XAT Decision-making is the most unique section of all the management exams that happen every year. It tests your managerial acumen with a set of business-based scenarios and some mathematical questions. Here are some tips to conquer this unique section. It is not typical if you the type of question formula and concept you solve easily. The decision-making section has about 22 questions in the exam, with no sectional time limit in the XAT exam. So, you have to manage your time accordingly on your own. Some things we should keep in mind while preparing for this XAT decision-making 2025 exam are: 
XAT decision-making 2025: Purpose of the section
- The exam is testing your managerial acumen, and you have to choose the best option of the five options provided.
- It may not be the best option in the real world, but it is the best among the solutions we have to choose from.
- The aspirant doesn’t have to be too emotional or biased while solving the questions; they just have to choose what is best according to the question.
XAT Previous Year Papers | XAT Mock Tests & Question Papers (2018-2024)
Practice and preparation
- The best place and resource you have to pick is the past year's question paper for XAT.
- The main reason to solve the past year's paper, especially for the DM section, is to know what the examiner wants us to think in a certain way while looking at the answer.
- That way, we can analyze the way we have to answer, as we will get whole new scenarios and questions in our exam, but the critical thinking we have developed while solving the questions will help us tackle this section better.
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Strategy to remember
Knowing the stakeholders—those who are involved in the whole case—so that we know according to whom we have found the right solutions as per the question.
- Analyse the question thoroughly.
This may sound very trivial, but what the question is asking is very important, as the options may sound very right, but if we are not marking the option according to what has been asked, then it will not matter.
In almost every scenario, we have to look for what can make the best, maximize benefits in general, and lower losses if any.
This is very crucial to keep in mind, as we sometimes won’t even notice, but personal biases and your experiences affect your decision-making skills, which have to be avoided to get the right answer.
The opinions in the sets of many questions are very close, and getting a straight answer may not be that easy. Ranking them as we analyse every option and get to the right answer can be a strategy that can be used.
Apart from all these strategies, giving some sectional tests created by experts and mentors would be beneficial. Full-length mocks to strategize how much you should do for every section as it's an open exam and keeping a check on the clock is very important.
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Conclusion
- Analysing the question and every option is key to success in this section.
- Previous year's XAT papers are very important to get a feel for how to think about this exam.
- Keeping a check on the clock and not overthinking too much would be crucial to a good score.
Frequently Asked Question
Q.1 How much preparation is sufficient for XAT?
Ans. Usually, most aspirants prepare for this section after the CAT exam is done. So, a month is sufficient to get a grip on this section.
Q.2 How many past-year papers should we solve?
Ans. At least solve the last 10-year paper, which is easily available on the internet. If you feel you can solve 5 more years, but not further, as the section was a bit different from what it is now.
Q.3 Is leaving questions in XAT advisable?
Ans. Although we should try to solve almost all the questions, if we are confused with three options or the mathematical set is difficult, then we can leave and target other questions.
The author of this article, Tanmay Bhardwaj scored 99.29 percentile in XAT 2024 and joined XIMB (2024-26).
