The XATtack 2011 review!

XAT 2011 managed to spring a surprise and how. Five minutes into the test and all prep work meant nothing. Read below for what the first comments were like
“For 20 mins I was trying to guess whether there is any option which says ‘Cannot be solved’”.
“The most absurd the most weird and the toughest paper i have given in the last 3 years.”
“The first time I was actually moved to tears..then started laughing..then silent..then again started laughing after seeing the essay.”
“Just appeared in IIT-JEE’11 and I screwed it.”
“Even if I had 4 hours, I would have had the same number of attempts.”
“XAT ni. XAT di. XAT ci.”
The paper was a big deviation from the reputation it has earned last few years. The difficulty level was high and the differential marking scheme forced all the pre-determined strategies out of the window. After an eventless season where there weren’t any major changes in the pattern of all the other entrances, XAT showed that even the best of the candidates could be left dumbfounded by a change in the pattern.
Marking Scheme:
There were questions ranging from 1 markers to 5 markers. The negative marks deducted for each incorrect answer were one-fourth of the marks allotted to the question. The section-wise distribution of marks and questions were as follows:

Section	1 markers	2 markers	3 markers	4 markers	5 markers	Marks
DI & QA	7	14	14	0	8	117
VA & LR	13	8	12	1	0	69
AR & DM	1	8	12	1	2	67
Total Questions	21	30	38	2	10
Total marks	21	60	114	8	50	253

DI & QA: Data Interpretation & Quantitative Ability
VA & LR: Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning
AR & DM: Analytical Reasoning and Decision Making
Section-wise analysis:
Data Interpretation and Quantitative Ability  (43 questions, 117 marks):
There was a good distribution of questions in this section both across the two areas and also topic-wise. There were a couple of fifers based on Josephus’ problem which could have been a cakewalk if one knew  the concept.
The couple of Data Interpretation sets on CSR and Maxam Glass were easy but then, they were  fewer marks against them. Greed had to be curbed in this kind of paper and one should have gone for easy questions irrespective of the marks allotted to them. These two sets could have been finished in 5-7 minutes and one could have scored a cool 9 marks in this.
There were 7 questions from Geometry and almost all were tough. There were a couple of doable questions which could have been attempted. The one question from trigonometry required knowledge about the concept and could have been a cakewalk if one knew it. There were 5-6 questions on permutations and combinations out of which a couple could be done. The question on functions were difficult. The remaining 3 DI sets were huge to read and so, reading them, comprehending and then solving them took time.
There were a couple of Data Sufficiency questions in which the answer options were slightly tweaked. The last option statement said that: Neither Statement I nor Statement II was necessary to answer the question. That was a statement many probably missed.
Overall the section almost weighed half of the paper in terms of marks and even though most of the questions were outright undoable for an exam of 2 hours, one could have scored around 12-15 in this section. A score of above 18-20 would be a very good score in this section. The sectional cut-off for 95 percentile might hover around 13-14 marks for this section.
Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning (34 questions, 69 marks) :
There weren’t any 5 markers in this section and there was only a solitary 4-marker. So, the distribution of marks across the various question types was more or less uniform. There were two Reading Comprehension passages which were doable if one selected the right questions to attempt.
The fill-in-the-blanks questions were easy to do and one could have attempted all of them. The analogies were difficult and better left alone. Both the parajumbles were doable and atleast one could have been attempted. The question on punctuation was doable. The questions on ideas implied in the passage were a bit difficult and the options combining the various statements made it all the more difficult.
One could have left these questions. The questions on short passages (Paradox-Heredox, the kept in the dark passage, the passage on media) were slightly difficult and a careful reading was required. The three questions on the critics were sitters while the three questions on critical reasoning were huge and so many might have left these questions. Plus they had multiple statements and the right combination had to be selected.
Overall, if one could have attempted the easy questions, one could have scored around 14-15 marks in this section. A score of above 18-20 marks would be a very good score. The cut-off for 95 percentile will probably hover around 14 marks and for the 90 percentile mark, it would be around 12 marks.
Analytical Reasoning and Decision Making (24 questions, 67 marks):
With most of the questions being either for 2 or 3 marks, choices about which questions to attempt were easy to make in this section. The difficult thing was to attempt these questions. At first glance, except one reasoning set (the manager of Alex Company and the rooms), nothing was outright doable in this section. All the other three reasoning sets were high on difficulty level and if one couldn’t get through these, it would have eaten into the time allotted for this section. There were no easy decision making caselets as seen last year.
The single question on the number of pieces of silver was a sitter and should have been attempted. The decision making sets required time to read and then choosing one amongst similar sounding options would have been difficult as there would have been a thought at the back of one’s mind that an error in these questions would lead to a bad performance in this section.
The Chetan Textile Mills set was doable and could surely fetch a few marks. The decision making set on Gagan and the air travel was difficult and one should not have attempted this set upfront. The ABC and LMN merger set was again difficult and the multiple statements made it painful to read. The decision making singlet on the top executives in companies was difficult.
Overall, this was the toughest section in the toughest paper of the season. One could have scored around 12-13 marks by choosing relatively easier questions. A score of above 18 marks would be very good. The sectional cut-off for 90 percentile can be expected to be somewhere around 13-14 marks in this section.
Essay:
To add to the aspirants’ woes, the essay topic was weird and almost incomprehensible for many. A statement picked from Adam Smith’s ‘The Wealth of Nations’ made the topic. The essay was argumentative in nature and one had to analyse the statement, take a stand on it and justify it with examples. The essay statement was:
“The statesman who would attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals would not only load himself with most unnecessary attention but also assume an authority which could safely be trusted to no council and senate whatsoever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of man who has folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it. “
If someone has not performed well in the essay and is expecting a call, it would be a good idea to go through the book once and try to gather ideas about the topic. It might just save you in the interview.
Strategy:
The only strategy which was required was to be persistent throughout the two hours without getting awed by the difficulty level of the paper. Picking the relatively easy questions (there weren’t any straightforward questions) and cracking them with a high accuracy was very important in this paper. Alloting almost equal amount of time towards each section was important and one should not have got tensed seeing that s/he was unable to attempt anything in a section. Going for easy 1s and 2s and not worrying about the 5s was important in building a good score. If a 5 marker has boosted your score, it is also possible that it will bring your score down by 1.25 marks.
Shock Value:
If progressive negative marking was the area of concern in yesteryears’ papers, this paper shocked everyone with the high difficulty level and the number of marks awarded for a question ranging from 1 to 5. Incidentally, for the last few years XAT papers hadn’t exactly mentioned the number of marks awarded per question, ,  was ponder if XAT has been indeed following this pattern all way along.
Cut-offs:
The overall cut-off for the HR programme has been around 95% ile and can be expected to be around 45-47 marks. The cut-off for the BM programme can be around 55-57 marks. The cut-offs might be affected due to the fact that it would have been challenging with such a drastic change in pattern to get balanced sectionals. Plus with such a subjective paper, there are differences in the keys which are bound to happen. As announced at the center, the results are to be expected by the last week of January. It was a similar case last time around but, the results were out on 22^nd of January.
The discussions thread for the scores, predicted cut-offs, analysis and application related queries has been put up here.