How to Crack XAT Decision Making – Part I

How to crack XAT Decision Making – Part I comes with One of the most tedious and inscrutable sections that you will find across all management entrance tests, Decision Making has been the nemesis of many a XAT aspirant. A lot of factors contribute towards DM possibly being the biggest stumbling block on the XAT. But none is bigger than the amount of time any test-taker would have spent preparing for DM compared to any other section is minuscule. This coupled with the dislike and unease most aspirants have towards reading, and the extremely subjective nature of questions ensures that DM ends up becoming the deal-breaker as far as the XAT is concerned.

Decision Making is not Reading Comprehension It is as tedious as RC, it is as boring as RC, it must be RC! The first thing that every test-taker should remember is to remove his/her Reading Comprehension sunglasses before preparing for or approaching DM.

The ability to crack a puzzle has a lot to do with understanding the thinking that the puzzle is testing and orienting your mind to approach it from that direction. So it would be best if you approached DM with more than the ammunition you take for RC, the default setting for which is usually — I think I have read this somewhere.

Challenges How to Crack XAT Decision Making

The first challenge in Crack XAT Decision Making

choosing the right set Before I started writing this post, I decided to take a XAT Decision Making section in its entirety and put myself in exactly the same shoes as test-takers. Well, it was not an enjoyable experience. The section is titled Decision Making & Analytical Reasoning but only one set can be classified as a pure reasoning set, the rest are all DM. One cannot choose a DM set based on judgement, the way one chooses a DI or an LR set  read the set classify or map it to a pattern estimate the complexity of the information and decide whether to attempt or to leave

Firstly, there is really no pattern. There are broadly three types of cases number-based decision-making involving a business/revenue situation information-based decision-making involving a strategy situation information-based decision-making involving an HR situation analytical reasoning Secondly, identifying the pattern does not translate into any strategic advantage, as each set in any category is very different from the rest.

Thirdly, unlike in DI & LR, the information in a DM set can never tell you how complex or straightforward the caselet will be. All sets seem to be easy and straightforward. You can assess the difficulty level only at the last stage, after you have read the question and the 5 options. Lastly, the difficulty level varies vastly from question to question within a set — you are unlocking a question and not a set! So, it is not like RC, it is not like DI-LR.

Should you approach it like individual Quant questions? Yes, precisely the way you would do the A-B-C for CAT QA.

The second big challenge in Decision Making

— you cannot be on autopilot One must concentrate harder than on any other section one has done so far. This is because there are very few situations where you will be executing something you have already done, even at the micro-level. For example, you know the contours of the QA concept within which you are operating, and you know that this DI set is based on arrangements.

Every question on DM is so unique that you will have to be switched on throughout the process of solving a question — something that will tire you out and take up a lot of time. So how do we go about it? The devil is always in the details so let’s dissect a few sets to understand how to approach Decision Making both at a question level and at a section level.

For best results, exit this post now, attempt a Decision Making section of a past XAT paper (preferably 2015, which is discussed here; you can set aside 16,17,18,19 for later practice) and return.

SET 1: ANALYTICAL REASONING

Answer questions on the basis of information given in the following case.
Bright Engineering College (BEC) has listed 20 elective courses for the next term and students have to choose any 7 of them. Simran, a student of BEC, notices that there are three categories of electives: Job-oriented (J), Quantitative-oriented (Q) and Grade-oriented (G). Among these 20 electives, some electives are both Job and Grade-oriented but are not Quantitative-oriented (JG type).

QJ type electives are both job and Quantitative-oriented but are not Grade-oriented and QG type electives are both Quantitative and Grade-oriented but are not Job-oriented. Simran also notes that the total number of QJ type electives is 2 less than QG type electives. Similarly, the total number of QG type electives is 2 less than JG type and there is only 1 common elective (JQG) across three categories. Furthermore, the number of only Quantitative-oriented electives is the same as only Job-oriented electives, but less than the number of Grade-oriented electives.

Each elective has at least one registration and there is at least one elective in each category, or combinations of categories. On her way back, Simran met her friend Raj and shared the above information. Raj is preparing for XAT and is only interested in Grade-oriented (G) electives. He wanted to know the number of G-type electives being offered. Simran replied, “You have all the information. Calculate the number of G-type electives yourself. It would help your XAT preparation”. Raj calculates correctly and says that there can be ———— possible answers. Which of the following options would best fit the blank above? 3 5 8 9 11

On the face of it, the set above seems like a straightforward Venn Diagram involving three sets. So test-takers are usually tempted to go for it; the known is usually considered safer than the unknown, but a closer look will reveal that it is closer to a known devil. The total number of electives is given as 20. The intersection of the three sets is given as 1. These are the only numbers involved. The rest of the data can be represented in three variables.

Also, if you look at the first question, it will be revealed that there are many possibilities, which means you cannot use equations to crack the set and get a precise answer. there are three more questions in this set along the same lines. If we use the A-B-C classification, this question set should be classified as a B, definitely not an A. The temptation to do this set will be high since it is a pure AR set, but you can always return to it. It would have taken about 3-5 minutes to read the set and take this decision. and you to Crack XAT Decision Making.