The difficulty level of XAT 2013 was almost similar to the difficulty level of XAT 2012. The number of questions was increased to 91 from 85 while the time was also increased by 20 minutes. Keeping in mind all the facts, cutoffs will be slightly more than last year's cutoff's.

There were 91 questions (3 Sections) in all and the time allotted was 140minutes. The three sections were as follows:

Evaluation:Verbal section predominately consisted of Reading Comprehension along with few questions on grammar, parajumbles and verbal reasoning etc. Overall feel of the section was moderate.

Comfortable Attempt: 16+

Achievable Score: 11+

Evaluation: Unlike last year, this year Decision Making questions carried equal marks and was a combination of Decision Making and Caselet based reasoning questions. Overall the feel of the section was easy.

Comfortable Attempt: 16+

Achievable Score: 11+

Evaluation: There were 36 question in this section. DI question were tougher as compared to quant questions. Except one DI Block (Chart of Railway time table), rest were tough and calculative. There were few quant questions which could have been easily solved with the help of choices and estimation. Overall the feel of the section was tough.

Comfortable Attempt: 16+

Comfortable Attempt: 15+

IIFT 2012 Paper was comparatively easier than IIFT 2011. So one can expect higher cutoffs this year as compared to last year’s cutoffs. Also this year it was also mentioned that sectional cutoffs will be taken into consideration, therefore it was important to manage the given time judiciously on different sections.

There were 128 questions (4 Sections) and the time allotted was 2hrs. The four sections were as follows:

Evaluation: The Quant Section was Moderate. Right selection of questions was important to find out the simpler questions.

Comfortable Attempt:12-15 questions.

Achievable Score: Around 12 marks.

Evaluation: Verbal Ability Section was dominated by vocabulary based questions. Sentence rearrangement and grammar questions were very easy and sentence completion was a fair mix of tricky and easy questions. Analogies and figures of speech based questions were also there.

Comfortable Attempt: 12-15 questions.

Achievable Score: Around 8 marks.

Evaluation: This section was easy. Except one R.C, (education and psychology), the rests were moderate in length. Most of the questions were direct.

Comfortable Attempt: 10-12 questions.

Achievable Score: Around 7 marks.

Evaluation: This year GK section was dominated by questions on static GK unlike last year which was dominated by Business GK. There were a few current affairs based questions also.

Comfortable Attempt: 6-8 questions.

Achievable Score: Around 3 marks.

IRMA 2011 was following a set pattern for last four years but this year the paper had different pattern. Though the number of questions and sections were the same but the difficulty level as well as the marking scheme was different..Some new types of questions were introduced this year in English Comprehension (sentence starter etc.) and Analytical Reasoning. AR section was the toughest this year while QA section was dominated by DI questions and was calculative. Issues of Social Concern (GK) section was easier as compared to last year papers. Another major change was non disclosure of the marking scheme, though negative marking was ¼th of the marks allotted to the question .So It can be inferred that different questions carried different weights.

There were 200 questions (4 Sections) in all and the time allotted was 2hrs. The four sections were as follows:

Evaluation: The major change in this section this year is the introduction of new type of questions i.e. sentence starter. The students took some time to understand the directions. Rest RC, Vocab and Grammer sections were of moderate difficulty level. Fill in the blanks were missing this year.

Comfortable Attempt: 25-28 questions (with accuracy of about 75%) in about 30 minutes.

Evaluation: Speed, clarity of the fundamentals of DI and immaculate time-management were the key to success in this area. Overall this section was moderate.

Comfortable Attempt: 28-32 questions (with accuracy of about 80%) in about 25-30 minutes.

Comfortable Attempt: 25-28 questions (with accuracy of about 80%) in about 40-45 minutes.

• Quantitative Ability
• Logical & Analytical reasoning
• Reading Comprehension
• VERBAL ABILITY

Evaluation: This section was dominated by algebra questions. Some of the algebra questions were direct &could be solved just by putting the values. TSD questions were also do- able. Questions on number could be done by estimation.  Over all feel of this section was easy as compared to last year paper.

Comfortable Attempt: 27 + questions in about 30 minutes.

Achievable Score: 90 +

Evaluation: This section was dominated by AR blocks. The candidates who have done sufficient practice should have done this section easily. Single questions in AR were sitters and should have been attempted. One with wise selection of AR blocks could have maximized his score in this section.

Comfortable Attempt: 25+ questions in about 30 minutes.

Achievable Score: 85 +

Evaluation: English language Section comprised of Reading Comprehension and Verbal Ability
Sections. Reading Comprehension Section contained 50 Questions and English Usage contained 50 Questions. RC passages were lengthy but easy to deal with as questions asked were direct. The two passages (history/Delhi and Google’s story) were very easy and other two were a little difficult. RC section only checked candidate’s retention and reading speed. On the other hand English usage, contained a fair mix of various type of questions ranging from Grammar, Sentence completion (2 blanks/1 blank), Idioms/phrases, to, sentence rearrangements, sentence correction etc.
Overall this year’s paper is easier than previous year’s paper.

Comfortable Attempt:
In RC –22+ questions in 30 minutes.
In English Usage 25+ questions in 20-30 minutes.

Achievable Score: In RCs 85 + and in English usage 85 +

• Verbal Communication
• Logical Reasoning
• Quantitative Ability
• Data Interpretation

Evaluation: Verbal section this time was moderate. But students had to be judicious to pick the right questions.
Approximate time to be spent 30- 35 minutes.
There were 4 Reading comprehension passages. Although they were too short and easy to read, answering some of the questions was difficult. The trend was more towards Humanities and philosophy passages. Vocabulary based and Reading Comprehension were major chunk of the verbal section. Grammar, cloze question, rearrangement were easy. A right pick of 10 – 12 from the total 30 questions could keep one in safe zone.

Comfortable Attempt: 16 to 18 questions in about 40-45 minutes.

Achievable Score:  14+ was an achievable score.

Evaluation: This year LR section was dominated by AR blocks,except two blocks(MBA project and blood relation) rest were of easy or of moderate difficulty level.

Comfortable Attempt: 20 to 22 questions in about 40-45 minutes.

Achievable Score: 18+ was an achievable score.

Evaluation: This section was an excellent mixture of easy , moderate and difficult questions.

With proper scanning one could find doable questions. Rejection of questions was of same importance as that of selection in this section.

Comfortable Attempt: 18 to 20 questions in about 50-55 minutes.

Achievable Score: 14+ was an achievable score.

Evaluation: This section was of moderate difficulty level with certain questions demanding more calculations.

Comfortable Attempt:  18 to 22questions in about 40-45 minutes.

Achievable Score: 16+ was an achievable score.

Evaluation: The verbal section had a few changes in comparison last year’s verbal section. This time only one RC (based on History and Archeology) was there, comprising five questions, instead of six RCs in last year’s paper. The RC was easy with all questions doable. This year also paper was dominated by grammar and vocabulary based questions. The grammar based questions tested students on fundamentals of grammar for example there were questions in which test taker was asked to identify the parts of speech, types of sentences etc. There were sentence rearrangement, sentence completion and vocabulary based analogy questions also. Overall this section was easy to moderate.

Comfortable Attempt: 26 to 30 questions in about 30 minutes.

Achievable Score:   18 + was an achievable score.

Evaluation: The section was dominated by arithmetic question. There were question on percentage, Number system, TSD, Geometry, Profit & Loss, Probability, Basic Algebra, Log etc. The questions were of basic level. Anyone who has brushed his fundamentals could have easily attempted this section. This year there were no DI and DS questions but a caselet (based on salary, provident fund, house rent etc.) of 5 question was there which was easy.

Comfortable Attempt: 30 to 34 questions in about 35 - 40 minutes.

Achievable Score:   26 + was an achievable score.

Evaluation: This section required you to be thorough with your knowledge of Business, Foreign Policy, Sports, Movies and Government Policies, Physics, chemistry, Constitution etc. Majority of questions was from business and commerce. The cut off expected in this section is not very high.

Comfortable Attempt: 10 to 15 questions in about 10-15 minutes.

Achievable Score:   10 + was an achievable score.

Evaluation: This year this section was dominated by AR questions. There were 2 AR blocks which were easy. Like last year 4 cube cutting question were there which were of basic level. The paper also had question on Venn diagram, FIJ, condition based input questions which students found easy to attempt. Keeping in mind that this section contained questions of 2 marks each, one should have attempted this section first.

Comfortable Attempt: 22 to 26 questions in about 40 minutes.

Achievable Score: 36 + was an achievable score.