values of the Trust from among respondees to your wide advertisement campaign.
2. Design an ad that attracts candidates with values that matches the Trust’s, release it at an appropriate time and re-validate the candidates’ credentials at the time of shortlisting.
3. Repeat the process that was followed by the Trust last time.
4. Seek expert advise on drafting an attractive advertisement.

Select the best of the following responses in the descending order of effectiveness.

Options:

A. 2, 3, 4

B. 1, 2, 3

C. 4, 3, 1

D. 4, 1, 2

Question 4: According to DTC, each athlete/sportsperson needs to submit their schedule for the next three months specifying an hour each day when they can be randomly tested for drugs. DTC also ensures the confidentiality of submitting schedule by:

1. Limiting access of player-supplied information only two 2 senior officers.
2. Allowing these senior officers to access the schedule of only those sportspersons who are randomly selected for testing.
3. Introducing similar security features for DTC database as is the case with financial institutions.

The top three popular players realize security is the only reason for them to get a favourable decision from Raja. Hence during discussions, they should focus on all options except:

A. Any leak of their private schedules may result in huge public gathering and it will make the job of security agencies very difficult.

B. Popular racket players are on the hit list of terrorist organizations.

C. Recent reports includes their country to be among the top 5 nations vulnerable to data security breach.

D. DTC is unwilling to share details with security agencies officers involved in background check.

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