XAT 2026 Exam Analysis - Section-wise Difficulty Level, Questions Asked, Good Attempts

About XAT Exam Analysis 2026

XAT exam analysis 2026 will be available once the exam is concluded on January 4, 2026. Students will be able to find the number of good attempts, section-wise topic weightage, the overall difficulty level of the exam, section-wise difficulty level, and more through the XAT paper analysis 2026. The Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT) is a national-level Management entrance exam conducted by XLRI Jamshedpur on behalf of the Xavier Association of Management Institutes (XAMI). More than 160 XAT participating colleges provide admission into their Management programs. To get an idea of the colleges that may offer admission based on the XAT score, use our XAT College Predictor 2026. Candidates appearing for the XAT 2026 exam must check out the detailed section-wise XAT 2026 exam analysis.

Overall & Section-wise XAT Exam Analysis 2026

The XAT 2026 exam has not been conducted yet, so students can go through the last year's exam analysis given below.

Overall XAT 2025 Exam Analysis

XAT VALR Exam Analysis 2025

XAT Exam Analysis 2025 for Decision Making

XAT Exam Analysis 2025 for Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation

XAT Exam Analysis 2025 for General Knowledge

XAT Exam Analysis 2025

Test-takers can check the XAT 2025 paper analysis which comprises section-wise difficulty level, weightage, expected number of good attempts, and cutoff below.

Overall XAT 2025 Exam Analysis

The VALR section of the XAT 2025 question paper was the easiest section of the test. QA & DI was the toughest section according to student feedback. The number of Arithmetic questions was less in XAT 2025 and the questions were on the tougher side. The DM sets were lengthy but doable. The cutoff is expected to fall by 2-3 marks according to XAT 2025 experts due to the increased difficulty level of the exam.

XAT Exam Analysis 2024

Test-takers can check the XAT 2024 paper analysis which comprises section-wise difficulty level, weightage, expected number of good attempts and cutoff.

Overall XAT 2024 Exam Analysis

XAT 2024 Exam Analysis: DM

Check out the question-wise breakup for the XAT 2024 DM section:

XAT 2024 Exam Analysis: VALR

The XAT VALR section had 26 questions. The breakup of the VALR section was as follows:

XAT 2024 Exam Analysis: QA & DI

The types and number of questions in the Quant and DI section in XAT 2024 are as follows. This was the toughest section of all.

XAT Exam Analysis 2024: GK

XAT 2024 Exam Analysis: Essay

The topics asked in this section can be checked below:

• Implementing more stringent regulations for Social Media Platforms is crucial to effectively combat the proliferation of fake news.
• Tech prediction often fails not because of wrong models or a lack of imagination but due to a lack of humility in admitting our uncertainties about the future.
• Things which matter the most must never be at the mercy of things that matter the least.

If you appeared for the XAT 2024 exam, use our XAT 2024 Percentile Predictor to get an estimate of your percentile based on your raw XAT score.

XAT Exam Analysis 2023

XAT 2023 was conducted on January 8, 2023. Test-takers can check the XAT 2023 paper analysis that comprises section-wise difficulty level, weightage, the expected number of good attempts, and expected cutoff.

XAT Overall Exam Analysis 2023

XAT Exam Analysis 2023: Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning

The Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning section of XAT 2023 had 26 questions. The overall difficulty level of the section was easy, however, the 12 RC questions were moderately difficult. This year, there was only one poem that was easy. The remaining 12 questions were from Grammar, Para Jumbles, Critical Reasoning, etc. Check the topic-wise break-up of the VALR section below.

XAT Exam Analysis 2023: Decision Making

XAT 2023 Decision Making section had a total of 22 questions. Last year, there were 21 questions in the DM section. The questions were easy except for one set which was modeled on old DI-type decision-making questions. Check the topic-wise breakup of the Decision Making section below.

XAT Exam Analysis 2023: Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation

There were only two sets in the DI part of the QA & DI, each had 3 questions. Both the DI sets were quite difficult. One set of the DI was heavily calculation-based while the other set had graphs. Last year, there were 4 DI sets. The Quant section had 22 questions which were quite doable. Check the topic-wise breakup of the Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation section below.

XAT Exam Analysis 2023: General Knowledge & Essay

The General Knowledge section comprised 25 questions with a good score of 10+. The Essay writing section had 3 questions out of which students had to attempt 1. The Essay Writing topics were:

• Decarbonization by India to achieve the target of zero carbon emissions is hampering the Indian industries
• Half IQ…nX returns
• Taking Risks in Life

XAT 2023 exam has been successfully conducted on January 8, 2023. This year, there has been an increase in the duration to attempt the exam and the number of questions. Candidates had to solve a total of 105 questions in 210 minutes. Candidates can check out the XAT question paper and unofficial answer key mentioned below:

Part 1 of the exam which was Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning, Decision Making Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation had to be attempted in 175 minutes. Part 2 was the Mock Keyboard Testing, which had a time limit of 5 minutes. Part 3 included the General Knowledge and Essay Writing which were to be attempted in 30 minutes.

Based on the reviews of students and experts, the overall level of difficulty of XAT 2023 is moderate to tough. VA was easy to moderate while the RC questions were on a bit on the difficult side. The Logical Reasoning section was also moderate with a good score of 14 marks. The Decision Making section was moderate and a score of 11-15 marks can be considered good. The QA was easy to moderate while DI was moderate in terms of the difficulty level. The number of good attempts in the QA & DI section is 18-20.

XAT 2022 Exam Analysis

XAT 2022 was conducted on January 2, 2022, in a single shift from 9:30 pm to 12:30 pm. Candidates can check the XAT exam analysis below. Check the section-wise analysis, difficulty level, good score, etc. here.

Last year, the question paper was reported to be one of the most difficult seen in the history of the XAT exam. 

XAT 2022 Exam Difficulty Level

XAT 2021 Exam Analysis

XAT 2021 was conducted on January 3, 2021, and the shift got over at 12.30 pm. The XAT 2021 detailed section-wise analysis is now available. Check the XAT Exam Analysis provided here to know the difficulty level as well as sectional analysis of XAT 2021 exam. 

XAT Exam Analysis 2021 Highlights

Candidates must keep the following important details in mind for XAT 2021.

• Essay Writing Question Removed: The descriptive-type essay writing question has been removed from this year's XAT. Earlier, candidates had to answer 1 essay type question in the exam.
• Negative Marking for Unanswered Questions: Candidates are allowed to leave just 8 questions unanswered in the exam. Any questions left unanswered over 8 carry a negative marking of -0.10 marks per question.
• NAT Questions: Candidates will also have to face the NAT (Numerical Answer Type) questions in the XAT 2021 question paper.
• There is no negative marking for the General Knowledge questions and the marks scored in that section are not considered in percentile calculation.
• The XAT 2021 difficulty level was reported to be more than last year. 
• There were 3 DI sets in the exam this year. In previous year exams, there were 2 DI sets.

XAT 2021 Number of Questions and Difficulty Level

There are 75 questions in Part A and 25 questions in Part B of XAT. Given below are the section-wise number of questions and difficulty level of XAT 2021.

XAT 2020 Exam Analysis

One of the most important national-level management entrance exams, the Xavier Aptitude Test has been successfully conducted by Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), Jamshedpur, on 5th January 2020 from 09:30 am till 12:30 pm across various exam centres in order to shortlist appropriate candidates for management education. More than 150 institutes accept XAT scores for admission of candidates.

According to the inputs received from the test-takers, this year, XAT was moderately difficult as compared with the previous years. Most of the candidates found the Decision Making and Quantitative section of XAT 2020 a bit tricky and ambiguous. Considering the overall difficulty level of the exam, the cutoff of XAT 2020 may also remain low this year.

Highlights of XAT 2020 Paper Analysis

Now that the exam has concluded, let us glance through some of the major highlights of XAT 2020:

• XAT 2020 was conducted on a single day and a single session in MCQ format.

• The question paper of XAT 2020 had two parts Part A and Part B.  

• Part-A had three sections namely, Verbal and Logical Ability (VA & LR),Decision Making (DM), Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation (QA & DI),

• Part -B only had General Knowledge section. 

• Considering the past year trends, the overall difficulty level of the question paper was difficult/high.

• From this year onwards, some major changes have also been introduced by XLRI in the XAT 2020 exam patternsuch as inclusion of Numerical Answer Type (NAT) questions, an increased penalty for un-attempted questions, extra time given for visually impaired candidates etc.

Question Paper Pattern of XAT 2020

Take a look at the below table to know the overall paper pattern of XAT 2020 conducted on 5th January 2020.

Section-Wise Analysis of XAT 2020

Find out what is the detailed section-wise analysis of XAT 2020 in the pointers listed below:

Part A

XAT 2020 Verbal and Logical Ability Section Analysis:

• Verbal and Logical Ability Section consisted of a total of 26 questions. 

• Considering the difficulty level of this section, most of the candidates found the Verbal and Logical Ability of XAT 2020 tough. From this section, Reading Comprehension was difficult to attempt.

• The overall difficulty of this section was high this year.

XAT 2020 Decision Making Section Analysis:

• Decision-Making Section of XAT 2020 had 21 questions.

• Most of the XAT 2020 test takers found the questions tricky and ambiguous to understand. Overall, this section of XAT 2020 was moderate to tough on the difficulty scale as per the inputs received from the test-takers.

XAT 2020 Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation Analysis:

• Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation section of XAT 2020 had 28 questions in total from various topics.

• Many candidates found this section easy to moderate in terms of difficulty level.

Part B

XAT 2020 General Knowledge Analysis:

• General Knowledge section of XAT 2020 had a total of 25 questions, which the candidates had to answer in MCQ format.

• Overall this section of XAT 2020 was moderately difficult to attempt.

XAT 2019 Exam Analysis

The XAT 2019 exam concluded at 1 PM on 6th January 2019. Overall, the exam was on the same lines as that of last year's paper. In terms of difficulty level, it was on the higher side and, therefore, turned out to be toughest MBA exam of the season. In the paper, there were no Non-MCQ questions, which was quite contrary to what aspirants had expected. There weren't really any surprises in the paper, apart from some tricky Verbal questions and some really difficult DM questions. This year, the paper had no Essay writing section as well.

The XAT 2019 paper was divided into two parts i.e. Part A consisting of 3 sections including Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning, Decision Making, and Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation. Part B, on the other had, comprises a single section on General Knowledge. 

While Part A had to be taken within the duration of 165 minutes, Part B had a time limit of 15 minutes.

In Part A, every question had a weightage of 1 mark and there was a negative marking of 0.25 mark for every wrong answer. There was no negative marking in Part B. The penalty for not attempting more than 8 questions has been increased from 0.05 marks to 0.10 for every such question. 

Part B, which comprised GK had 25 questions. There was no change or negative marking in this section. The level of difficulty was the same as last year.

Section-wise XAT Exam Analysis 2019

Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning

This section was more difficult in comparison with the previous year's paper, perhaps due to Verbal section. Reading Comprehension dominated the section with 4 passages followed by 3 questions each. The passages were from areas of Psychology, Art and Social issues. There was a Poem Comprehension as well and it had 2 questions, which were quite tricky. There were 2 para jumble questions, which were quite easy. The Fill in the Blanks questions were tough and some of the CR questions were really tricky. Since this was a time-consuming section, it could  have taken around 50 minutes for students to answer this section.

A candidate could have attempted 16-18 questions with 70% accuracy. 

Decision Making and Analytical Reasoning

The difficulty level of the Decision Making section was the same as the previous year's paper. The section was dominated by situational decision making and it had 18 questions. No questions were asked from Mathematical/Analytical Reasoning, thus candidates might have tried to answer 2-3 more questions. However, sequencing questions were more in number, which caused the students to attempt a lesser number of questions. There were 3 cases (Raket, Limo, ice-cream = music), which turned out to be the same as in papers of previous years. There were no singlets and, therefore, it was easier for students to read.

Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation

This section was slightly on the tougher side as compared to XAT 2018. However, one of the DI sets turned out to be quite difficult. There were 21 QA questions and majority of them were based on Geometry and Algebra (including co-ordinate and Trigonometry). Most of the Arithmetic questions were doable whereas Geometry questions were quite tough to attempt. There were 2 sets comprising 6 questions in total in Data Interpretation. A few questions in DI seemed ambiguous.

General Knowledge

General Knowledge section was on the same lines as last year as far as the difficulty level is concerned. Out the total 25 questions, majority of the questions were single-statement based. Some of the multiple-statements based questions had more than one correct statement. Static GK (Economy, Geography, Science and Technology) and Current GK (Business economy, personalities, awards, and sports) were the key areas from where the questions were asked in the paper. A good attempt in this section could be 12-14 questions fetching a score of 7-8.

XAT 2018 Exam Analysis

The Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT) 2018, the second most popular management entrance exam in India, was conducted on January 7, 2018 (Sunday) from 10 am to 1:35 pm in 47 cities across the country, along with 2 cities abroad. The exam was held in online mode, instead of offline. While the test-taking mode has changed, there were some changes in the exam pattern as well, including the marking scheme and number of questions. The level of difficulty of XAT 2018 was expected to be on the tough side. 

XAT 2018 was almost on the same lines as XAT 2017. For XAT 2018, 92000 candidates had registered out of which around 85000 appeared for the exam. Students taking the XAT 2018 had to face some technical challenges as the exam was getting stopped abruptly at some exam centres. Read:XAT 2018: Re-Examination to be Conducted in Two Centres Due to Technical Glitch. The exam was conducted again on 3rd February 2018 for the centers that faced technical issues on the original day of the exam. 

Section-wise Analysis XAT 2018

XAT 2018 – PART 1 was divided into three sections:

• Verbal & Logical Ability with 26 questions

• Decision Making with 21 questions

• Quant & DI with 27 questions

The section of Verbal and Logical Ability and Decision Making was moderate to difficult and more or less similar to the XAT 2017 exam but on the other hand Quantitative and Data Interpretation was difficult.

Part 1 - Sectional Division of Questions & Good Attempts

Section A: Verbal & Logical Ability

This section focuses on the students' command on the language and its logical implication and critical skills. This section was easy to moderate in terms of difficulty level. Questions asked are usually based on the following topics.

• Analogy

• Grammar

• Cloze test

• Understanding& drawing conclusions

• Para jumbles

• Pronunciation

• Reading Comprehension

Section B: Decision Making

This section focuses mainly to analyse a candidate’s critical assessment of a given situation and apply keen observation, sense and logic to solve a particular problem. It tests a person’s perception and ability to handle adverse situations in a practically best possible way. It also covered mathematical and analytical reasoning. This section was trickier and was easy to moderately difficult.

Section C: Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation

This sections QA was the toughest of the three sections. It was a mixed bag of moderate and difficult questions. Questions were asked from the following topics.

• Data Interpretation tables

• Data Interpretation grids and histograms

• Geometry and Mensuration

• Time, Speed, distance

• Work, Algebra, Puzzle, Caselet, Profit & Loss, Number System

• Series, Probability, Trigonometry, Functions, Set Theory

Part II - General Knowledge

Marks scored in GK are not added for the final XAT result and merit list. It may be used for final selection in XLRI Jamshedpur and other top B schools accepting XAT scores. There were 25 questions in all and 40 minutes to complete it. Overall its difficulty level was Moderate to Difficult. The questions asked were from areas such as Geography, Economy, Current Affairs, Personality and Awards, Science and Technology and History.

Assessment:

Overall, the test was moderate to difficult and those who attempted the test with judicious time management may expect to get through with a high percentile. A fair attempt of 53 to 58 questions with not more than 6-7 incorrect may expect a call from leading B schools like XLRI, XIME,

XAT 2017 Exam Analysis

Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT) 2017 was conducted by XLRI Jamshedpur on 8th, 2017 from 10 am to 1:30 pm. The paper consisted of two parts, where the first part had three sections: Verbal and Logical Ability, Decision Making, and Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation. The second part consisted of two sections – General Awareness and Essay Writing. To attempt questions from the first part of the XAT paper, students had a total duration of 170 minutes. The time allotted to the section was 35 minutes.

The Verbal and Logical Ability Section comprised of a total of 24 questions, while the Decision Making section had a total of 21 questions. In the Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation section, students had to attempt 27 questions. Every question 5 options out of which candidates had to choose the right one in order to score marks. As for the marking scheme, all the questions carried equal marks. For every incorrect answer, there was a penalty of one-fourth marks. There was a negative marking of 0.05 marks for every un-attempted question after the first 12 such questions. Overall, the paper was quite challenging for test takers, while some parts were slightly easier.

Analysis of XAT Paper - Part I

Analysis of XAT Paper - Part II

General Knowledge: The General Knowledge section was more or less on the same lines as last year's XAT paper. With a total of 25 questions, this section tested candidates' knowledge of Economy, Geography, Science and Technology. Apart from static GK, students had to answer questions based on Business economy, personalities, awards, etc. No questions were asked about Sports or Politics. While most of the questions were single-statement-based, some questions had multiple statements with more than one correct statement. Overall, this section was in the “moderate-difficult” range in terms of difficulty level. Answering 12-14 questions with a score of 9-10 can be considered a good attempt.

Essay Writing: In this section, candidates were given the topic of “Globalisation and jingoism always coexist”. The topic for the essay is usually interesting every year, and the case was no different for XAT 2017. However, the difficulty level of the topic was slightly higher compared to topics given in the past years. In the past, students had abstract or philosophical topics, which was not the case with XAT 2017.