Focus on your XAT 2025 preparation without essay

XLRI Jamshedpur conducts XAT exam on behalf of XAMI. The XAT 2025 notification was released in  July 2024 and biggest surprise was – Removal of essay.

Let us take you through the overall changes that have taken place and the impact of removing essay from XAT 2025.

1. Changes in XAT 2025

1. The exam duration has been reduced from 3 hours 35 minutes to 3 hours.
2. The exam sections have been reduced from 5 to 4. The essay has been removed from XAT 2025.
3. The exam fee has been hiked from INR 1650 to INR 1700.
4. Agartala, Dubai and Katmandu have been removed from the XAT test city list.
5. Indian Candidates can apply for XLRI course GMP (General Management Programme) both via XAT 2025 and GMAT score.

2. Role of Essay in XAT

1. The essay in XAT was for 3 marks.
2. The score of essay was not considered in calculating the percentile; however it had 10% weightage in the overall selection process.
3. The essay tested the candidates in the following skills:

• Communication
• Written
• Vocabulary
• Creative
• Language

3. Pros of Removing the Essay in XAT 2025

It may not be wrong entirely to say that the removal of essay from XAT 2025 has come as a sigh of relief for many students. Here are some of the pros of this decision:

1. Relaxed Mind

• XAT is already a tough exam and requires specific intellect and bent of mind. With the essay being removed, students have one less thing to worry about.
• Although WAT is an important aspect of the selection procedure for almost all the institutes, but having essay during the aptitude test was always seen as challenge by students.

2. Uniformity

• The XAT 2023 exam pattern is in sync with all the other exams like CAT 2021, NMAT 2021, and SNAP 2021 etc.
• Removal of essay means that the selection procedure will also be in sync with the selection process of other exams which includes WAT and GD/PI.

3. Integrated Preparation

• Since there is no essay now, students can integrate their preparation of exams like XAT 2023 and CAT 2021 for topics like verbal, quant and DI.
• In addition, the preparation for General Awareness can be done in sync with an exam like SNAP 2021.

4. Cons of Removing the Essay in XAT 2025

Even though many students are happy that essay has been removed, but there are still a few downsides of removal of essay:

1. Uniqueness

• The essay was a unique feature of the XAT exam, but is no longer a part of it.

2. Time Duration

• The overall time duration for the XAT 2023 exam has been reduced to 3 hours. Unlike before, students get no extra time for GK now and they must answer all the 4 sections in a span of 180 minutes only.

3. Cutting Edge

• The essay always provided an edge to the students who applied for the XAT exam. This will no longer be there.

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