List of top Questions asked in XAT

There is an essential and irreducible ‘duality’ in the normative conceptualization of an individ ual person. We can see the person in terms of his or her ‘agency’, recognizing and respecting his or her ability to form goals, commitments, values, etc., and we can also see the person in terms of his or her ‘well-being’. This dichotomy is lost in a model of exclusively self-interested motivation, in which a person’s agency must be entirely geared to his or her own well-being. But once that straitjacket of self-interested motivation is removed, it becomes possible to rec ognize the indisputable fact that the person’s agency can well be geared to considerations not covered- or at least not fully covered- by his or her own well-being. Agency may be seen as important (not just instrumentally for the pursuit of well-being, but also intrinsically), but that still leaves open the question as to how that agency is to be evaluated and appraised. 
Even though the use of one’s agency is a matter for oneself to judge, the need for careful assess ment of aims, objective, allegiances, etc., and the conception of the good, may be important and exacting. To recognize the distinction between the ‘agency aspect’ and the ‘well-being aspect’ of a person does not require us to take the view that the person’s success as an agent must be independent, or completely separable from, his or her success in terms of well-being. A person may well feel happier and better off as a result of achieving what he or she wanted to achieve- perhaps for his or her family, or community, or class, or party, or some other cause. Also it is quite possible that a person’s well-being will go down as a result of frustration if there is some failure to achieve what he or she wanted to achieve as an agent, even though those achievements are not directly concerned with his or her well-being.
There is really no sound basis for demanding that the agency aspect and the well-being aspect of a person should be independent of each other, and it is, I suppose, even possible that every change in one will affect the other as well. However, the point at issue is not the plausibility of their independence, but the sustainability and relevance of the distinction. The fact that two variables may be so related that one cannot change without the other, does not imply that they are the same variable, or that they will have the same values, or that the value of one can be obtained from the other on basis of some simple transformation. The importance of an agency achievement does not rest entirely on the enhancement of well-being that it may indirectly cause. The agency achievement and well-being achievement, both of which have some distinct importance, may be casually linked with each other, but this fact does not compromise the specific importance of either. In so far as utility-based welfare calculations concentrate only on the well-being of the person, ignoring the agency aspect, or actually fails to distinguish between the agency aspect and well-being aspect altogether, something of real importance is lost.

The idea of demarcating certain areas within the country as special economic zones to promote investment and growth is not new. A large country unable to provide the kind of facilities and environment that can attract foreign investment throughout the country often finds it feasible and attractive to carve up some of its areas where such facilities can be provided. The laws and procedures for setting up new industries are waived to make the area business-friendly with developed infrastructure and a one-window interaction with government. In addition, huge tax benefits are promised to lure investors. China’s experience shows that if chalked out and implemented with care such a policy can accelerate the flow of capital and technology from abroad and thereby speed up growth. 
However, SEZs may not be the best option in all situations to clear the bottlenecks in growth. India’s experience with export processing zones (EPZs) bears this out. They have failed in India for the simple reason that the factors that made the SEZs successful in China have been absent here. In India, as in China, EPZs were thought of as a way of providing an escape route from the stranglehold of control that prevailed over the Indian economy. But even while promising to ease the rigours of controls, Indian policy-makers could not give up their pen chant for micromanaging from the centre and undoing the promised relaxations with all kinds of qualifications and “guidelines”.
Over last two decades India has evolved into a market economy and much of governmental control has disappeared, but the flow of foreign direct investment has not reached anywhere near the levels of China. Besides, infrastructure building has fallen far short of what is required. Even after three years of the enactment of the Electricity Act (2003), private investment in electricity generation is still a trickle with the states refusing to give up the monopoly of their electricity boards in the matter of purchase of the power generated. While swearing by growth, governments at both the centre and the states cite the fiscal responsibility laws to plead their helplessness in making the required investments to improve infrastructure.
Given the situation, the SEZs have apparently been thought of as a simple way out. In its enthusiasm for SEZs the commerce ministry forgot two critical lessons of the Chinese experi ence, viz., that an SEZ must be of an adequate size to provide opportunities for reaping the benefits of large-scale operations and their number should be few. Every industry or economic activity worth its name is now seeking SEZ status. Proposals are now being floated to invite foreign educational institutions to come to India with promises of SEZ treatment! The finance ministry apprehends a loss of nearly 1,75,000 crore in direct taxes, customs duties and excise duties over the next five years.

On the basis of the following letter.

To the Chairman:
Dear Mr. Sailesh,

At the December 3, 2011 meeting, it was decided that no two officers would hold positions on the same committee. It has recently come to my attention that both Chaitanya Rao and Ajit Singh will be serving in some capacity on the Cultural Committee, and both have been nominated for officer status. As you know, this is in direct disregard for the rules as voted by the Members Council last December 3, 2011. I would hope that sufficient action be taken by the Disciplinary Committee (on which committee both of the above are members) so that this problem will be remedied.

Sincerely,
Arvind Singh

Tina, a blast furnace expert, who works as a technology trouble-shooter, stays in Jamshedpur. She has got an important assignment in Delhi, which requires six hours to complete. The work is so critical that she has to start working the moment she reaches the client’s premises. She is considering various options for her onward and return journey between Jamshedpur to Delhi. 
A quick search revealed that ticket from Jamshedpur to Delhi is available in two trains. Trains 12801 and 12443 depart from Jamshedpur station at 06:45 hrs and 15:55 hrs and reach Delhi next day at 04:50 hrs and 10:35 hrs respectively. Trains 12444 and 12802 start from Delhi at 17:20 hrs and 22:20 hrs and reach Jamshedpur next day at 10:35 hrs and 20:05 hrs respectively.
Another option is to reach Ranchi by a three-hour road trip and take a flight to Delhi from Ranchi. The distance between Ranchi and Delhi is covered in 105 minutes both-ways by any of the scheduled flights. Air India operates two flights, AI 9810 and AI 810, which depart Ranchi at 08:00 hrs and 15:25 hrs respectively. Flight number IT-3348 operated by Kingfisher Airlines departs Ranchi at 19:20 hrs. Return flights operated by Air India, AI 9809 and AI 809, depart Delhi at 05:50 hrs and 11:00 hrs respectively. Flight number IT-3347 operated by Kingfisher Airlines departs Delhi at 17:10 hrs.
From Tina’s home, Jamshedpur railway station is five minutes drive, and her destination at Delhi is 90 minutes and 30 minutes drive from airport and railway station respectively. One has to reach the airport at least one hour before the scheduled departure to complete the boarding procedure. At every railway station she loses five minutes in navigating through the crowd.

Teknik Group of industries had businesses in different sectors ranging from manufacturing, construction, fish farming and hotels. These different businesses operated as semi-independent units managed by the unit level managers. Teknik’s management had an internal consultancy group called the Business Advisory Group (known internally as BAG). The 15 experts in BAG were hired personally by Mr. Teknikwala, the owner of Teknik, who wanted this core group of experts to help his organization grow fast without facing the typical growth hurdles. Most of them were specialists in fields like law, information technology, human resource management, and operations management. Almost all of them had experience spanning decades in the in dustry. Whenever any of the units faced any significant issues, it represented an extra workload for those who were involved. This coordination was required to understand the different work processes and the users’ requirements. This coordination activity was being extensively man aged by the old timers as they were familiar with internal processes and people in the different units. An external consultant was also hired for customization and implementation. 
After two months, BAG teams had to fortnightly present their progress to Ms. Teknikwala’s team. In the last meeting Ms. Teknikwala was dissatisfied. She explained her thinking that since ERP impacted every aspect of the business, the roll out had to be done faster. She wanted Mr. Shiv to get the implementation completed ahead of schedule. In the meeting she asked Mr. Shiv to get the people in IT team to be more productive. Not willing to disagree, Mr. Shiv committed to a roll-out schedule of complete ERP system in 6 months instead of earlier decided 14 months. Next day, Mr. Shiv presented the revised project milestone to BAG members. He told them that in order to meet the deadline, the members were expected to work on week-ends till the completion of the project. Along with that, they were also expected to maintain their earlier standards of delivery time and quality for the normal trouble-shooting and internal advisory work. Mr. Shiv also pointed out that anyone whose performance did not meet the expectations would be subjected to formal disciplinary action. The meeting ended without any member commenting on Shiv’s ideas, although Mr. Shiv heard a lot of mumbling in the corridor. Over the week, Shiv noticed that the members seemed to avoid him and he had to make extra effort to get ideas from them.
After a fortnight Shiv reviewed the attendance register and found that Mr. Lal, an old time member, had not come during the week-ends and certain decisions were held up due to lack of inputs from Mr. Lal. Mr. Shiv issued a written reprimand to Mr. Lal. He was speechless on receiving the reprimand but kept silent. It has been three days since that incident. Some of the senior members had put in request for transfer to other business units. It was rumoured that four problems, the unit level managers would put up a request for help to BAG. The prob lems ranged from installation of internal MIS systems, to financial advice related to leasing of equipment, to handling of employee grievances.
Over a period of 20 years, Teknik’s revenues grew from 100 crore to 10,000 crore with guid ance of BAG and due to Mr. Tekinkwala’s vision. Given its reputation in the industry, many people wanted to start their careers in BAG. Often young MBAs fresh out of business schools would apply. However their applications used to be rejected by Mr. Tekinkwala, who had a preference for people with extensive industry experience. Things changed after the unfortunate demise of Mr. Tekinkwala. His daughter Ms. Teknikwali took up the family business. She was an MBA from one of the premier business schools, and was working in a different company when Mr. Tekinkwala passed away. She preferred that BAG developed new ideas and therefore inducted freshly graduated MBAs from premier business schools. She personally supervised the recruitment and selection process. Now the entire group constituted of 50 specialists, out of which 35 were the old time members. She also changed the reporting relationships in the BAG group with some of the older members being made to report to the new members. In IT team, Mr. Shiv, a newly recruited MBA, was made in-charge. For the older members it was a shock. However, as most of them were on the verge of retirement, and it would be challenging to search for new jobs while competing with younger professionals, they decided to play along. After one month, all business units were caught up in the ERP fever. This was an idea pushed by Ms. Teknikwali who felt the need to replace the old legacy systems with latest ERP system integrating all the units of Teknik. This was heavily influenced by her experience in the previ ous company where an ERP system was already up and running. Therefore she was not aware of the difference between installing an ERP system and working on an already installed one.
The ERP implementation in Teknik Group required extensive coordination with senior level managers of senior legal experts had agreed on an offer from a law firm. Other senior members would sporadically come in late to work, citing health reasons. Almost all senior members now wanted a weekly work-routine to be prepared and given to them in advance so that they could deliver as per the schedule. This insistence on written communication was a problem as urgent problems or ad-hoc requests could not be foreseen and included. Also normal services to other business units were being unattended to, and there were complaints coming from the unit heads.

Vivekananda Memorial Elocution Competition (VMEC) in Viswavijay Public School (VPS) has a history of forty years. Apart from the founder’s day and annual day celebrations, it is the most important event of the school. 
In recent times, due to the increased popularity of reality shows on television channels, and for various other reasons, the elocution competition lost its appeal. Interest of both students and parents has been eroding over a period of time. To ensure sufficient audience, Mr. Ivan, Head of English Department, introduced choral recitation for junior section as a part of elocution competition. Three classes, each consisting of forty students, get short-listed for the final performance of choral singing on the day of VMEC. Most of the parents and family members of these students attend the function to encourage them. This initiative increased the number of people attending the elocution competition.
Some teachers are unhappy with the emphasis given on the elocution competition, since they are expected to be present at the school on the day of competition, which normally happens on a weekend to accommodate the working parents. The teachers were not granted leave on the day of VMEC and they used to be unhappy regarding this aspect.

Dev Anand, CEO of a construction company, recently escaped a potentially fatal accident. Dev had failed to notice a red light while driving his car and attending to his phone calls. His well-wishers advised him to get a suitable replacement for the previous driver Ram Singh, who had resigned three months back. Ram Singh was not just a driver, but also a trusted lieutenant for Dev Anand for the last five years. Ram used to interact with other drivers, and gathered critical information that helped Dev in successfully bidding for different contracts. His inputs also helped Dev to identify some dishonest employees, and to retain crucial employees who were considering attractive offers from his competitors. Some of the senior employees did not like the informal influence of Ram and made it difficult for him to continue in the firm. Dev provided him an alternative job with one of his relatives. 
During the last three months Dev has considered different candidates for the post. The back grounds of the candidates are given in the table below.

Dev is primarily looking for a stable and trustworthy driver, who can be a suitable replacement for Ram. His family members do not want Dev to appoint a young driver, as most of them are inexperienced. Dev’s driver is an employee of the firm and hence the appointment has to be routed through the HR manager of the firm. The HR manager prefers to maintain parity among all employees of the firm. He also needs to ensure that the selection of a new driver does not lead to discontent among the senior employees of the firm.

Ethical– a person is called unethical, when he deviates from principles. The principles and their use is often guided by two definitions:
Moral: society’s code for individual survival.
Ethics: an individual’s code for society survival. 
Naresh was a small-time civil contractor in a small city. His major clients were the residents who wanted ad-hoc work like painting, building extensions to be done. His just prices had made him a preferred contractor for most of the clients who preferred him over other civil contractors. Always he followed the principle that client had to be kept happy– only by doing so it would be a win-win situation for both. However due to the unpredictability of such orders from residents, Naresh used to be idle for substantial part of the year. As a consequence, he could not expand his business. His two children were growing up and his existing business could not support their expenses. The medical expense of his elderly parents was another drain on his resources. The constant rise of prices in medical care and medicines was another issue.
For Naresh, family’s concern was predominant. Naresh was, therefore, under pressure to expand his business. He was the sole earning member of his family, and he had to ensure their well-being. He thought that by expanding his business, not only would he be able to care for his family in a better way, as well as offer employment to more number of masons and labourers. That would benefit their families as well. Naresh drew the boundary of his society to include himself, his family members, his employees and their family members.
For expansion, the only option in the city was to enlist as a contractor for government work. Before deciding, he sought advice from another contractor, Srikumar, who had been working on government projects for a long period of time. Srikumar followed the principle of always helping others, because he believed that he would be helped back in return some day. Srikumar had just one advice: “The work is given to those who will win the bidding process and at the same time will give the maximum bribe. Prices quoted for work have to include bribes, else the bills will not get cleared and the supervisors will find multiple faults with the execution of work. This ensures survival and prosperity for contractors.”
When asked about other contractors, Srikumar said: “The government contractors are like a micro-society in themselves, almost like a brotherhood. Within that, they are highly compet itive; however towards any external threat they are united to ensure no harm happens to any of their members.”

Saral Co. is operating in seven north-eastern states of the country. The organization has a history of participative decision making, wherein people deliberate openly about pros and cons of every important decision, and a broad consensus is taken before taking the final decision. In Saral Co. every employee gets a salary proportional to the sales achieved. 
A new General Manager (GM) joined during the beginning of this month and challenged the or ganization’s sole focus on sales to determine salaries. He urged the top management to include two more additional parameters in determining the salaries of the employees, viz. collection of information about competitors and the quality of relationship with the retailers.

The following graphs show the revenue (in $ million) of three companies in their initial six years of operations, in an economy which is characterized by a persistent inflation.

Ramya, based in Shanpur, took her car for a 400 km trip to Rampur. She maintained a log of the odometer readings and the amount of petrol she purchased at different petrol pumps at different prices (given below). Her car already had 10 litres of petrol at the start of the journey, and she first purchased petrol at the start of the journey, as given in the table below, and she had 5 litres remaining at the end of the journey

The following pie chart shows the percentage distribution of runs scored by a batsman in a test innings.