Does the changes in XAT makes it less scary?

XAT online the MBA Entrance Test conducted by the coveted XLRI announced significant changes to the test. You can read the detailed announcement here. In this post I try to simplify this announcement for you and also discuss the implications for you. So read on

Here are the changes announced and a small discussion on each

1. The total number of Questions has been reduced to 78 and Time allotted increased by 20 min to a total of 170 min.

The reduction in number of Questions is minor – last year the test had 84 questions. However an extra 20 min along with reduction means a student has on an average more than 2 min per question on an average.

Implication
This surely should increase average number of attempts. As you will realise in the next point the test makers are encouraging higher number of attempts from students and are trying to create an environment where students will desist from playing too safe – as has been the behavior in the last few XATs.

2. The difficulty level of the questions has been brought down
First, lets understand the History of XAT. This is one test that has maintained a steadfast (almost arrogant) opinion that only a tough test would separate wheat from the chaff. And so, year after year the XAT has been the toughest nut for all test takers. In my opinion – the last three tests successively stretched this logic to beyond logic. Last year’s XAT was actually weird in its design. It was almost as if someone designed it to disappoint and discourage students.

What has happened over the years is that the test has positioned itself in the minds of the students as – “A mental torture – simply not worth the effort”. The number of students who give XAT a shift despite my explaining to them that they should appear in it is increasing every year. Last year – I was dumbfound in front of a few students who took XAT on my suggestion. They had hat “we told you so” look in their eyes and for a change I had this “XLRI will never understand” sigh as a response.

So here is what the announcement says
“The level of difficulty of the questions has also been carefully designed. In order to enable students to attempt as many questions as possible and encourage them to demonstrate all-round skills, the difficulty level of the questions has been brought down. However if the examination is made very easy, then many would finish the test before time. XAT-2016 has been designed in such a manner that that the top hundred students will be able to complete the test in 170 minutes.”

The statement is cryptic in the typical XAT way and yet it suggests a grudging admission that they might have overdone the toughness levels over the years and that they now understand that students are not just scared but have grown indifferent to the exam itself. This ofcourse cannot be a good trend for XLRI itself and also for institutes participating with XAT for their admissions.

Implication
What this means to me is that the difficulty levels will become manageable now. If I try and give you a feel they will be closer to your netCATs in difficulty levels – ofcourse do factor in that there will be a difference in question types that you must prepare for – so I hope to see you in the Decision Making sessions and also in the essay writing sessions.

3. A 0.05 negative mark for an unattempted question beyond 13 unattempted ones.
Interesting. What the announcement says is that they wish to discourage the overtly risk averse students who do not attempt questions in the test. Ok !! Got the message but really .05 negative marks – that makes it one negative mark for leaving 20 questions over and above 13 that do not carry any negative mark. How much more silly can this get?

What this means is that a student leaving 33 questions unattempted in a test of 84 questions after spending 170 minutes in the test will be penalized by one negative mark and they expect it to make a big dent into the person’s probability of success if he does leave many questions unattempted. I think they completely failed the purpose by this design.

Implication
I think there is no adverse or positive implication for you in this. Don’t waste too much time strategizing for this additional change in XAT. It has almost no impact. Just go and do your thing in the test without worrying about how many should you attempt or leave. Just decide to attempt or leave based on how probable it is that you have achieved the right answer. Do remember that the penalty for a wrong answer stays at 0.25 marks which is much higher than attempting the question to avoid the penalty for not attempting the question.

4. The GK questions shifted to second section along with the essay – Less questions, no negative marks, general not specific
Here is a more substantial change. The questions on GK will now be reduced to 25 in number and also you will get 35 minutes (5 less) to complete this section. More importantly – there are no negative marks for this section. Another cryptic suggestion – the GK questions would be general rather than specific. This could mean anything – but I guess what it should mean is that they would be simpler – more direct and answerable by someone who is reading a news paper regularly and hopefully it would not be as though they expect you to cram up data like a database and then dig it out when asked a question to match four sets of data with their origin (like they expected last year).

Implications 
In simple terms It means that – enriCHs & your daily whatsapp GK updates could help you answer many questions in this section. It also means you MUST answer all questions with your best guess. However you will have to practice some time management during this section otherwise you might not leave enough time to complete the essay properly. Here is my suggestion – devote 10-15 minutes on GK questions and then devote the rest of the time to the essay and follow what I plan to explain in the session on Essay Writing.

Conclusion
So those are the “significant” changes in XAT summarized for you. As you can see they are not really significant. One gets the feeling that the torturous levels to which toughness levels in XAT had been brought to in recent years might have resulted in reduced interest of both students and institutes in the exam. And this announcement is probably an admission of guilt and hence a course correction. If so, it is in the right direction and is good for the students. Expect a more CAT like XAT than ever before and hence make a clear change in your approach to the XAT.

At least one thing is clear - that students must try and do more questions in the test than what they had in mind. Students might have carried the perception (not without basis) that in XAT we can spend infinite amount of time to a question as long as we get the answer right and that we do not require very high scores to crack the XAT. This will probably not be true any more. According to the announcement the top 100 students should be able to do all the 84 questions in 170 minutes. So extrapolating this the average XAT taker should be able to do 70% of the questions in the same time and be able to achieve 90+% accuracy. So here is what to target – do about 58-60 questions well spread among sections with about 5-7 errors.

Here is a guess on what XAT 2016 could be like based on earlier XATs

Section	2016 Expected	2015	2014	2013
Verbal & Logical Ability	26	28	28	30
Decision Making	20	23	24	25
Quantitative Ability	32	33	31	36
Total	78	84	83	91
General Knowledge	25	30	20	30

Do remember to devote your time to different sections proportionately. Here is a suggestion on time strategy based on distribution of earlier XATs. (Remember to tweak it a bit after knowing exact number of questions in the exam hall)

Section	2016 Expected No. of Questions	Suggested Time Allocation (min)
Verbal & Logical Ability	26	45
Decision Making	20	50
Quantitative Ability	32	75
Total	78	170
General Knowledge	25	10-15
Esaay writing		25-20

All the best. Do write to me for any queries, doubts or Questions.

CAT 2015 Return of Good Readers

It is that time of the year when one relives his college days when he used to appear in the CAT as a student. Now I write the test as an analyst. And I just came out doing the worst ever in all the CATs I ever took. :-) Well it was one of those years when I completely messed up one of the strongest areas, I thought, I had. I guess - too much confidence never helps. Here is a nut and shell of what I think CAT 2015 was like.

CAT 2015 was a mixed bag with more pleasant and less painful surprises. The Language section often dreaded by students in our side of India was fairly simple one and easy to negotiate. The Quantitative Ability section was truly a sitter for anyone who has been preparing sincerely for CAT. A CHEM student who has done even his Thrust & Accelerate portion of material – would confidently do 28-30 questions with almost cent-percent accuracy.

The spanner in the easy ride was the DI/LR section. In last several years this was probably the toughest ever Di & LR section. The do well in the section students will have to spend substantial time in understanding and structuring the data and building the structure clearly. Even after having done that, the questions would require good comprehension to finally arrive at the answer.

Section – 1 :  Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension

This was the first section of the CAT paper was divided into two sub-sections

One, with 24 questions based on Reading Comprehension  and

Second, with 10 questions 5 Para jumbles , 3 on Essence of the paragraph  and 2 on odd sentence out of a jumbled up paragraph.

Overall the section was very manageable. Anyone who is practicing the RC section regularly will find very few difficulties in navigating the section. A good student should be able to attempt up to 30 questions with almost 85% accuracy. Do not worry about accuracy in the jumbled up paragraph types.

Here is a detailed analysis of the section in the forenoon (morning) slot.

Sub – section I : Reading Comprehension

Subject	URL Yes we even found the source	No. of Qs.	Difficulty Level
1)      Relationship of Economic inequality and accumulation of wealth	Edited from https://hbr.org/2014/04/pikettys-capital-in-a-lot-less-than-696-pages/	3	2 simple 1 moderate
2)      Increasing dependence of human memory on internet resource	http://www.iht.com/2014/03/22/the-web-is-here-to-stay/	6	1 tough 2 moderate 3 simple
3)      Relevance of studying humanities in a dominantly technical world		3	3 simple
4)      Economic Theory that suggests migration actually results in making a country/world richer	Edited from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/magazine/debunking-the-myth-of-the-job-stealing-immigrant.html	6	1 tricky 2 moderate 3 simple
5)      Why world’s poor  need grid power not just solar panels	https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329804-400-worlds-poor-need-grid-power-not-just-solar-panels/	6	2 moderate 4 simple

Sub – section II : Verbal Ability

What was interesting in this section was that all VA questions except the essence questions were non MCQ . The questions in which the sentences had to be arranged in a logical paragraph had 5 sentences each and were numbered 1 to 5. The message was clear attempt all the jumbled up paragraphs because there was no negative marking for them.

Again questions on Odd sentence out and those on essence were fairly simple and could be easily done accurately by eliminating the “not possible” choices. While even when one is confused in the jumbled up paragraphs because one did not have the support of the option choices – one must still attempt them as all of them were non-MCQ questions and hence one does not have to worry about negative marks.

Surprises

Not much except that in tune with the sample paper that IIMs had put up – the questions based on vocabulary and English Usage (Grammar) went missing completely.

This clearly pointed out to the focus the IIMs might have increased on getting better readers in the creed. And I agree whole heartedly - offlate the trend was that students could bypass the language section by focussing on the LR section and even in the VA section the reading comprehension has a minimal presence and hence a poor performance in RC did not have a great impact on the performance.

This year that has transformed. Anyone who was taking RC lightly would pay dearly. The RC wasn't difficult but if you one who was avoiding it - then you were the e targetted. Fair & Square.

Section – 2 : Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning

Most cases were time consuming beyond the generally challenging DI & LR. However one case in DI and one using a line graph and data on Tourist was fairly simple. Similarly once you get the logic right a case on cube made of smaller numbered cubes was also a simple one. Combined with these two one can do up to two to three more cases and hence an attempt of anywhere between 16-20 questions in this section would be a good idea.

without going into detailed analysis (If interested a more detailed analysis is available here) of the section let me state the surprise :

Total absence of questions on sequencing, arranging, relating or associating. No questions on blood relations which had found some presence in recent previous CATs. If you notice, the primary skill that was tested was puzzle solving which required students to try out scenarios, try and verify and to visualize strongly. True Management professionals stuff. So again kudos the subte change here - but yes it took a lot of us by surprise and would have definitely affected our performance.

But as they say - its a relative test - so as long as your decline the section was not as great as mine was yesterday - you should be fine. I ended up doing just three cases - 10 Qs. My guess is if you could do anywhere between 16-20 (4 to 5 cases) you are pretty snugly placed to get a good percentile.

Section – 3 :  Quantitaive Ability

This section was a pleasant surprise for all those students who are scared of mathematics. It was sitter in the true sense of the word. Increased stress on arithmetic made it all the more of a blessing for CHEM students. The ratios approach would have increased their speed immensely in solving many questions. Geometry questions were simple and could have been easily done by observation of diagrams drawn. While all questions could have been done but even if we discount a few cumbersome ones – a sincere student can do up to 30 questions with almost cent percent accuracy.

Here is a detailed analysis of the section for the forenoon slot - the evening slot by early feedback was not much different.

Subject	No. of Qs.	Difficulty Level
Ratios & Percentages	4	3 simple 1 moderate
Profit & Loss	2	Both simple
Averages, Mixtures & Alligation	2	1 simple 1 simple; little high on calculations
Work & Time	1	Moderate
Speed, Time & Distance	2	1 moderate 1 Time Consuming not tough
Number Theory	1	High on Calculation – not tough
Geometry & Mensuration	7	3 simple 3 moderate 1 high on calculation
P & C	1	Tricky but simple once understood
Quadratic & higher order equation	5	3 simple & moderate 2 tricky
Logaritham	1	Simple
Functions	1	Simple
Squences & series	2	Both simple
Trigonometry – Heights & Distance	1	simple
Coordinate Geometry	1	Simple (actually of P& C)
Set Theory	1	Very Simple
Misc.	1	Tricky

 Note the returned stress on arithmetic. Thats what aptitude tests must do - not scare people with overtly mathematical language and technically sounding questions. They must confound the students by the sound, language and the twists in the questions. This section had questions that when understood well had VERY simple and almost direct solutions (even those on P&C, Sequences & series, Coordinate etc.). 7 questions on Geometry and mensuration again had the quality that required you to observe keenly - and poof its done.

Very good aptitude test it was.

In conlusion then

This year's CAT increased my trust in the common sensical intelligence of the IIMs once again. I was losing it over the last few years.

The test marked the return of common sense and good comprehension as the primary need to crack it.

It also put an end to the "short tricks" department of coaching classes, as well as "arm chair strategists" suggesting focus on strengths and wrapping up weaknesses. Won't work.

Just develope great concepts and love for reading wide and deep - and you could be well placed to be the next kid on the block. All the Best.

"Increasing Intolerance" not "Intolerant India"

In july 2014, it was reported in the media that Mr. Amit shah in his speech said "Acche Din will take 25 years to come (click to read)".  The BJP president was speaking to BJP Volunteers who were a part of the Mass Contact programme of the Party. Ofcourse what followed was a huge uproar - even suggesting that like in many cases the BJP was taking a U-turn on the "Acche Din" promise as well.

The truth however was more mundane. If someone took a little more nuanced view of the speech that Mr. Amit Shah made that day - two things emerge. One, that Mr. shah was not talking about the proverbial "Acche Din" in the speech - he was talking about India to be brought to the No. 1 position in the world. Two, his context was that he was motivating the volunteers of a mass contact programme of his party to ensure that they worked towards creating a mass base for his party that will ensure his party's win in elections at all levels for the next 25 years.

Here is a rather provocative and yet a more accurate (click to read) rebuttal to that piece of news. And here is a more balance explanation (click to read) on the news. While one could technically twist the logic to mean that he was suggesting that "Acche Din" would require 25 years to come yet the truth is that to any sensible person that will be an unfair inference to draw from his speech.

What is my point? That instant and reactionary outrage on just a part of a larger point creates an imagined narrative which is not the whole truth.

The Intolerance Debate
That seem to have happened in the case of the "Intolerance Debate" as well. Let me explain.

Most people who raised the issue of intolerance ,apart from one clear exception of the eminent Historian Irfan Habib, have made just one point - that religious Intolerance is growing in our country. They have not claimed that India has (already) become an Intolerant country. In fact they would want to believe that their opposition, protest, returning of awards is to ensure that India does not actually become an intolerant nation.

For the large massess out there this distinction is too fine to make. And simpilified reporting of such issues makes it worse. Hence, the returning of Awards by authors, scientists and artists turned into acrimonious debate by focussing on whether returning awards is an organised conspiracy or whether it is payback by those undsererving people who received awards as favours from earlier governments or whetehr these people had ulterior motives. Very few people actually discussed growing intolerance or the lack of it which should have been discussed in the first place.

The Aamir Khan controversy
Here is the full transcript of the conversation with Aamir khan (click to read) where he made his statement on Increasing intolerance. I quote some long excerpts below:

I think for creative people to voice what they feel is important and I think that a number of creative people like scientists, historians increasingly had a certain feeling in them which they felt to express. So, for creative people to express their dissatisfaction and disappointment is to return awards. I think that is one way of getting your point across, certainly. 

I would actually endorse any protest which is non-violent… as long as you don’t start beating up people, as long as you don’t resort to violence. All individuals have a right to protest and they can protest in any manner that they feel is right as long as they are not phsically harming people or taking law into their hands. It is certainly a way to protest.. for creative people. 

When people take law in to their hands and when there is a sense of insecurity, we look upon these people to take a strong stance, make strong statements and speed up the legal process to prosecute cases. When we see it happening there is a sense of security but when we don’t see that happening there is a sense of insecurity. So it does not matter who the ruling party is. It’s happened across ages. On television debates, we see where one political party, in this case, the BJP which is ruling right now, is accused of various things. They said, ‘But what happened in 1984?’. But that doesn’t make right what’s happening now. What happened in ‘84 was disastrous and horrendous. At other times also, through ages, whenever there is a violent act, when an innocent person is killed, be it one or a large number, that’s very unfortunate. And these unfortunate moments are the ones when we look towards our leaders to take a strong step. Make statements that are reassuring to the citizens. 

To complete my answer that there is a sense of fear more than there was earlier. I do feel there is a sense of insecurity. When I sit at home and talk to Kiran. (Wife) Kiran and I have lived all our lives in India. For the first time, she said, should we move out of India? That’s a disastrous and big statement for Kiran to make to me. She fears for her child. She fears about what the atmosphere around us will be. She feels scared to open the newspapers everyday. That does indicate that there is a sense of growing disquiet.

Now the simplified reporting made it into a simple headline. One interesting headline was - Aamir Khan's 'quit India' comment attracts outrage and support. Almost everywhere the talk of the town was that Aamir khan wishes to go out of the country because of Intolerant India which is obvious simplification of what he said.

What is going on?
Well a lot is going on simultaneously. It is not as if India was an abolutely tolerant nation earlier but often its intolerance and the reaction to it was differently managed by the powers in authority. The current dispensation (read the Modi Govt.) has often chosen to ignore or to remain indifferent to many such incidences in the past. Also often on behalf of the Govt. or the Party the responses to such insidences or protests have been of strong opposition, or of mild justification. Earlier governments would have generally followed a more conciliatary approach to calm down rebellion or dicidence.

I am not saying that the earlier govt. was better at managing such protests or vice versa. I am just pointing out to the difference in the approach. The current appraoch to responding to such controversies obviously generates increased acrimony.

Further, the India that we lived in a couple of decades ago and the current India are also different in its structure or appraoch to such controversies. Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar has this interesting take on the issue. He says India is not growing more intolerant but it has grown more sensitive (click here to read and, in my view, that may not be so bad, actually.

What do I think ?

Before I am branded a "leftist sickular" and a "modi baiter" (which this post is not about) let me clarify where I stand on the issue - because till now I never really wrote on the issue of intolerance. Here is what I think

1. I don't think Authors should return rewards AND yet I also think it is a valid way of protesting in a non-violent and unintrusive manner. I would have surely liked the authors - artist to speak strongly on the subject - even march to the president (like Anupam Kher) instead of returning awards and yet I do not care whether it was  "manufactured revolt" or an "organised conspiracy". It was a fairly effective, non-violent and valid way of protesting.

2. The best performing Prime Ministers in our country (primarily based on Economic development policies) were those who followed the consensual approach to Governance. The examples I have in mind are Mr. Narsimha Rao, Mr. Atal Bihari Vajayee & Dr. Manmohan Singh as the PM of UPA-I (not UPA-II). I think the current Govt. needs to tone down the arrogance and converse more with all stake holders.

3. I agree with Aamir Khan when he says that any protest which is non-violent should be allowed every space. I wish to add to it that the protest should also not violate someone else's rights. However, I do think that he is more of a commercial manager than a conscious stake holder in the issues that he raises. He is other wise an unsocial person and he often finds his voice of conscience around his film releases. However, the timing of this comment is nowhere nearer the release of his next movie Dangal (expected to release in Dec. 2016). So it is NOT confirmed pattern and hence I must give the benefit of doubt to Aamir. Lets go with the theory that he is sincere in what he is saying.

4. We need to debate the issue. The answer to a critical question should NOT be that "you also did so" or "where were you when something like this was happening earlier". This may be valid grievances but are invalid arguments.

So what do you do with the Social Media pouncing on all and sundry for every word of what they say?

Not much. They too have a right to disagree and protest (non violent and non-intrusive). The saner voices can wait for the initial dust to settle and then come with better analysis and inputs. But what is going on currently is that everyone has an opinion and everyone has found a channel to vent it. And there are many forces working in all possible selfish directions. To top it all it is not a perfectly competitive market - so there are parties with varying degree of advantages.

Yet all that is happening, though chaotic, is not necessarily bad. All parties including the audience will come out wiser from the experience. I believe that India is on a road to become a wiser and a more matured country after several such irrational - emotional outbursts. Will it be a more developed one - lets wait and watch the next three years of this Government.

Yakub Menon received fair trial - justice is subjective

Finally Yakub has been hanged. There was a lot of debate on whether he should be hanged or not.

Extreme opinions were exchanged. One group thought it was anti-national to think of any sympathy for him - another group identified what they called "mitigating circumstances" to show clememncy in awarding him punishment.

Some points
1. He is guilty because a fair court has held him guilty (and we must understand that the court is the competent authority to have looked into evidence and take a balanced judgement on the issue)

2. He had been given a fair trial - he has presented his case through three layers of our justice system. He had supporters (those who could empathise with his perspective) outside and inside the courts.

3. We can have a healthy difference of opinions with the court (and also with the law) but no one can question the fairness of the process in this case.

4. Many people compare outcome of this case with cases of Gujarat riots or other accused of 26/11 blast cases or that of the Rajeev Gandhi assination cases and hence feel that memon was targetted at. This may be factully true and is still a "कुतर्क". Legal system is not consistent and it cannot be consistent and it is not consistent anywhere in the world - thats because human beings run the legal system. However, each case is expected to go through the same process and each has its own merits to be judged on.
This is not to say that we must not improve the system but that we must accept the outcome of the system (which sometimes may be at variance from what we believe)

5. In the same breath we must not brand those who empathise with Yakub as anti national or apologists. We must understand that this is the beauty of this country. It allows for dissent and disagreements and so, huge debates. Those on the side of Yakub are not necessarily anti-nationalists and screaming "anti-national" at them is only killing this spirit of coexistence with differing opinions.

6. Also there is a political angle to it. Many believe that the alacrity with which he was hanged is unparalleled specially because there are many languishing in the jails still to be hanged. For many the mercy petition is stuck in the home ministry or with the president for years. Many people feel - this is because there is a political dispensation at the helms, who is out there to prove that they are decisive.

Even if this is true - I think this is not relevant. We can counter argue that the opposition was also taking political mileage by wanting to delay the hanging and that earlier governments have been delaying the execution of many others to appease their vote banks.

The fact is that there was a Government at one time who would have taken excessively guarded steps before executing a guilty and then there are Governments (may be the current one is one such) who would be less guarded. Time will test both the approaches.

In nutshell - yakub's case was fairly tried and a considered judgement made. One hopes that was the case in every such case.