XAT 2012 Question Paper

“On a wing and a prayer the Indian team landed in Heathrow to take on their formidable opponents”. From the above sentence it can be inferred that the Indian team was

It _____________ not look like a great deal today, but back then it was a coup: no man before ___________ to import tea directly into Ireland. The option that will best fill the blanks in the
above sentences would be:

“It was AC Milan’s success in Europe in the sixties that introduced the ‘libero’ as the Italian default and, a quarter of a century later, it was AC Milan’s success in Europe that killed it off.” Which of the following was not implied in the above sentence?

Choose the odd one:

The 2001 census showed a sharp fall in the litreacy rate compared to 1991, but an increase in the litreacy rate by 2006 suggests that between 1991 and 2006 India progressed in terms of litreacy rate.
Which of the following statements, if true, best refutes the above argument?

Ravindra Dubey was guilty of embezzlement. It means that Ravindra Dubey

Read the sentences and choose the option that best arrange them in a logical order.
A. Some of these are tangible while others are not.
B. The micro factors look at brand building, product development, competition, pricing, decision making within organizations etc.
C. Another way to classify these factors is to distinguish which of them are macro in nature and which of them are micro.
D. The macro factors comprise government policies, state of the economy, changing demographics etc.
E.The factors influencing forecasts include social, technological, economic, political, religious, ethnic, governmental, and natural factors.

According to the ideas in the passage, the following are not true expect:

In the case of Japan, there is a strong empirical evidence to suggest that systematic departure
from self-interested behavior, in the direction of duty, loyalty and goodwill have played a substantial part in industrial success.Which of the following in closest to the ideas presented in the passage?

Of the options presented below, which one is the best example for the ideas propounded in the passage?

Read the sentences given below and choose the option that is best in accordance with the ideas in the passage.
I.There is a need to distinguish between the agency aspect and the well-being aspect of a person.
II.A person can be conceptualized in terms of either agency or well-being.
III.A person is important, not just instrumentally, for the pursuit of well-being

The idea of agency, as used in the passage, is implied in all the options given below, except:

Which of the following sentences is grammatically incorrect?

Alfredo, Diego and Lionel are discussing Argentinean football.
Alfredo: Argentina was a football powerhouse.
Diego: Argentina is a football powerhouse.
Lionel: Argentina will be a football powerhouse.
Which of the following cannot be inferred from the above conversation?

Choose the grammatically correct sentence from the options given below.

Ethologists, people who study animal behavior, have traditionally divided an organism’s actions into two categories: learned behavior (based on experience) and instinctive behavior (based on genotype). Some current scholars reject this distinction, claiming that all behavior is a predictable interaction of experience and genotype.
Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the arguments made in the sentence above?

The benefits of psychotherapy result not only from the advice the therapist gives but also from the supportive relationship offered to the patient. Even though this relationship may cost large amounts of money over many years, most patients interpret the therapist’s concern for them as genuine and identify this caring relationship as the primary factor in improving their mental health. However, recent studies have found that only eight percent of therapist/patient relationships continue after the patient terminates formal paid visits.
Which of the following is in accordance with the ideas contained in the passage? Choose the best option.

Most of the Asian countries have trade-deficit with China. Bangladesh’s trade deficit with China this year has increased by 35%. Despite large increases in exports to China, Indonesia’s trade deficit with China continues to increase. So does that of South Korea, home of Samsung Electronics, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of electronic gadgets.
Which of the following, if true, would be most inconsistent with the above passage?

All who studied commerce enjoy sports. No tax consultant enjoys sports. All those who enjoy sports love classical music.
If the above sentences are true, which of the following also must be true?

The head ___________ was annoyed to see a _________ in the soup.
The option that would best fill the blanks in the above sentence would be:

Which word is the opposite of the word
‘hypothesize’?

Read the sentences and choose the option that best arranges them in a logical order. (1 mark)
A. In fact, it is considered as a dumping ground for unwanted people in quite a few organizations.
B. In many parts of the country, traditional castes such as Kothari, Kotwal, Bhandari and Bhandarkar have for generations been dealing in procuring, stocking, distributing goods and merchandise.
C. This is due to the fact that Indian traders have been trading with many parts of the world.
D. However, though the concept of warehousing has been prevalent for over 2000 years, the warehouse has not yet obtained due recognition in modern times.
E. The concept of warehousing or stores function is not new in India.

Concurrence means all of the following except:

Read the sentences and choose the option that best arranges them in a logical order.
i. All it has to do is to drive up the inflation rate-examples are the damage Lyndon Johnson’s inflationary policies did to the US economy and the damage which consistently pro-inflationary policies have done to the economy of Italy.
ii.It is easy, the record shows, for a government to do harm to its domestic economy.
iii.Contrary to what economists confidently promised forty years ago, business cycles have not been abolished.
iv.They still operate pretty much the way they have been operating for the past 150 years
v.But there is not the slightest evidence that any government policy to stimulate the economy has impact, whether that policy be Keynesian, monetarist, supply - side or neoclassical.

When income tax rates are reduced, there is an increase in taxable income, and an increase in
taxable income results in increased total income tax revenues for the government. Which of the following is analogues to the argument above in terms of its logical features?

Not wanting to present an unwanted optimistic picture in the board meeting, the CEO estimated the sales growth _____________.
The option that will best fill the blank in the above sentence would be:

The objective of the author in writing the above passage seems to be to

The author’s arguments suggest the following conclusions, except

The author does not oppose

The passage was most likely written in the year:

Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
I. The author’s main concern is to develop a theory of innovation.
II. The author is interested in putting forth a theory of technological evolution.
III. The author believes before developing a theory of technological evolution, one needs to investigate whether technology evolves at all.
IV. Evolution, as the author puts it, is a sense of common relatedness.

I. In 1867, S. Colum Gilfillan, a sociologist traced the evolution of ships from the dugout canoe to the modern steamship of the day.

II. Many theories propose the existence of a technology in many forms. From these variations, some perform better and are selected for further use and development.

III. Till date the people who have thought hardest about the general questions of technology have only been social scientists. They have viewed technology from the outside as stand-alone objects without studying earlier technologies.

IV. Some technologies, for example, the laser, the jet engine, the radar, the quick sort algorithm and the locomotive just appear, or at least they seem to just appear unlike novel biological species which are versions of earlier objects.

V. Radar descends from radio but you can vary 1930s radio circuits as radically you like but you will never get radar. Radar requires a different principle.

Assuming the above statements are true, which option would most strengthen the author’s premise that the question that he has identified has not been solved as yet?

Three Vice Presidents (VP) regularly visit the plant on different days. Due to labour unrest, VP (HR) regularly visits the plant after a gap of 2 days. VP (Operations) regularly visits the plant after a gap of 3 days. VP (Sales) regularly visits the plant after a gap of 5 days. The VPs do not deviate from their individual schedules. CEO of the company meets the VPs when all the three VPs come to the plant together. CEO is on leave from January 5 th to January 28 th , 2012. Last time CEO met the VPs on January 3, 2012. When is the next time CEO will meet all the VPs ?

In 2010, which could be a valid statement about the revenues (adjusted for inflation) of these
three companies?

The difference in the average percentage increase in revenues, from 4th to 6th year, of Yahoo and Facebook is:

What would have been Facebook’s revenue (in $ million) in its sixth year of operation if the
company had matched Google’s percentage growth in revenues from the fifth to the sixth year?
Choose the option that is nearest to the answer.

If the batsman has scored a total of 306 runs, how
many 4s and 6s did he hit?

If 5 of the dot balls had been hit for 4s, and if two of the shots for which the batsman scored 3 runs each had fetched him one run instead, what would have been the central angle of the sector corresponding to the percentage of runs scored in 4s? {Use data from the previous question} 

Ramesh analysed the monthly salary figures of five vice presidents of his company. All the salary figures are integers. The mean and the median salary figures are 5 lakh, and the only mode is 8 lakh. Which of the options below is the sum (in lakh) of the highest and the lowest salaries?

Tina, Mina, Gina, Lina and Bina are 5 sisters, aged in that order, with Tina being the eldest. Each of them had to carry a bucket of water from a well to their house. Their buckets’ capacities were proportional to their ages. While returning, equal amount of water got splashed out of their buckets. Who lost maximum amount of water as a percentage of the bucket capacity?

Ram, a farmer, managed to grow shaped- watermelons inside glass cases of different shapes. The shapes he used were: a perfect cube, hemi-spherical, cuboid, cylindrical along with the normal spherical shaped watermelons. Thickness of the skin was same for all the shapes. Each of the glass cases was so designed that the total volume and the weight of the all the water- melons would be equal irrespective of the shape.
A customer wants to but water-melons for making juice, for which the skin of the water- melon has to be peeled off, and therefore is a waste. Which shape should the customer buy?

A man borrows 6000 at 5% interest, on reducing balance, at the start of the year. If he repays 1200 at the end of each year, find the amount of loan outstanding, in , at the beginning of the third year.

A spherical metal of radius 10 cm is molten and made into 1000 smaller spheres of equal sizes. In this process the surface area of the metal is increased by:

Gopal sells fruit juice mixture using orange juice and pineapple juice. Gopal prepares this mixture by drawing out a jug of orange juice from a 10 litre container filled with orange juice, and replacing it with pineapple juice. If Gopal draws out another jug of the resultant mixture and replaces it with pineapple juice, the container will have equal volumes of orange juice and pineapple juice. The volume of the jug in litres, is

Nikhil’s mother asks him to buy 100 pieces of sweets worth 100/-. The sweet shop has 3 kinds of sweets, kajubarfi, gulabjamun and sandesh. Kajubarfi costs 10/- per piece, gulabjamun costs 3/- per piece and sandesh costs 50 paise per piece. If Nikhil decides to buy at least one sweet of each type, how many gulabjamuns should he buy?

A potter asked his two sons to sell some pots in the market. The amount received for each pot was same as the number of pots sold. The two brothers spent the entire amount on some packets of potato chips and one packet of banana chips. One brother had the packet of banana chips along with some packets of potato chips, while the other brother just had potato chips. Each packet of potato chips costs 10/- and the packet of banana chips costs less than 10/-. The packets of chips were divided between the two brothers so each brother received equal number of packets. How much money should one brother give to the other to make the division financially equitable?

A city has a park shaped as a right angled triangle. The length of the longest side of this park is 80 m. The Mayor of the city wants to construct three paths from the corner point opposite to the longest side such that these three paths divide the longest side into four equal segments. Determine the sum of the squares of the lengths of the three paths.

What has been the mileage (in kilometers per litre) of her car over the entire trip?

Her car’s tank-capacity is 35 litres. Petrol costs 45/- litre in Rampur. What is the minimum
amount of money she would need for purchasing petrol for the return trip from Rampur to Shanpur, using the same route? Assume that the mileage of the car remains unchanged throughout the route, and she did not use her car to travel around in Rampur.

A medical practitioner has created different potencies of a commonly used medicine by dissolving tables in water and using the resultant solution. Potency 1 solution: When 1 tablet is dissolved in 50
ml, the entire 50 ml is equivalent to one dose. Potency 2 solution: When 2 tablets are dissolved in
50 ml, the entire 50 ml of this solution is equivalent to 2 doses, ... and so on. This way he can give fractions of tablets based on the intensity of infection and the age of the patient. For particular patient, he administers 10 ml of potency 1, 15 ml of potency 2 and 30 ml of potency 4. The dosage administered to the patient is equivalent to

Ram prepares solutions of alcohol in water according to customers’ needs. This morning Ram has prepared 27 litres of a 12% alcohol solution and kept it ready in a 27 litre delivery container to be shipped to the customer. Just before delivery, he finds out that the customer had asked for 27 litres of 21% alcohol solution. To prepare what the customer wants, Ram replaces a portion of 12% solution by 39% solution. How many litres of 12% solution are replaced?

City Bus Corporation runs two buses from terminus A to terminus B,one from each of the terminuses such that each bus makes 5 round trips in a day. There are no stops in between. These buses ply back and forth on the same route at different but uniform speeds. Each morning the buses start at 7 AM from the respective terminuses. They meet for the first time at a distance of 7 km from terminus A. Their next meeting is at a distance of 4 km from terminus B, while travelling in opposite directions. Assuming that the time taken by the buses at the terminuses is negligibly small, and the cost of running a bus is 20 per km, find the daily cost of running the buses (in )

Shyam, a fertilizer salesman, sells directly to farmers. He visits two villages A and B. Shyam starts from A, and travels 50 meters to the East, then 50 meters North-East at exactly 45° to his earlier direction, and then another 50 meters East to reach village B. If the shortest distance between villages A and B is in the form of $a\sqrt{b+\sqrt{c}}$ meters, Find the value of a+b+c.

Three truck drivers, Amar, Akbar and Anthony stop at a road side eating joint. Amar orders 10
rotis, 4 plates of tadka, and a cup of tea. Akbar orders 7 rotis, 3 plates of tadka, and a cup of tea. Amar pays 80 for the meal and Akbar pays 60. Meanwhile, Anthony orders 5 rotis, 5 plates of tadka and 5 cups of tea. How much (in ) will Anthony pay?

A computer program was tested 300 times before its release. The testing was done in three stages
of 100 tests each. The software failed 15 times in Stage I, 12 times in Stage II, 8 times in Stage III, 6 times in both Stage I and Stage II, 7 times in both Stage II and Stage III, 4 times in both Stage I and Stage III, and 4 times in all the three stages. How many times the software failed in a single stage only?

Suresh, who runs a bakery, uses a conical shaped equipment to write decorative labels (e.g., Happy
Birthday etc.) using cream. The height of this equipment is 7 cm and the diameter of the base is 5 mm. A full charge of the equipment will write 330 words on an average. How many words can be written using three fifth of a litre of cream?

Carpenter Rajesh has a circular piece of plywood of diameter 30 feet. He has cut out two disks of diameter 20 feet and 10 feet. What is the diameter of the largest disk that can be cut out from the remaining portion of the plywood piece?

Lionel and Ronaldo had a discussion on the ages of Jose’s sons. Ronaldo made following statements about Jose’s sons:

i. Jose has three sons.
ii. The sum of the ages of Jose’s sons is 13.
iii. The product of the ages of the sons is the same as the age of Lionel.
iv. Jose’s eldest son, Zizou weighs 32 kilos.
v. The sum of the ages of the younger sons of Jose is 4.
vi. Jose has fathered a twin.
vii. Jose is not the father of a triplet.
viii. The LCM of the ages of Jose’s sons is more than the sum of their ages.

Which of the following combination gives information sufficient to determine the ages of Jose’s sons?

Ram and Shyam form a partnership (with Shyam as working partner) and start a business by
investing 4000 and 6000 respectively. The conditions of partnership were as follows:
1. In case of profits till 200,00 per annum, profits would be shared in the ratio of the invested capital.
2.Profits from 200,001 till 400,000 Shyam would take 20% out of the profit, before the division of remaining profits, which will then be based on ratio of invested capital.
3.Profits in excess of 400,000, Shyam would take 35% out of the profits beyond 400,000, before the division of remaining profits, which will then be based on ratio of invested capital.
If Shyam’s share in a particular year was 367000, which option indicates the total business
profit (in ) for that year?

A property dealer bought a rectangular piece of land at 1000/sq. ft. The length of the plot is less than twice its breadth. Due to its size, there were no buyers for the full plot. Hence he decided to sell it in smaller sized pieces as given below. The largest square from one end was sold at 1200/sq. ft. From the remaining rectangle the largest square was sold at 1150/sq. ft. Due to crash in the property prices, the dealer found it difficult to make profit from the sale of the remaining part of the land. If the ratio of the perimeter of the remaining land to the perimeter of the original land is 3 : 8, at what price (in ) the remaining part of the land is to be sold such that the dealer makes an overall profit of 10%?

Which of the following is an essential flaw that the writer of the letter overlooked?

If both the nominations are confirmed, which of the following exhaustively and reasonably, describes actions that may occur in the near future?

Statement I: In the Chinese market, Baft, and Hebe, are competing models in Limo’s target
market. Due to increase in sales of Limo by 200%, Baft and Hebe saw their market share decline by 10%.
Statement II: Baft and Hebe were not desired by the customers due to their new features.
Which of the following conclusions can be most justifiably made?

Unhappy customers will not only leave the company, but also spread negative publicity about the company. The best way, among the options below, to deal with customers is

Mr. Murugan from Chennai experienced the comfort of Limo during his visit to China. He was willing to deposit an approximate price of Limo to buy the first available unit from Mr. Ahmed, a dealer in Chennai, known for fair dealing. Ginger Automobile is yet to announce the actual price, and the process for allocation of the vehicles. In order to maximise his cash flow, Mr. Ahmed should

If Tina wants to minimize the total time out of Jamshedpur, the best option for her, from the options given below, is:

Tina gets a message that her work has to be completed between 9:00 hrs. and 17:00 hrs. If
she wants minimize the total time out of Jamshedpur, the best option, from the options given below, for her among the following is to go by

Tina has to appear for an exam on 8 th of January in Jamshedpur and she can start from her
residence in Jamshedpur only after 16:00 hrs of the same day. Choose the option, from the options given below, that will help her to minimize the total time out of Jamshedpur.

If Tina decides to minimize the in-between waiting period, the option that she should choose from the options given below, will be:

Which of the following could have been a better response of Mr. Shiv to Ms. Teknikwali’s request
to re-schedule the ERP implementation?

Which of the following can be identified as the immediate cause for the problems in BAG?

How should Mr. Shiv cope with the situation now? Choose the best option, considering Mr. Shiv’s career would be at stake if the ERP project fails, and assuming that for carrying out the options, he has the necessary authority to do so.

Of all the problems being faced in BAG, which of the following is neither discussed nor hinted at?

After her father’s demise, the best way Ms. Teknikwali could have gone about dealing with BAG group would have been to:

It can be inferred from the above case that implementation of an ERP package in an organization requires creation of a team that has:

Ms Shabina, the principal of VPS, is aware that some of her teachers are unhappy. She wants to
be seen as fair and just. Which option is the best one that she should exercise?

A group of unhappy teachers have come up with a list of action plans for the consideration of their
colleagues. The action plans are listed below.
I. Exposing Mr. Ivan’s intentions behind the inclusion of choral recitation.
II. Conduct an open house discussion to gauge the unhappiness and to identify possible solutions.
III. Introduce music and dance competition in same format as elocution competition
IV. Demand compensation for their work on the day of VMEC.
Mr. Zacharia, one of the senior teachers and a well wisher of VPS, is asked to go through the action plans and make recommendations that benefits VPS the most. He would recommend:

From his perspective, and taking into account the family’s concerns, Mr. Dev would like to have

In order to resolve the conflicting preferences, one of Dev’s friends suggested Dev, his family members and the HR manager to identify their most and the least preferred candidates without considering the concerns of other stakeholders.
I. Dev’s most and least preferred candidates: Bal Singh and Chetan respectively
II. Family members’ most and least preferred candidates: Bal Singh and Chintan respectively
III. HR manager’s most and least preferred candidates: Chethan and Bal Singh respectively
Which of the above three statements is/are in conformity with the information provided in the passage?

Who among the following five candidates is most likely to be rejected by the GM (HR)?

Naresh decided to work as a government contractor. Following Srikumar’s advice, he
inflated the prices so that he could pay the bribes out the bills received.

A new supervisor had joined a government department where both Naresh and Srikumar were bidding for work. During the bidding process for a particular project, in an open meeting with all contractors and officers from the department, he produced a document which had the rates at which Naresh had worked for private clients for similar building related work. He accused Naresh and Srikumar of over-pricing for government work and threatened to disqualify them from the bidding process, if the rates are not brought down. Faced with that situation, Naresh gave a written reply that “I use materials of inferior quality for private work, and that is the reason for price difference”. Srikumar supported Naresh in the meeting by saying that he had seen Naresh’s work and he agreed. In this situation, it can be concluded that:

Lankawala, another contractor, when faced with the new supervisor’s demand to reduce prices for government work, asked him to guarantee that no bribes would be taken, and only then prices would be reduced. This was said in front of everyone. At this the supervisor forced Lankawala out of the meeting and threatened to black-list him. Lankawala did not say anything and walked away. Blacklisting of a contractor by one government department implied that Lankawala would not be able to participate in any government departments’ works. In late evening, the city was abuzz with the news that the supervisor’s dead body was seen on the
railway tracks. In the investigations that followed, no one who attended the meeting recounted the happenings in the meeting to the police. Getting involved in murder cases could lead to unpredictable outcomes such as becoming the potential suspect, or an accessory to the crime. Furthermore, cases could drag on for years, and one would have to appear in court as witnesses in response to court’s summons. This, for a contractor, was a serious threat to his business due to the disruptions created. However, Naresh wanted to speak out but was pressurized by Srikumar and other contractors not to, and as a result he did not. Due to this, the case was closed unresolved with no one found guilty. In this situation, it can be concluded that:

Manohar, the highest earning employee for the last three years, vehemently opposes the GM’s
proposal. Which of the following could be most likely reason for him to oppose the proposal?

The top management of Saral Co. refused to implement the proposal of new GM from the beginning of next month, which of the following could be the most justified reason for the management’s refusal?