List of top Questions asked in XAT

Pick the odd one out:

Answer the questions based on the information given below:

Madhubala Devi, who works as a domestic help, received Rs. 2500 as Deepawali bonus from her employer. With that money she is contemplating purchase of one or more among 5 available government bonds - A, B, C, D and E.

To purchase a bond Madhubala Devi will have to pay the price of the bond. If she owns a bond she receives a stipulated amount of money every year (which is termed as the coupon payment) till the maturity of the bond. At the maturity of the bond she also receives the face value of the bond.

Price of a bond is given by:
\[ P = \left[ \sum_{t=1}^{T} \frac{C}{(1+R)^t} \right] + \frac{F}{(1+R)^T} \]

where C is coupon payment on the bond, which is the amount of money the holder of the bond receives annually; F is the face value of the bond, which is the amount of money the holder of the bond receives when the bond matures (over and above the coupon payment for the year of maturity). T is the number of years in which the bond matures;
R = 0.25, which means the market rate of interest is 25%.

Among the 5 bonds the bond A and another two bonds mature in 2 years, one of the bonds matures in 3 years, and the bond D matures in 5 years.

The coupon payments on bonds A, E, B, D and C are in arithmetic progression, such that the coupon payment on bond A is twice the common difference, and the coupon payment on bond B is half the price of bond A.

The face value of bond B is twice the face value of bond E, but the price of bond B is 75% more than the price of bond E. The price of bond C is more than Rs. 1800 and its face value is same as the price of bond A. The face value of bond A is Rs. 1000.

Bond D has the largest face value among the five bonds.

OABC is a square where O is the origin and AB = 1. Consider the set of points S = (x_i, y_i) in the square such that x_i + y_i ≤ 1.

Let P(x₁, y₁) and Q(x₂, y₂) be two such points. Two operations addition (+) and multiplication (·) on S are defined as:

P + Q = (x₁ + x₂ − x₁x₂, y₁y₂)

P · Q = (x₁x₂,   y₁ + y₂ − y₁y₂)

Books and More sells books, music CDs and film DVDs. In December 2009, they earned 40% profit in music CDs and 25% profit in books. Music CDs contributed 35% towards their total sales in rupees. At the same time total sales in rupees from books is 50% more than that of music CDs.

Questions are followed by two statements labelled as I and II. Decide if these statements are sufficient to conclusively answer the question. Choose the appropriate answer from the options given below:

A. Statement I alone is sufficient to answer the question.
B. Statement II alone is sufficient to answer the question.
C. Statement I and Statement II together are sufficient, but neither of the two alone is sufficient to answer the question.
D. Either Statement I or Statement II alone is sufficient to answer the question.
E. Both Statement I and Statement II are insufficient to answer the question.

Let S₁, S₂, … be the squares such that for each n ≥ 1, the length of the diagonal of S_n is equal to the length of the side of S_n+1. If the length of the side of S₃ is 4 cm, what is the length of the side of S_n?

Let A₁, A₂, …, A_n be the points on the straight line y = px + q. The coordinates of A_k is (X_k, Y_k), where k = 1, 2, …, n such that X₁, X₂, …, X_n are in arithmetic progression. The coordinates of A₂ is (2, −2) and A₂₄ is (68, 31).

In an equilateral triangle ABC, whose length of each side is 3 cm, D is the point on BC such that BD = (1/2) CD. What is the length of AD?

Read the following case and choose the best alternative.

Ranjan Tuglák, the youngest cabinet minister of the newly elected coalition, glanced through the notes prepared by his secretary regarding the recent controversies on racket, the most popular game of the country. While International Racket Association (IRC) has agreed to implement Drug Testing Code (DTC) promoted by World Athletic and Gamer Federation, Racket Club which controls the entire racket related activities (unlike any other sports and games of the country) had some reservations regarding the initiative. Majority of the citizens waited for the international competitions eagerly and were fanatical about their country’s participation in them. As a result of the popularity of the game, 70% of the total revenue associated with the game originates from the country. Hence Racket Club has high bargaining power with IRC and can change any decision that is not aligned with its interests. Three most popular and senior players, including the captain, are against the application of DTC citing security reasons. A decision against the interests of these players may result in law and order problems throughout the country. Other players support the decision of their senior colleagues and if Racket Club refuses to agree, players may support Counter Racket Club, a new national level initiative. Counter Racket Club may threaten the monopoly of Racket Club, if it succeeds to attract some popular racket players.

Ranjan’s father had been forced to resign from politics due to alleged corruption charges. Ranjan had completed his entire education from abroad before returning to join politics. He is a great soccer player and has major reservations against racket. According to him, racket has negative influence on the country’s youth and diverts their attention from productive work. He also considers drug testing as an essential feature for any sports and games across the world. As the new cabinet minister for Youth and Sports he needs to take some important decisions on this controversial issue.

Read the following case and choose the best alternative – Guruji's guidance

Bhola, an avid nature lover, wanted to be an entrepreneur. He dreamt of establishing a chain of huts in Chaptur region to cater to tourists, who came attracted by the beauty and splendour of the Himalayas.

However, he was appalled by current degradation of the Himalayan environment. He remembered the early times when everything was so green, clean and peaceful. Now, greenery was replaced by buildings, peace was shattered by honking of vehicles and flocking of tourists, and cleanliness was replaced by heaps of plastics.

Bhola had a strong sense of right and wrong. On speaking to few locals about the issue, he realized that the locals were aware of these issues. However, they pointed out the benefits of development: pucca houses for locals; higher disposable income and with that, ability to send their children to better schools and colleges, better road connectivity, and access to latest technology in agriculture. Most locals wanted the development to continue.

Saddened by the lack of support from the locals, Bhola took up the issue with the government. He met the chief minister of the state to find out if government could regulate the developmental activities to prevent environmental degradation. However, the chief minister told Bhola that such an action would slow down the economic progress. That also meant loss of substantial tax revenues for the government.

Bhola needed to resolve the dilemma. Bhola always wanted to be an entrepreneur, who could contribute to the society and earn money as well. However, his business would also be responsible for destroying environment. If he did not set up his business, he would not be able to earn money and contribute to the society.

After mulling over the issues, he went to his mentor “Guruji”. Guruji realized that it was really a difficult puzzle: if one saves the environment, there seems to be no development and if the people and the government sought development, the environment and hence future of this planet and human beings was at stake. After careful thought, he felt that the dilemma could be resolved. He fixed up a meeting with Bhola to answer Bhola's queries.

Questions are based on a set of conditions. In answering some of the questions, it may be useful to draw a rough diagram. Choose the response that most accurately and completely answers each question.

A BPO has assigned duty to nine operators - Abdulla, Ballal, Chandan, Dogra, Eshita, Falguni, Ganguli, Henri and Indra - on Monday, January 05, 2009 from 00:00 hours. Each operator commences duty at any of the following hours: 00:00 hrs, 04:00 hrs, 08:00 hrs, 12:00 hrs, 16:00 hrs and 20:00 hrs. At any point in time, at least one operator is required to take clients' calls. Each operator works continuously for eight hours. All operators located at any single location start work simultaneously. The operators took training in five different colleges: Abhinam College, Sutanama College, Gutakal College, Barala College and Khatamanga College. These colleges are located in the cities Jamshedpur, Pune, Noida, Hyderabad and Mangalore, not necessarily in that order. The operators operate from the cities where their respective colleges are located.

The conditions:
1. Indra operates alone from a city other than Mangalore and Jamshedpur.
2. Operator(s) trained in Abhinam College will start working at 12:00 hrs.
3. Only Dogra and Falguni operate from Pune, but they are not trained in Gutakal College.
4. Three of the operators took training from Sutanama College, and they operate from Noida.
5. The operator(s) from Jamshedpur will start working at 00:00 hrs.
6. Abdulla and Henri operate together as a two-member team from a single location. They do not operate from Mangalore.
7. No operator(s) will join at 20:00 hrs.
8. Ballal, who alone operates from his location, was not trained in Barala College, and will commence his duty four hours after the operator(s) trained in Gutakal College.
9. The operator(s) trained in Barala College operate from Hyderabad.
10. The number of operator(s) trained in Khatamanga College is the same as the number of operator(s) trained in Barala College.

Questions are based on a set of conditions. In answering some of the questions, it may be useful to draw a rough diagram. Choose the response that most accurately and completely answers each question.

Seven bands were scheduled to perform during the week long music festival at XLRI. The festival began on a Monday evening and ended on the Sunday evening. Each day only one band performed. Each band performed only once. The organizing committee had the task of scheduling the performances of the seven bands -- Cactus, Axis, Enigma, Boom, Fish, Dhoom and Bodhi Tree. The festival schedule followed the following conditions:

1. The performance of Bodhi Tree, the home band of XLRI, did not precede the performance of any other band.
2. Among the visiting bands three were rock bands and the other three were fusion bands. All three bands of the same genre were not allowed to perform consecutively.

Additional constraints:
- Boom, which was a rock band, refused to perform immediately before or after Fish.
- Meet, who was a lead vocalist with a rock band, refused to perform after Angelina.
- Angelina, the only female lead vocalist in the music fest besides Bony, was with the band Enigma. Angelina refused to perform after Thursday citing personal reasons.
- Ali, who was the lead vocalist of a rock band, was not with the band Dhoom, and did not perform on Saturday.
- Sid, the lead vocalist of the rock band Cactus, could perform only on Monday.
- Rupam, the only male among the lead vocalists of the fusion bands, was with Fish and performed on Wednesday.
- None of the bands performed in absence of their lead vocalist.

Questions are based on a set of conditions. In answering some of the questions, it may be useful to draw a rough diagram. Choose the response that most accurately and completely answers each question.

Five colleagues pooled their efforts during the office lunch-hour to solve the crossword in the daily paper.

Colleagues: Mr. Bineet, Mr. Easwar, Ms. Elsie, Ms. Sheela, Ms. Titli.
Answers: Burden, Barely, Badshah, Rosebud, Silence.
Numbers: 4 down, 8 across, 15 across, 15 down, 21 across.
Order: First, second, third, fourth, fifth.

The following conditions apply:

1. Titli produced the answer to 8 across, which had the same number of letters as the previous answer to be inserted, and one more than the subsequent answer which was produced by one of the men.
2. It was not Bineet who solved the clue to ‘Burden’, and Easwar did not solve 4 down.
3. The answers to 15 across and 15 down did not have the same number of letters.
4. ‘Silence’, which was not the third word to be inserted, was the answer to an across clue.
5. ‘Barely’ was the first word to be entered in the grid, but ‘Badshah’ was not the second answer to be found.
6. Elsie’s word was longer than Bineet’s; Sheela was neither the first nor the last to come up with an answer.
7. Fifth one to be worked out was an answer to an across clue.

Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow.

An audit unearthed a financial scam in NWC Corporation. One or more among the 9 financial accountants of NWC Corporation are suspected to have fudged the accounts. Following are the statements made by the nine suspects:

Shrinivas: Nagraj fudged the accounts
Datta: Shrinivas did not fudge the accounts
Nagraj: Datta is lying and I did not fudge accounts
Jose: Shrinivas is telling the truth
Samuel: Exactly three of the suspects are telling the truth
Ejaz: Datta is lying and Shrinivas fudged the accounts
Chaudhary: Datta fudged the accounts
Ganeshan: Datta is lying and Shrinivas is telling the truth
Panda: Samuel is lying

Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow.

In calendar year 2008, there was turbulence in the air as Jet Airways' Chairman pondered what course of action the airline should take. Air India was also struggling with the same dilemma. Two of India’s largest airlines, Air India and Jet Airways, had sounded caution on their fiscal health due to mounting operational costs. A daily operational loss of 2 million USD (Rs 8.6 crore) had in fact forced Jet Airways to put its employees on alert. Jet’s senior General Manager had termed the situation as grave. Jet’s current losses were 2 million USD a day (including JetLite). The current rate of Jet Airways’ domestic losses was 0.5 million USD (Rs 2.15 crore) and that of JetLite was another 0.5 million. International business was losing over 1 million USD (Rs 4.30 crore) a day.

The situation was equally grave for other national carriers. Driven by mounting losses of almost Rs 10 crore a day, Air India, in its merged avatar, was considering severe cost cutting measures like slashing employee allowances, reducing in-flight catering expenses on short haul flights and restructuring functional arms. The airline also considered other options like cutting maintenance costs by stationing officers at hubs, instead of allowing them to travel at regular intervals.

Jet Airways, Air India and other domestic airlines had reasons to get worried, as 24 airlines across the world had gone bankrupt in the year on account of rising fuel costs. In India, operating costs had gone up 30-40%. Fuel prices had doubled in the past one year to Rs 70,000 per kilolitre, forcing airlines to increase fares. Consequently, passenger load had fallen to an average 55-60% per flight from previous year’s peak of 70-75%. Other airlines faced a similar situation; some were even looking for buyers. Domestic carriers had lost around Rs 4,000 crore in 2007-08 with Air India leading the pack. “As against 27% wage bill globally, our wage bill is 22% of total input costs. Even then we are at a loss," an Air India official said. Civil aviation ministry, however, had a different take: “Air India engineers go to Dubai every fortnight to work for 15 days and stay in five star hotels. If they are stationed there, the airline would save Rs 8 crore a year. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are several things we can do to reduce operational inefficiency.” According to analysts, Jet Airways could be looking at a combined annual loss of around Rs 3,000 crore, if there were no improvement in operational efficiencies and ATF prices. Against this backdrop, the airline had asked its employees to raise the service bar and arrest falling passenger load.

Questions are based on a set of conditions. In answering some of the questions, it may be useful to draw a rough diagram. Choose the response that most accurately and completely answers each question.

In a local pet store, seven puppies wait to be introduced to their new owners. The puppies, named Ashlen, Blakely, Custard, Daffy, Earl, Fala and Gabino, are all kept in two available pens. Pen 1 holds three puppies, and pen 2 holds four puppies.

Conditions:
1. If Gabino is kept in pen 1, then Daffy is not kept in pen 2.
2. If Daffy is not kept in pen 2, then Gabino is kept in pen 1.
3. If Ashlen is kept in pen 2, then Blakely is not kept in pen 2.
4. If Blakely is kept in pen 1, then Ashlen is not kept in pen 1.

Analyse the following passage and answer the questions.

Some words are highly inflammable. Fusion is one of them. You can get two sets of people into a war mode by just uttering the words “fusion music”. One set will breathe fire and say it violates the purity of music: the other set will tell you earnestly that it opens the borders of music.

Analyse the following passage and provide an appropriate answer for the questions that follow.

When we speak of the “probability of death”, the exact meaning of the experience can be defined in the following way only. We must not think of an individual, but of a certain class as a whole, e.g., “all insured men forty-one years old living in a given country and not engaged in certain dangerous occupations.”

A probability of death is attached to the class of men or to another class that can be defined in a similar way. We can say nothing about the probability of death of an individual even if we know this condition of life and health in detail. The phrase “probability of death”, when it refers to a single person, has no meaning at all.

Analyse the following passage and provide an appropriate answer for the questions that follow.

One key element of Kantian ethics is the idea that the moral worth of any action relies entirely on the motivation of the agent: human behaviour cannot be said good or bad in light of the consequences it generates, but only with regard to what moved the agent to act in that particular way. Kant introduces the key concept of duty to clarify the rationale underpinning of his moral theory, by analysing different types of motivation. First of all, individuals commit actions that are really undertaken for the sake of duty itself, which is, done because the agent thinks they are the right thing to do. No consideration of purpose of the action matters, but only whether the action respects a universal moral law. Another form of action (motivation) originates from immediate inclination: Everyone has some inclinations, such as to preserve one's life, or to preserve honour. These are also duties that have worth in their own sake. But acting according to the maxim that these inclinations might suggest, such as taking care of one's own health - lacks for Kant true moral worth. For example, a charitable person who donates some goods to poor people might do it following her inclination to help the others - that is, because she enjoys helping the others. Kant does not consider it as moral motivation, even if the action is in conformity with duty. The person acting from duty would in fact do it to the other because she recognizes that helping the others is her moral obligation. Final type of motivation suggested by Kant include actions that can be done in conformity with duty, yet are not done from duty, but rather as a mean to some further end. In order to illustrate this type of motivation, Kant provides the following example. A shopkeeper who does not overcharge the inexperienced customer and treats all customers in the same way certainly is doing the right thing - that is, acts in conformity with duty - but we cannot say for sure that he is acting in this way because he is moved by the basic principles of honesty: “It is his advantage that requires it”. Moreover, we cannot say that he is moved by an immediate inclination toward his customers since he gives no preference to one with respect to another. Therefore, concludes Kant, “his action was done neither from duty nor from immediate inclination but merely for purposes of self-interest”.

Analyse the following passage and provide an appropriate answer for the questions that follow.

Fashion is different from custom, or rather is a particular species of it. That is not the fashion which everybody wears, but which those wear who are of a high rank, or character. The graceful, the easy, and the commanding manners of the great, joined to the usual richness and magnificence of their dress, give a grace to the very form which they happen to bestow upon it. As long as they continue to use this form, it is connected in our imaginations with the idea of something that is genteel and magnificent, and though in itself it should be indifferent, it seems, on account of this relation, to have something about it that is genteel and magnificent too. As soon as they drop it, it loses all the grace, which it had appeared to possess before, and being now used only by the inferior ranks of people, seems to have something of their meanness and awkwardness.

Analyse the following passage and provide an appropriate answer to the questions that follow.

Silver is especially and repetitively savage about what he sees as the extravagant claims made for particle physics, arguing that once the proton, neutron, and electron were found and their properties experimentally confirmed, the very expensive searches for ever more exotic particles, such as the Higgs Boson, were increasingly harder to justify other than by their importance to particle physicists. Most of the particles resemble ecstatic happiness: They are very short-lived and have nothing to do with everyday life. His repeated assault goes to the level of sarcasm: “Finding the Higgs Boson will be a magnificent technical and theoretical triumph. Like a great Bobby Fisher game.” Of course, this is a tad unfair, even if some of the claims of its practitioners invite such assaults on their field.

Analyse the following transcript (from the movie Matrix) and provide an appropriate answer for the questions that follow:

Neo: Morpheus, what's happened to me? What is this place?
Morpheus: More important than what is when.
Neo: When?
Morpheus: You believe it's the year 1999 when in fact it's closer to 2199. I can't tell you exactly what year it is because we honestly don't know. There's nothing I can say that will explain it for you, Neo. Come with me. See for yourself. This is my ship, the Nebuchadnezzar. It's a hovercraft. This is the main deck. This is the core where we broadcast our pirate signal and hack into the Matrix. Most of my crew you already know.

(Next Scene: Construct)

Morpheus: This is the construct. It's our loading programme. We can load anything from clothing, to equipment, weapons, training simulations, anything we need.
Neo: Right now we're inside a computer programme?
Morpheus: Is it really so hard to believe? Your clothes are different. The plugs in your arms and head are gone. Your hair is changed. Your appearance now is what we call residual self image. It is the mental projection of your digital self.
Neo: This... this isn't real?
Morpheus: What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

...This is the world that you know. The world as it was at the end of the twentieth century. It exists now only as part of a neural-interactive simulation that we call the Matrix. You've been living in a dream world, Neo... This is the world as it exists today. Welcome to the Desert of the Real. We have only bits and pieces of information but what we know for certain is that at some point in the early twenty-first century all of mankind was united in celebration. We marvelled at our own magnificence as we gave birth to AI.
Neo: AI? You mean artificial intelligence?
Morpheus: A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines. We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we know it was us that scorched the sky. At the time they were dependent on solar power and it was believed that they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun. Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive. Fate it seems is not without a sense of irony. The human body generates more bio-electricity than a 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTU's of body heat. Combined with a form of fusion the machines have found all the energy they would ever need. There are fields, endless fields, where human beings are no longer born, we are grown. For the longest time I wouldn't believe it, and then I saw the fields with my own eyes. Watch them liquefy the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living. And standing there, facing the pure horrifying precision, I came to realize the obviousness of the truth. What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this.
Neo: No. I don't believe it. It's not possible.
Morpheus: I didn't say it would be easy, Neo. I just said it would be the truth.
Neo: Stop. Let me out. Let me out. I want out.