Transcript of the LIVE Chat with Akriti Gupta, 2nd year student at XLRI Jamshedpur on Cracking XAT 2015.
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Kartikeya Sharma How different is this exam from CAT and other competitive exams?
Akriti Gupta XAT tests you on GK and essay writing skills so the exam is structurally different. Also as compared to CAT, the percentage of questions that require speed solving (rather than higher level thinking) is higher.
Kartikeya Sharma Also, can you please elaborate about DM and the usual essay writing part (word limit, vocabulary)..
Akriti Gupta About DM practice as much as you can and don’t see the question as an unrelated mass of words. Rather as a real life situation be logical. There is no formula here to crack. Essay - read as much as you can, be aware of things around. I used the Essay writing guide to SAT for my preparation her.
Kartikeya Sharma Is accuracy more important or the final score that has been achieved? I have heard that XLRI has a tendency to refrain from candidates from English Background. Is it so?
Akriti Gupta Again accuracy helps you since you don’t waste time and more importantly energy solving questions that eat away in your marks. As for engineering background students, well 90% + students here are engineers so avoidance doesn't seem to be the case
Nithish Salankey How did you crack your admission and internship interviews?
Akriti Gupta The admission interview focused on what I was taught in my graduation (economics) and current affairs so it was relatively simple. The HR interview also focused on the same so both of them were not that difficult. the internship interview – Well a lot of guidance from seniors and domain specific preparation goes there. Nothing one needs to worry about now.
Sachin Gupta How to prepare for the exam?
Akriti Gupta I took a crash course for entrance exam preparation. The key to preparation for me was taking timed mock exams. They helped inculcate the required frame of mind and helped me develop a strategy to give the exam.
Shishir Agarwal Can you tell me your strategy for XAT. What did you do?
Akriti Gupta My strong point was verbal. So I started the exam with that, maximized my attempts there since my accuracy was also high. Quant being the weakest was left to last and close to 40% of time was allocated to it.
SIVARAMAKRISHNAN S When compared to CAT, XAT looks difficult and it takes much time to solve Quants. How to go about cracking Quants and throw some light on preparing for DM.
Akriti Gupta For cracking quant, practice is the key. Nothing else will help. Also while you solve, time yourself. It will help in solving in a time constraint. For DM again practice. Try to analyze the situation not as a question but as a real life parallel. It helped my cause.
SIVARAMAKRISHNAN S Any good source to prepare for DM?
Akriti Gupta I had joined TIME. Found there material on DM sufficient. I am not aware of any other source.
SIVARAMAKRISHNAN S Do we have cut off for essay writing and GK? Their weight age will be taken only for final shortlist after interview or will they be considered to shortlist a candidate for interview itself ?
Akriti Gupta To clarify on that I can tell that my essay was being referred to during my interview. Also, there are variable GK cutoffs every year.
SIVARAMAKRISHNAN S What can be your advice for all of us for the next 2 weeks? How to go about with our prep?
Akriti Gupta Take timed mocks and more than that analyse your mistakes so that you don't make similar ones later. Keep calm and keep your time allocation and strategy flexible enough so that even if the section you are strong at is too difficult in the paper, you are not thrown off. ATB
Sachin Gupta Verbal is my weak point. How to improve?
Akriti Gupta For verbal, read newspapers. The book word power made easy helped with the synonym, antonym type questions. Read as much as you can.
Sachin Gupta When did you start your preparation?
Akriti Gupta I started in October the previous year but that is no benchmark. When you must start depends on how quickly you get things.
Akshay Joseph I just wanted to ask if a majority of students studying at XLRI have very high percentile of XAT scores, or people who have just cleared the cut offs also have equal chance of getting in?
Akriti Gupta Well the median percentile in BM is 99.4 while that for HR is 97.xx But yes, people just clearing the cut offs also do make it in. Depending on how their interview went, wait list movement, etc.
Sushree Jena Please share any last minute tips for XAT 15?
Akriti Gupta Take timed tests. All mock papers that you solve, solve them as timed papers it will condition your mind and stay calm. Don’t waste too much time on any question.
Avinash Sarma Can you please shed some light on how to improve the verbal part? My accuracy has always been low in the verbal section and I am finding it difficult to improve it.
Akriti Gupta For verbal word power made easy is very good. Also read as much as you can. Also, try to attempt only those questions that you are dead sure of.
Karthik Sripati Since XAT Verbal part is much difficult compared to that of CAT. Can you please how to deal with it?
Akriti Gupta Developing a reading habit, doing vocabulary books and primarily reading newspapers. Read business standard or economic times or the economist. Refer regularly to a dictionary and keep noting down unfamiliar words. Practice as much as you can.
Eshaan Aggarwal I am facing 2 problems here.1) How to make sure that verbal cutoff is cleared. 2) How much percentage of marks is good enough for GK. Also every time the number of questions and time vary. How to deal with that?
Akriti Gupta 1) Cutoff is variable every year – can’t say anything about it. Practice well, attempt intelligently; 2) Another spin of the test makers. GK time should not be an issue since you either know the answer or you don't. So here prep is the key. Read and prepare well. I used to read the Magazine that TIME publishes for GK. Worked well for me. Otherwise general newspaper reading will also help.
Anand Prakash While practicing mocks. What is the main thing we should target?
Akriti Gupta Time your mocks. Always give timed mocks. Second, analyse your mocks. Try to find the kind of mistakes you make - say for example you discover that most of your mistakes in verbal happen in Synonym type questions, in further mocks attempt less of them and work on it at the same time. Slowly you will build up a strategy
Saranya LN How to deal with tough DI sets?
Akriti Gupta In DI make smart choices. In the entire section there will be some easier sets, attempt them first. Then with seemingly difficult sets, there will be simpler questions, attempt those first. If you have time attempt the rest, if not move on.
Avinash Sarma In the interview process, what are the attributes that are looked at in a candidate?
Akriti Gupta Not sure but as far as I know clear communication, general knowledge and confidence.
Anand Prakash While solving DM questions we quickly arrived at the 2 possible answers - to select the correct is quite confusing?
Akriti Gupta I am afraid only practice and then analysing your mistakes and mulling over the logic of the right answer (from the explanation in solutions) will take you there no quick trick here
Deepak Ranjan How many questions are needed to solve correctly on an average to get a score of 99+ percentile?
Akriti Gupta No preset number. Depends on the difficulty level of the paper, number of attempts of your fellow exam takers, i.e. random variables so attempt as many s you can with high accuracy.
M S Please tell us about time allocation to the 3 main sections during the exam verbal being my forte, I'll start with it.
Akriti Gupta Time allocation again depends on your speed and accuracy. No preset numbers, highly individual and yes, start with your forte. Will give you confident start and help in further time management too.
Anirudh Gopalakrishnan Best source of XAT mocks?
Akriti Gupta Solve past year papers and I took mocks given by TIME. I believe other coaching centres also have similar stuff so you can check there.
Shobhit Agarwal Minimum how many questions can be done in each section to get a call from XLRI assuming 80% accuracy? During the analysis by of previous years papers done by coaching’s, I have seen it's usually 18-20 questions per section. is it so?
Akriti Gupta No set number of questions. Don't wander into this kind of analysis. It is dependent on difficulty level of paper and number of attempts by fellow test takers nothing you can control or know so do your best.
Rahul Mathur Due to CAT 2014 result speculations and anxiety, my mind got distracted but now it seems to be settled so I would like to ask what all should be done in these last few days. I have a good base of topics plus this will be my second XAT so what all should I look after in this last 1 and a half week?
Akriti Gupta Take timed mocks, analyse your mistakes and try to work around them in the exam..Develop a flexible strategy.
Ujjwal Teotia Can you give some ex of vocabulary building books and other books to improve vocabulary?
Akriti Gupta Vocabulary book was word power made easy available on Flipkart.
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