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XAT Syllabus – Verbal and Logical Ability

Saturday, December 7th, 2019

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Verbal and Logical Ability is perhaps the most difficult section in the XAT exam. First of all, the name throws off a bunch of aspirants who have come to expect a certain kind of questions when they see the term ‘Logical Ability’ or ‘Logical Reasoning’. However, the questions that get asked in the Verbal section of the XAT exam are completely different. They aren’t your usual questions on LR but are closely related to questions on Critical Reasoning. Sometimes, the term that is used in XAT is ‘Analytical Reasoning’, which I believe is slightly more accurate. Having said that, it doesn’t negate the fact that the Verbal section has just 1 or 2 questions lesser than the Quantitative Aptitude section but scoring in it is a lot harder.

XAT Syllabus – Verbal and Logical Ability – Video

 

 

Number of questions in XAT Verbal and Logical Ability Section

There will be 26 questions in the Verbal and Logical Ability section of the XAT 2020 exam. XAT exam went online some time ago and over the last two years the pattern of the paper has remained the same as far as Verbal and Logical Ability section is concerned. The number of questions in XAT 2018 as well as XAT 2019 were 26. This is approximately 35% of the total paper.

A couple of other key highlights of the Verbal and Logical Ability Section:

1. There Parajumbles / Jumbled-Paragraph questions in XAT come with options. Hence, they are on the easier side.
2. The passages in XAT Reading Comprehension are incredibly hard to read. They sometimes give poems as well which are relatively harder to interpret.
3. Reading Comprehension forms the bulk of the Verbal and Logical Ability section. (15 questions out of 26)

Topic Distribution in XAT Verbal and Logical Ability Section

There are 15 questions in Reading Comprehension. They are typically broken down into 4 passages.

The Parajumbles questions have remained static at 2 for the past few years. Also, they have been a bit on the easier side.

You get 4/5 questions on Vocabulary which are quick to do (even if they are tough, you will not end up spending too much time on them).

The 4/5 questions on Critical Reasoning are on the harder side as well. A lot of thinking and careful reading of the paragraph is required in these.

 

 

Cutoffs in XAT Verbal and Logical Ability Section

For most colleges, that accept the XAT score the sectional cutoff for Verbal and Logical Ability either does not exist or is on the lower side (80%ile). Typically, to get an 80%ile in XAT Verbal, you need to score 6-7 marks. This would be enough to sail through almost all colleges including GIM, XIMB, and even XLRI.

This just goes on to show how difficult the Verbal section in XAT is. In XAT, to clear the cutoff of the top colleges you need to solve approximately 50% of the Verbal section (90%ile in CAT Verbal is around 17 questions out of 34). However, in XAT you need to solve only 25% of the Verbal section (6-7 out of 26).

Time allocation for XAT Verbal and Logical Ability Section

The decision of how much time to allocate to a Verbal and logical section should depend on two factors:

1. Is Quant your stronger / weaker section when compared to Verbal Ability.
2. Are you trying to clear the sectional cutoff or you are trying to maximize your score.

In my opinion, you should allocated anywhere from 50 to 60 minutes (out of 165) to Verbal and Logical.

If Verbal Ability is your stronger section and you are trying to maximize your score, you should allocate 60 minutes to it.

If Verbal Ability is your weaker section and you are trying to clear the cutoff, you should allocate 50 minutes to it.

If you want to understand the same topic-wise:
10 to 15 minutes should be allocated for 6-7 questions on Vocabulary + Parajumbles.
10 to 15 minutes should be allocated for 4-5 questions on Critical Reasoning
25 to 30 minutes should be allocated for the 15 questions on Reading Comprehension.

As far as attempts are concerned, you should be able to read and try all questions from Vocabulary, Parajumbles, and Critical Reasoning in 20-25 minutes. You should attempt as many as you can from this part of the paper. If you are down to two options in XAT, I would recommend guessing because of two reasons:

1. The negative marking in XAT is only -0.25 (or 1/4th of the correct answer)
2. There is negative marking for unattempted questions.

However, the same would not be valid for the Reading Comprehension questions. The chances of getting them right are definitely on the lower side. You should just attempt the ones that you are sure of. Even if a passage has 4 questions and you have spent 10 minutes on it – no need to attempt all questions. Just attempt what you know.

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