XAT Decision Making

XAT Decision-Making Questions: Types with Examples

HR Policy

• You would be asked to decide if you were a company's HR. For example, you would be asked whether you should fire an employee of your company. Another instance is whether you hire an employee for your company with given attributes.
• HR should never take extreme steps like firing an employee. But, a person must be fired if he has breached the unethical code or crossed the red line. For example, if he has stolen money.
• In the rest of the instances, HR should choose a win-win situation.
• Always choose an option that balances the needs of different stakeholders.
HR Policy (XAT 2023 Question)

Behaviour/Personal Decisions

• Here, a personal issue is given and asked to choose an option to handle the problem.
• This question is primarily given for testing your maturity only. So, only choose an option that describes how balanced you are.
• Also, in another variant of these sets, you would be asked to choose the order of priority to complete a task or solve an issue.
• This is asked to test the maturity and moral code of the candidate.
Behaviour Decision (XAT 2022 Question)

Organisational Policy

• In these kind of sets you would be asked to make a decision if you are the CXO or the CEO of a company. Here, a decision has to be made which affects the entire group.
• The best decision would be to think:
1. If I make this policy how would the group react?
2. If I make this financial incentive change would employees cope-up with this?
Organisational Policy (XAT 2021 Question)

Strategy Based/Quant Based

• For these kind of sets you would be asked whether you would take up a business proposal.
• For dealing with questions like this you would basically need critical reasoning skills and quantitative skills.
• Should be able to do break-even analysis.
Quant (XAT 2023 Question)

HR Policy Based Set: How to Tackle?

Newspaper test: This test is the litmus test to take before deciding. It checks if you can defend your decision if it comes in the next day's newspaper.For instance, check if you can defend if you fired someone from the company.If your decision does not pass scrutiny, then that decision should not be chosen.

Checklist before taking a HR Policy Decision

• Check if the decision is fair and transparent
• Check if the decision is discriminatory
• Check if the decision can be defended if displayed in the next day's newspaper

Strategy Based Set: How to Tackle?

You need to understand what information is required to tackle this kind of set. Understand the extent of the opportunity and evaluate the opportunity.

• Size of the market
• Players in the market
• Types of Customers
• Market Share - know whether the market is fragmented or a dominant player consumes the entire share
• Know How To Reach a Customer - Know the customer's demographics, age, location, and spending ability
• Think of your product and think of the selling price - The price at which you will sell and think about how you will reach it

Think of all these verticals to consider which strategy to take up or to consider a business proposal

Question Formats of XAT Decision-Making

Single Question Prompts

Here, a single paragraph is followed by a single question. Questions like these must be answered as they don't take much time. These sections require critical reasoning skills.

Two to Three Questions per Prompt

A longer case-let is given, followed by 2 or 3 questions. Moving whenever you find yourself stuck between two options is advisable.

Four to Five Questions per Prompt

These formats are the longest ones among the three. A long case-let is given, followed by 4 to 5 questions. This section requires reading comprehension skills as they are long.

One must learn to move to the next question whenever one gets stuck between the two options.

What Are The Skills Required For XAT Decision Making?

• Critical reasoning skills are majorly tested in this section
• Managerial skills are also tested. It is not that you need to be a manager with hands-on experience. It needs someone pragmatic who can manage people and bring the team together. Someone who can understand the dynamics of the team
• Also, it tests how mature a candidate is—and checks whether the candidate can maintain his composure in moments of need
• Tests whether the candidate is an extremist

For instance, a CEO/CXO can not suddenly cut down perks on the sales executive of a company. This decision will cause an imbalance in the company because their budgets will be allocated personally based on the company's policies.

XAT Pattern

• XAT has a unique exam pattern. The CAT exam's pattern is closest to XAT. CAT and XAT have overlap in Quant and some portion of Verbal. However, XAT tests various other not-so-common skills.
• Decision Making, Poem RC, and Essay Sections are only tested in the XAT exam alone.
• Hence, students are advised to be well-versed with the unique pattern of XAT.

XAT Paper-I exam pattern:

• The XAT paper-I will have negative marking of ¼ marks.
• For up to 8 un-attempted questions no negative marks, after more than 8 un-attempted questions, each unanswered question will have a penalty of 0.10 marks.

Section name	No. of questions	Total marks	Time duration
Verbal and Logical Ability	26	26	175 minutes
Decision making	21	21
Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation	28	28
Total	75	75

XAT Paper-II exam pattern

Part-II

Mock Keyboard Testing (new section)

-

5 minutes

XAT Paper-III exam pattern

The exam duration of this Part, will be 30 minutes

No negative marking in this part

Name of the section	No. of Questions	Duration
General Knowledge	25
Essay	1 (Out of 3 Essay's)	30 minutes
Total	26

XAT Decision Making Cut-Offs (Last 5 Years)

The cut-off keeps changing every year. It depends on the level of difficulty of paper. An easier exam would have a higher cut-off and a tougher exam would fetch lower cut-off.

Year	Cut-Off
2024(Expected)	75% ile
2023	75% ile
2022	74% ile
2021	70% ile
2020	78% ile
2019	80% ile

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