XAT Decision Making: 148 Questions From Seven Official Papers

What XLRI says Decision Making tests

There is no detailed DM syllabus. The official material describes the section in a sentence or two, and the three descriptions below are all there is.

Read together, the official lines point to judgement in situations, not to a body of knowledge. That matches what the papers contain: there is nothing to memorise, but there is a recognisable way the questions are built, and it can be practised.

Case-lets and analytical sets, year by year

The analytical sets are rare and short. In 2018, questions 39 to 41 were built on a train timetable: the minimum time to deliver parcels and return, and which train to take. In 2023, questions 39 to 41 were built on activity times in the style of a project-scheduling (PERT) problem: an expected preparation time, a waiting time to announce, and the most variable activity. In the other five papers every DM question was a case-let.

Where each DM question is in the official papers

If you want to work through the real questions, these are the question numbers. The 2020 paper numbers each section from 1, so its DM questions are DM 1 to 21; the 2024 paper put DM second, after QA&DI.

The 2019 file on xatonline.in is a scanned copy, and in our text of it the questions show four options rather than five; check the PDF itself if you work from it. XLRI publishes no answer keys for any of these papers, so any key you find is someone else's reading.

What the case-lets ask

A DM case-let is usually a paragraph or two about a person in a role (a manager, a school principal, a shop owner, a minister, a doctor, a student) facing a situation with more than one reasonable response, followed by two to four questions. We grouped the 142 case-let questions by what the question stem asks. This is our rough grouping by the wording of each stem, not an XLRI category, and some questions could sit in two groups.

About half the case-let questions ask for the best action. Most of the rest are closer to critical reasoning than to judgement: they ask which fact would strengthen, weaken or justify a decision, and the answer turns on logic rather than on values. The 2021 and 2024 papers leaned heavily that way, with 12 and 11 such questions. A smaller group asks you to put actions or facts in order, and a few are negatively worded, asking for the least useful or least likely option or the exception.

A handful of questions are hard to place. Our notes flag 2019 questions 37 and 38, 2020 DM questions 9, 20 and 21, and 2022 questions 27, 31 and 41 as borderline between groups. That does not change the overall picture.

The situations the case-lets are set in

The settings range widely: running a small business (a shop, a food stall, a franchise, a bakery), managing people inside a company (recruitment, promotion, complaints, a colleague who behaves badly), public administration and policy (a minister, a king in a fable-like setting, a housing authority), education (a school principal, a dean, a professor grading a team assignment), and social questions such as workplace harassment, hiring visually impaired staff, or a community food centre. Several cases ask you to balance fairness to one person against the rules that apply to everyone, or a short-term gain against a relationship or reputation.

How to read a DM question

What follows is our method, not XLRI guidance. First classify the stem: best action, evidence that strengthens or weakens a choice, ranking, or a reverse question such as least useful or except. On a best-action question, identify who decides, their authority and the stated budget, deadline or policy; compare only actions feasible for that person. On an evidence question, test the proposed conclusion against the new fact the stem supplies. On a reverse stem, an option that breaks a constraint may be the answer rather than one to eliminate. Only after identifying the stem should you compare the options. Do not carry a best-action elimination rule into every other question type.

Under the current five-option XAT format, a wrong Part 1 answer costs 0.25. If you truly narrow five options to four equally likely choices, a random answer has a small positive expected mark (+0.0625) before the skip penalty; that arithmetic is not a guarantee of accuracy or a reason to guess blindly. Older official files may show a different option count, including the 2019 scan noted above. Our four-option drills below are deliberately simplified reasoning exercises, so do not transfer their guessing odds to the exam.

Five error patterns to record after a DM case

A percentage correct tells you little about what to change. Our count above codes stem wording into four review lanes: best action, evidence about a decision, ordering, and reverse or exception wording. Name that stem family first. The five error labels below are uncoded editorial heuristics, not measured frequencies in the 148 questions and not XLRI categories. Role and constraint labels chiefly help with best-action stems; they do not automatically eliminate options on least/except or evidence stems. Keep the year and question number so that you can return to the official PDF rather than an unexplained coaching key.

For a best-action role error, the repair is not to memorise a universal “ethical” answer. In one case a manager may be able to suspend a process; in another, only an external authority can do so. The same surface option changes quality when the actor changes. Ask whether the action follows from this case's facts and is proportionate. If the stem instead asks for the least appropriate act, the overreaching option may be precisely what you should select. In a “which additional information, if true” stem, new facts are the object of evaluation; they are not forbidden merely because they were absent from the original case.

For an evidence question, first write the claim being tested. “This discount will bring new buyers” predicts a change in new-buyer behaviour. A fact about present buyers receiving the discount may weaken that claim, even if the discount remains affordable. A budget fact instead tests feasibility. These are different questions, and mixing them creates a tempting wrong option. A strengthening fact has to make the proposed conclusion more likely; a weakening fact has to make it less likely. Mere relevance to the setting is insufficient. This small causal check is why some DM stems resemble critical reasoning in VA&LR.

The four drills deliberately use short cases, so they are a diagnosis of method rather than a measure of XAT readiness. After trying them, take one complete case-let from a verified official paper and time the reading plus all its associated questions together. Write down whether your first error came from identifying the actor, tracking a constraint, interpreting the stem or rejecting an option. Revisit the same case after two days without looking at an unofficial answer key; explain why each rejected option fails. If two options remain defensible, note the exact missing fact rather than inventing a universal DM rule.

A pacing budget for DM

XAT gives no sectional time limit, so DM takes as much of the 170 minutes as you let it. As a starting point only, our arithmetic: if Part 1 time were shared in proportion to question counts, DM would get 170 × 21 ÷ 75, about 47.6 minutes, a little over two minutes a question. Case-lets are long to read and short to answer, so reading time dominates.

Test these on full mocks rather than choosing one in advance. The official mock appears in your application dashboard after you apply, according to the XAT mock-test page. Whatever split you settle on, leave a few minutes at the end of Part 1 so that no question past your 8th blank goes unanswered, since each of those costs 0.10.

What this section is not

DM is not a test of management, law or ethics knowledge: the cases set out the facts you need, and the official descriptions name no subject content. It is also not a personality test: the questions have one keyed answer, even though XLRI does not publish the keys. And it is not the same as the Logical Reasoning part of VA&LR, although the fact-that-weakens questions are close cousins of critical-reasoning items. Candidates who have prepared for CAT will find QA&DI and VA&LR familiar; DM is where XAT is different.

How many Decision Making questions are there in XAT 2027?

About 21, out of 75 in Part 1, according to the pattern on xatonline.in.

What does the XAT Decision Making section test?

XLRI describes it as scenarios from personal and professional life testing critical thinking, problem-solving and prioritisation, and its mock page mentions ethical dilemmas. There is no detailed syllabus.

Are XAT DM questions all case-lets?

Nearly. In our count of the seven official papers from 2018 to 2024, 142 of 148 DM questions were case-lets and 6 were rule-based analytical questions, three each in 2018 and 2023.

Is there a sectional time limit for Decision Making?

No. Part 1 has 170 minutes for VA&LR, DM and QA&DI together, with no sectional limits.

Where can I find XAT Decision Making previous year questions?

In the official papers for 2018 to 2024 on xatonline.in. DM is questions 27 to 47 in most years; 2020 numbers DM from 1, 2023 runs to 48, and 2024 has DM at 29 to 49.

Does XAT publish answer keys for Decision Making?

No answer keys are published with the past papers on xatonline.in.

Is there negative marking in XAT Decision Making?

Yes, the Part 1 marking applies: +1, -0.25 for a wrong answer, and -0.10 for each blank after the first 8 in Part 1.