XAT
Admission to XLRI Jamshedpur's flagship Business Management and Human Resource Management programmes, plus 160+ other B-schools including XIM Bhubaneswar, IMT Ghaziabad, TAPMI and GIM Goa.
Eligibility
A recognised bachelor's degree of at least three years' duration in any discipline; final-year students are eligible. There is no age limit, no minimum-marks requirement and no cap on attempts. NRI and foreign candidates may apply through GMAT scores for XLRI.
Age limit: No age limit
Exam pattern
Computer-Based Test (CBT) of about three hours (2:00–5:00 pm). Part 1 has roughly 75 questions across Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning (about 26), Decision Making (about 21) and Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation (about 28), with no sectional time limits; Part 2 has around 20 General Knowledge (GK) questions that are not counted in the percentile. Marking is +1 for correct and −0.25 for wrong answers, with an additional −0.10 penalty per unattempted question beyond eight; GK has no negative marking. The analytical essay has been removed from the test and is now assessed at the interview stage.
Syllabus at a glance
Verbal & Logical Ability covers reading comprehension, critical reasoning, vocabulary and para-completion. Decision Making — unique to XAT — presents business, ethical and managerial caselets requiring judgement-based answers. Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation spans arithmetic, algebra, geometry, probability and data sets, generally a notch harder than CAT. GK covers static facts plus current business and economic affairs.
Upcoming dates
| Event | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Notification and registration open (XAT 2027) | ~10 Jul 2026 (expected) | expected |
| Registration closes | ~5 Dec 2026 (expected) | expected |
| Admit card release | From ~25 Dec 2026 (expected) | expected |
| Exam date | 3 Jan 2027 (first Sunday of January, 2:00–5:00 pm, expected) | expected |
| Result | ~16 Jan 2027 (expected) | expected |
Expected dates follow the usual calendar; confirm on the official notification before planning.
Free prep material
Standard books
- Jabbing the XAT (with solved papers) — R.K. Jha (Arihant)
- Target XAT (past papers and mock tests) — Disha Experts
- How to Prepare for Quantitative Aptitude for the CAT — Arun Sharma
- How to Prepare for Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension for the CAT — Arun Sharma & Meenakshi Upadhyay
- Manorama Yearbook — Malayala Manorama (for General Knowledge)
How toppers play it
- Decision Making is XAT's rank-decider and has no CAT equivalent — solve every official DM question from XAT 2008 onwards; coaching material rarely matches the real flavour.
- XAT penalises leaving more than eight questions unattempted (−0.10 each from the ninth) — plan to attempt widely with calculated risks rather than cherry-picking.
- GK is not counted in the percentile — cap it at 4-5 minutes and bank the saved time for Decision Making and Quant.
- Part 1 has no sectional time limits — rehearse a fixed personal split in mocks (roughly 50 minutes Verbal, 55 minutes DM, 65 minutes Quant-DI) so one section cannot swallow the paper.
- XAT Quant runs harder than CAT's — after CAT, switch to XAT-level past-paper sets instead of recycling CAT material.