August is gone and now XAT is just 4 months away, which is increasing nervousness amongstudents. Many candidates have shifted the gears of their XAT preparation, and we hope that you must also have uplifted the pace of your preparation. Everyone knows that this ‘not too close and not too far’ kind of a period of 4 months is very crucial in XAT preparation. As this is the best time to work on yourself by improving your preparation level.
Let’s discuss XAT syllabus before we go further to discuss the ‘10 key points which you should focus on during your XAT preparation’.
Overview of XAT Syllabus
XAT Paper 1 will include three sections Decision Making, Verbal & Logical Ability and Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation.
Important topics of all three sections are mentioned here:
- Decision Making will broadly cater to Pure Logic, Financial Issues, Managerial Issues, Ethical Dilemmas related questions.
- Verbal & Logical Ability includes reading comprehension, Grammar, Fill in the Blank, Logical Completion of Idea, Critical Reasoning, Arguments.
- Quantative Ability and Data Interpretation, the most important topics are: Arithmetic Geometry, Percentage, Functions, Mensuration- 2D and 3D, Averages and Partnerships, Probability, Inequalities, Algebra Functions, Heights & Distance, Direction Sense, Linear and Quadratic Equations, Time, Speed & Distance, Tables, Graphs, Pie Charts, Trigonometry, Profit and Loss etc.
XAT Paper 2 will include a GK section and one essay question.
- General knowledge questions are generally asked from these topics: Economy, Indian Polity and Constitution,Business and Corporate GK, Mergers and Acquisitions,Science and Technology,Current Affairs (last 12 months),Awards and Recognition
Given below are the points which will help you to prepare your XAT preparation strategy.
- Complete your syllabus, bud!
Well, this should not be the case with many aspirants, but if you have not completed your syllabus until now, then you should look forward to completing it as quickly as possible. This definitely does not mean that you should start skipping topics, but the purpose of completing syllabus early is that by doing so, you will be left with ample time for practice.
Remember that it is the amount of practice that differentiates toppers from others. So, if you want to be a topper, make sure that you have a good amount of time left for practice.
- Stay up to date
One thing you need to be sure of is that you cannot ignore GK. Many people say, that as it is not taken into consideration while short listing candidates,thus you can ignore it. But just think for a minute, do you want to get short listed or you want to get selected as well? Of course, you want admission, so why take a risk of losing points in the final selection.
Therefore, there is no point in ignoring GK and focusing only on all other sections. Devote at least 30 minutes of your daily time to GK and make sure that you stay up to date with what is happening around you.
- Develop a reading habit
Another thing you need to focus on is reading. Read anything, editorials, novels, magazines or whatever you like, but don’t just stop reading. This is probably because reading regularly increases your grasping power and also increases your speed of reading. Especially for Reading Comprehension you will require good reading speed and great decision-making power.
Do not forget to read for at least 30 minutes every day.
- Make a Cheat Sheet
By a cheat sheet we do not mean anything that will help you in any unfair way, but it is something that can definitely help you in the right way. Cheat sheet means a collection of all formulae, tips, tricks and shortcuts that you come across while preparing. This does not mean that your focus should completely be on shortcuts, this means that you should just keep on making precise notes during preparation, which you can revise in a shorter period of time.
This hand crafted ‘all at one place’ type of notebook can be really help you, especially for Quantitative Aptitude.
- Don’t skip Mock Tests
Mocks are intended to make you habitual with the examination pattern, and also serves the purpose of practice. Taking a good number of mocks is necessary, because it makes your mind and body ready for the actual exam conditions. And if you enroll for a good National Level Mock series, you will probably encounter mocks with varied level of difficulty, which will also make you ready to face any kind of paper.
Do not think of skipping or ignoring mocks, just take as much as you can and also analyze them properly.
- Balance Accuracy and Speed
In case, you leave more than 12 questions un-attempted, your marks will be deducted for un-attempted questions. So, you need to be both fast and accurate. XLRI has designed the pattern in such a way that both speed and accuracy of a candidate are examined. It is quite obvious that you will need to have a good balance of both.
However, the time given is 170 minutes for 72 questions, which is close to 150 seconds for each question, and this is surely not a small amount of time.
Understand what the exam wants from you? Balance of both speed and accuracy.
- Start solving previous year XAT papers
Most of the people start their preparation by solving questions from standard CAT/XAT books, which is of course a proper way to start. Books have questions divided according to level of difficulty, which helps building the basics as well as advanced concepts. But it is also important that you should now start solving past year XAT papers, so that you realize that which kind of questions are actually needed to be solved. The reason for this is the universality of syllabus, for example, Geometry is an important topic for XAT and you can expect 3 to 4 questions in the actual paper. But if you see, geometry is a huge topic. It includes hundreds of theorems and types of questions are unlimited. But XAT does not ask for all kinds of geometry concepts, which you can only know when you go through past papers.
Collect the previous year papers of XAT and start solving them to boost your XAT preparation.
- Make performance based plans
Many people make their study plan as the number of hours they will study daily, or in a week. But imagine two friends studying 2 hours daily, one solves 50 questions and other solves 20 questions. Who will succeed? Of course the person who is practicing more will be able to perform better. Both were studying for equal amount of time, but we know that who is studying better. So, it is better that rather than deciding the time, you decide the number of questions you are going to solve each day.
Do make a proper mixture of all the sections in your daily or weekly plan.
- Identify your highs and lows
It is very important that you understand what are your strengths and weaknesses, as this is the perfect time when you can convert your weaknesses into strengths. It is quite obvious that even until the exam day there will be some topics with which you are uncomfortable, but try that the circle of weaknesses has as less area as possible.
Devote a little extra time to your weaknesses and make sure that you do not lose grip on strengths as well.
- Do not ignore Decision Making
I will not say that Decision Making is an easy section or a tough section. To some people, it seems easy and to some, it seems difficult. But one suggestion is that you must not undermine or ignore this section. This section has empirically been a make or break section for many. And this is true that once you start getting the gist of problems in decision making, this section becomes a very high scoring section. So, if you are not scoring well in this section at the moment, then don’t worry, just keep on practicing.
If you are scoring well, then you should start improving your speed in this section.
We hope these tips will help you and will surely lead you to high scores in XAT exam. Good Luck!
