Thousands of aspiring managers from the city appeared for the XAT (Xavier Admission Test) 2015, conducted by XlRI along with their counterparts from various centres across the country.
The pattern of the paper was similar to last years’ with a general knowledge section. The first paper with 84 questions in quantitative ability, verbal ability and reasoning and decision making, had to be answered in 2 hours 20 minutes while the general knowledge section with 30 questions was given 40 minutes. XlRI added general knowledge a couple of years ago to choose its students from general streams rather than only engineers.
The numbers of XAT applicants have however increased to 90,000 as compared to about 89,000 last year. More than 3,000 students appeared from Jamshedpur at the DBMS English School, the only centre in the city. "The exam witnessed an overwhelming response. The results of XAT 2015 will be declared before January 31. We will in fact try to do it by January 25," said Munish Thakur, head of admissions, XlRI.
The XAT is considered to be India's second most premier MBA entrance test after the CAT (Common Admission Test). Organised by the XlRI School of Business and Human Resources, Jamshedpur, the exam serves as the entrance exam for various other B-Schools in India including SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (Mumbai), Alliance Business Academy (Bangalore), Goa Institute of Management (Goa), Welingkar (Mumbai) and XIM (Bhubaneshwar). XAT is considered in about 109 B-schools of the country. “ XAT has always focused on good language, decision making skills of the candidates and given all aspiring candidates ample opportunity to display their innate capabilities,” said a professor.