XAT exam pattern 2025 has brought some notable changes to the exam structure. Starting from this year, the Essay Writing will not be the part of main exam and the number of questions in the GK section has been reduced. The total exam duration has also been reduced from 210 minutes to 180 minutes.
According to the updated XAT 2025 exam pattern, the complete exam pattern is divided into two parts, Part I and Part II. In the Part I of XAT syllabus, there are three sections which are DM, VARC, and QA-DI. The second part of the XAT syllabus consists only the General Knowledge section. For the Part I, there will be 170 minutes and 10 minutes for Part II. PwD candidates will get an extra 20 minutes for each part.
For each section, there will be a total of 20-28 MCQs with five answer options to choose from. The scores of the GK section are considered only during the final selection process and they will not be part of the final XAT 2025 result.
XAT exam pattern 2025 has been revised and introduced some major changes to the exam structure. Removed the Essay Writing section from the main section.
Check out the table below for the key details of the XAT exam pattern 2025:
XAT Exam Structure | Details |
Exam Mode | Online |
Number of Answer Choices | Five |
Number of Questions | 95 |
Number of Sections | 3 (Part-1) + 1 (Part-2) |
XAT Time Duration | 170 minutes+10 minutes |
Total Marks | 95 |
XAT features a variable distribution of questions from different sections, which means some sections contain more questions than others. Refer to the table below for the section-wise distribution of questions for the XAT 2025 exam:
Section | No. of Questions |
Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation (QA-DI) | 28 |
Decision Making (DM) | 26 |
Verbal Logical ability (VARC) | 21 |
General Knowledge (GK) | 20 |
Section-wise XAT 2025 syllabus discussed in the table below:
Section | Important Topic |
Verbal & Logical Ability | Vocabulary, Reading Comprehension, Fill in the Blanks, Analogy, Para jumble, Critical Reasoning, Grammar |
Decision-Making | Complex, Assumptions, Grouping, Conclusion, Conditioning, Caselets, Data Arrangement, Premises |
Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation | Pie, Geometry, Arithmetic, Charts, Surds and Indices, Data interpretation, Algebra, Tables, Ber, Diagrams |
General Knowledges | World Affairs, Politics, Business, Science, Economy, Static GK, Sports Prizes and Awards, Government, Constitution of India |
XAT 2025 marking scheme has some unique aspects that differentiate between correct answers and penalizing incorrect answers. Questions in the General Knowledge section are not marked negatively.
Here is the XAT marking scheme 2025 discussed below:
Particulars | XAT 2025 Marking Scheme |
Correct Response | For each right answer, you will get +1 mark. |
Incorrect Response | For each wrong answer, -0.25 marks will be deducted from total marks. |
Unattempted | If you skip more than eight questions, 0.1 marks are deducted. |
Candidates have to understand the overall and sectional time limits for managing their time for both parts of the exam. The complete XAT 2025 exam duration is 3 hours, where Part I consists for 170 minutes and Part II is 10 minutes. There are no sectional time limits, so manage your time effectively.
The PWD candidates will have an additional 20 minutes per hour. So, they will have 55 minutes extra for Part I and 5 minutes extra for Part II of the XAT exam.
XAT exam pattern has gone through various changes over the year. Get the year-wise XAT exam pattern trends in the table below:
XAT Exam Year | VARC | DM | QA-DI | Essay Writing | GK | No. of Questions |
2020 | 26 | 22 | 28 | - | 25 | 101 |
2021 | 26 | 22 | 28 | 1 | 25 | 102 |
2022 | 26 | 21 | 28 | 1 | 25 | 101 |
2023 | 26 | 22 | 28 | 1 | 25 | 102 |
2024 | 26 | 22 | 28 | 1 | 25 | 102 |
Ans: The XAT 2025 exam is different from the previous year in several aspects. The key change was the removal of the essay writing section, which was previously part of the exam, but now it is part of the selection process. Also, the exam duration also changed to 180 minutes, which was 210 previously. This year, the total number of GK questions has also reduced to 20.
Ans: In the XAT exam, a scientific calculator will be added to the solving of complex quantitative problems with greater accuracy. This can allow candidates to save time, reduce errors, and focus on other questions to improve their scores.
Ans: Basically, the scientific calculator will help to solve the mathematical questions of the XAT 2025 exam. Test takers can make the complex calculation easier and can focus on the other tougher questions by saving calculation time.
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