XAT 2019 Question Paper

Choose the option that would fill in the blanks meaningfully in the sentence(s) below:

______ the importance of ‘horizontal stratification’ ______ higher education is widely acknowledged, ______ attention has been applied to horizontal stratification ______ compulsory schooling.

Please study the paragraph given below:

In 1942, the French writer Albert Camus composed an essay, ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’. It draws on the Greek fable of a man condemned to roll a rock up a mountain only to have it roll back down under its own weight, a ______ that lasts for eternity. Camus argues that this image ______ the human condition in a world where we can no longer make sense of events; but instead of committing suicide, we should ______ ourselves to this ‘elusive feeling of absurdity’ and bear it as best we can. In this sense, Sisyphus is the ideal hero.

Consider the following words:
1. surrender
2. choice
3. symbolises
4. quandary
5. attune
6. option
7. reconcile
8. depicts

Which of the following options is the most appropriate sequence that best fits the blanks in the above paragraph?

Study the first sentence and then identify from among the options given the closest antonym of the highlighted word in the second sentence:

It’s conventional wisdom that procreation between first cousins is unhealthy. But what are the actual genetic risks?

Carefully read the following paragraph:

Who could resist the idea of remembering everything they wanted to, without trying? Learning would be made easy, exams a ______ and you would never forget where you left your keys. And memory-related disorders like Alzheimer’s would have met their match. So, it is of little surprise that scientists have turned their attention to ways of ______ human memory using techniques that ______, supplement or even mimic parts of the brain. The immediate goal is to treat memory disorders, but the idea of a memory ______ for everyday life is gaining ground.

Fill in the blanks in the above paragraph, with the best option from among the following:

Read the following statements and answer the question that follows:

1. They subjected the residues from sherds of the rhyta- vessels to radiocarbon dating to determine their ages and chromatography - mass  spectrometry (GC-MS) - to identify their structure and isotopic composition and found that the vessels were used to store cheese.
2. In many Neolithic sites near the Adriatic Sea, researchers unearthed cone-shaped clay vessels, known as rhyta, with four legs on the bottom and a round opening on the side.
3. Fresh milk couldn’t be kept for long without going bad; cheese, on the other hand, could be stored for months at a time, providing much-needed calories to early farmers between harvests.
4. Archaeologists who used to assume animals such as cows and goats were mainly used for meat early in their domestication history are thus forced to admit that humans might have been using animals for dairy quite early in their domestication history.
5. “If you kill one cow, you eat meat for about a week until it goes off; but by milking the animals, the farmer would be spreading the food gain from that animal over several months rather than just one week”

Rank the above five statements so as to make it a logical sequence:

Read the following statements and answer the question that follows:

1. An in-depth exploration of the Indian case and case studies of early adopters of mobile technology will provide spectrum managers a pragmatic and modern approach whereby they could utilize their resources efficiently and optimally.

2. Even as spectrum management regimes are moving from a command and control regime to a flexible use regime, new technological developments are suggesting that there are significant opportunities in managing large swathes of spectrum as a common property resource, in addition to flexible use.

3. Political legacies and market realities in different regimes pose unique challenges for spectrum managers who must negotiate a tricky path to the land promised by technological possibility.

4. On the other hand, supply of spectrum is restricted due to competing nature of uses and vested interests of incumbent holders.

5. The demand for spectrum has never been so acute as today's communication services extend beyond simple voice to complex data and video, augmented by evolving technologies such as peer-to-peer sharing, social networking, Fourth and Fifth Generation networks, Big Data, and cloud computing.

Rank the above five statements so as to make it a logical sequence:

Which of the following options best explains the effect of the images in Line 1?

Which of the following options presents a convincing evaluation of the line, ‘Stars opening among the lilies’?

Go through the following:

1.Mood disorders do not lead to creativity
2.The flexibility of creative occupations makes them more appealing to people with mood disorder
3.Mood swings in creative professions is less prevalent than in non-creative professions

Which of the following would undermine the passage’s main argument?

All of the following can be inferred from the passage except:

Which of the following will make the authors contention in the passage fallacious?

Which of the following statements if true, is contrary to the ideas developed in the passage?

An American female politician might not be expected to exhibit the features of public discourse discussed in the passage while ______.

Which one of the following, if true, would make the core argument of the passage irrelevant?

A young man visits a critically acclaimed modern art exhibition in his city and finds that he doesn’t like any of the exhibits. If he were to share his experience with the author of the passage, which of the following is most likely to be the author’s response?

What according to the passage is the prerequisite to appreciate art?

When the writer observes, ‘This is not arrogance; of course, they can absorb in a few moments, and without any effort, the sum of the artist and the art’, he is being _____.

Which of the options below is false according to the passage?

Which of the options will complete the statement given below meaningfully and appropriately, according to the passage?

Disgust is not a self-transcending emotion because it ________.

Which of the options below correctly identifies the function of elevation?

Which of the statements below is least fallacious?

Which option does not reflect the relationship implicit in ‘Emendation : Editor’?

Read the following paragraph and answer the question that follows:

Empirical observation told us years ago that goats were slowly becoming the new dog, and according to a new study, they are truly qualified to be man’s best friend. The Royal Society released heart-warming research showing that just like humans, goats have no desire to interact with people who come off as angry or upset, and that they’re much more attracted to those with big smiles plastered across their faces. When 12 males and 8 females were released into a pen decorated with images of happy and angry humans, the scientists learned that goats can “distinguish between happy and angry images of the same person,” and in general, they prefer their humans to be happy.

Which of the following statements is definitely true according to the passage?

Read the following paragraph and answer the question that follows:

An accurate measure of drug efficacy would require comparing the response of patients taking it with that of patients taking placebos; the drug effect could then be calculated by subtracting the placebo response from the overall response, much as a deli-counter worker subtracts the weight of the container to determine how much lobster salad you’re getting. In the last half of the 1950s, this calculus gave rise to a new way to evaluate drugs: the double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, in which neither patient nor clinician knew who was getting the active drug and who the placebo.

Which of the options is a wrong answer to this Question How does a double-blind ensure a better trial of a new drug?

Read the following paragraph and answer the question that follows:

Alligators are freshwater reptiles. However, people have come face to face with them in mud in a salt marsh in Georgia. Finding alligators in the salt marsh is not a mystery or a miracle. At least 23 species of predator have been spotted living in surprising habitats. Predators such as alligators, otters, mountain lions, wolves and raptors are thriving in places they shouldn't, revealing some serious misunderstandings about their behaviour and how to protect them. Scientific literature divulges that these creatures are actually returning to places they once occupied. It gives us astonishing insights into the lives of animals and helps conservationists improve the old stomping grounds of these creatures.

Which of the following statements provides the most plausible explanation of the predators' behaviour?

Study the text given below and answer the question that follows it:

Dense, dirty air laced with grease best describes the atmosphere of most Lagos streets. Drive from one corner of this great west African city to another and in no time you will find surfaces lightly dusted, like a soft sprinkling of icing on cakes. Under the half-moons of fingernails, thick grime settles. It’s a scene taken as typically African: polluted, bedraggled, unhealthy. This has only ever been made possible by the exploitation of Africa’s people. This week five west African countries, Nigeria included, announced plans to end the practice of European oil companies and traders exporting “African quality” diesel. “Dirty fuel” has earned the name because it is imported diesel with sulphur levels as high as 3,000 parts per million when the European maximum is 10ppm. To be clear, “African quality” fuel, is fuel not fit for European humans.

Which of the options is not necessarily the underlying assumption of the author in the paragraph above?

How many students major in chemistry?

If the proportion of physics majors who are from Delhi is the same as the proportion of engineering majors who are from Delhi, how many engineering majors are from Delhi?

12% of all students are from Chennai. What is the largest possible percentage of economics students that can be from Chennai, rounded off to the nearest integer?

Which of the following pairs of cities are in the same time zone?

What is the total time taken in minutes by the train to go from Zut to Raz?

What time is it at Yag when it is 12:00 noon at Sab?

A, B, C, D and E are five employees working in a company. In two successive years, each of them got hikes in his salary as follows:

A : p% and (p+1)%,
B : (p+2)% and (p-1)%,
C : (p+3)% and (p-2)%,
D : (p+4)% and (p-3)%,
E : (p+5)% and (p-4)%.

If all of them have the same salary at the end of two years, who got the least hike in his salary?

A firm pays its five clerks Rs. 15,000 each, three assistants Rs. 40,000 each and its accountant Rs. 66,000. Then the mean salary in the firm comprising of these nine employees exceeds its median salary by rupees

Two numbers a and b are inversely proportional to each other. If a increases by 100%, then b decreases by:

If $\sqrt[3]{7^a\times 35^{b+1} \times 20^{c+2}}$ is a whole number then which one of the statements below is consistent with it?

A gold ingot in the shape of a cylinder is melted and the resulting molten metal molded into a few identical conical ingots. If the height of each cone is half the height of the original cylinder and the area of the circular base of each cone is one fifth that of the circular base of the cylinder, then how many conical ingots can be made?

Given that a and b are integers and that $5x+2\sqrt{7}$ is a root of the polynomial $x^2 - ax + b + 2\sqrt{7}$ in $x$, what is the value of b?

An article is marked x% above the cost price. A discount of $\frac{2}{3}$x% is given on the marked price. If the profit is 4% of the cost price and the value of x lies between 25 and 50, then the value of 50% of x is?

A computer is sold either for Rs.19200 cash or for Rs.4800 cash down payment together with five equal monthly installments. If the rate of interest charged is 12% per annum compounded anually, then the amount of each installment (nearest to a rupee) is:

When opening his fruit shop for the day a shopkeeper found that his stock of apples could be perfectly arranged in a complete triangular array: that is, every row with one apple more than the row immediately above, going all the way up ending with a single apple at the top.
During any sales transaction, apples are always picked from the uppermost row, and going below only when that row is exhausted.
When one customer walked in the middle of the day she found an incomplete array in display having 126 apples totally. How many rows of apples (complete and incomplete) were seen by this customer? (Assume that the initial stock did not exceed 150 apples.)

Let P be the point of intersection of the lines
3x + 4y = 2a and 7x + 2y = 2018
and Q the point of intersection of the lines
3x + 4y = 2018 and 5x + 3y = 1
If the line through P and Q has slope 2, the value of a is:

Let C be a circle of radius $\sqrt{20}$ cm. Let L1, L2 be the lines given by 2x − y −1 = 0 and x + 2y−18 = 0, respectively. Suppose that L1 passes through the center of C and that L2 is tangent to C at the point of intersection of L1 and L2. If (a,b) is the center of C, which of the following is a possible value of a + b?

$\frac{log (97-56\sqrt{3})}{log \sqrt{7+4\sqrt{3}}}$ equals which of the following?

In the trapezium ABCD the sides AB and CD are parallel. The value of $\frac{sin \angle{BAC}}{sin \angle{BAD}}$ is 

In the picture below, EFGH, ABCD are squares, and ABE, BCF, CDG, DAH are equilateral triangles. What is the ratio of the area of the square EFGH to that of ABCD?

What is the maximum number of points that can be placed on a circular disk of radius 1 metre (some of the points could be placed on the bounding circle of the disk) such that no two points are at a distance of less than 1 metre from each other?

The figure below shows two right angled triangles ∆OAB and ∆OQP with right angles at vertex A and P, respectively, having the common vertex O, The lengths of some of the sides are indicated in the figure. (Note that the figure is not drawn to scale.) AB and OP are parallel.
What is ∠QOB?

Consider the function f(x) = (x + 4)(x + 6)(x + 8) ⋯ (x + 98). The number of integers x for which f(x) < 0 is:

Let ABC be an isosceles triangle. Suppose that the sides AB and AC are equal and let the length of AB be x cm. Let b denote the angle ∠ABC and sin b = 3/5. If the area of the triangle ABC is M square cm, then which of the following is true about M?

If $x^2 + x + 1 = 0$, then $x^{2018} + x^{2019}$ equals which of the following:

We have two unknown positive integers m and n, whose product is less than 100.

There are two additional statement of facts available:
mn is divisible by six consecutive integers { j, j + 1,...,j + 5 }
m + n is a perfect square.

Which of the two statements above, alone or in combination shall be sufficient to determine the numbers m and n?

A bag contains marbles of three colours-red, blue and green. There are 8 blue marbles in the bag.

There are two additional statement of facts available:
If we pull out marbles from the bag at random, to guarantee that we have at least 3 green marbles, we need to extract 17 marbles.
If we pull out marbles from the bag at random, to guarantee that we have at least 2 red marbles, we need to extract 19 marbles.

Which of the two statements above, alone or in combination shall be sufficient to answer the question "how many green marbles are there in the bag"?

Which of the following countries does not border the Mediterranean Sea?

The Mumbai Interbank Bid Rate (MIBID) and the Mumbai Interbank Offer Rate (MIBOR) are yardsticks that control which of the following financial markets?

Name the city which was the capital of the ‘undivided’ Assam state immediately after independence.

Name the European country that signed a pact with India in March 2018 to deepen the cooperation in the field of environment management. The deal also affirms a commitment to fight climate change.

Name the two countries with which India has inked agreements to enable the successful mission called ‘Gaganyaan’ that is slated for 2022.

The ‘Kyoto Protocol’ which was adopted in 1997 by several countries in Kyoto, Japan focusses on which of the following aspects?

Name the Russian leader whose name is synonymous with the two reforms of Glasnost and Perestroika.

Name the Indian saint who wrote ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’.

Sequence these four rivers in terms of their point of meeting the Bay of Bengal from north to south (i.e. from Kolkata down southwards to Kanyakumari).

According to the World Bank, which country is the highest recipient of remittances?

Of the five members listed from the erstwhile royal families of Kerala, one was a nationally known painter and artist. In his name, every year the government of Kerala award people for their excellence in the field of art and culture. Name this painter.

Of the five people listed below, four are Managing Directors and one is the Chairman of the State Bank of India (SBI) as of October 2018. Who among the five is the Chairman of SBI?

The prestigious Horlicks brand of GlaxoSmithKline has been recently brought over by another mega FMCG brand. Name the buyer company.

Which of the following countries is not a member of Union of European Football Association (UEFA)?

Which of the mobile service providers is going to launch GigaFiber broadband?

What is the common name of the acidic combination of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid that can actually dissolve metals like gold and platinum?

Viacom18 is a popular entertainment network of India. Which of these channels does not belong to Viacom18?

Republic of Armenia is a UN member state but is not recognized by one of the UN member states. Identify the state.

The name of this dance and the name of the community that performs this dance is the same. It is a Rajasthani folk dance and the intricate dance movements mimic the movement of snakes. Which dance are we talking about?

Which of the following countries is the largest source of imports to India as on 31st March 2018?

Which of the following is a winter game which is very similar to Ice Hockey and is often considered as the national sport of Russia?

Which of the following liquids demonstrates a convex meniscus when confined within a glass tube?

Arrange these historical events in the order of their occurrence:

1. Introduction of Ryotwari System in India
2. Vernacular Press Act
3. Permanent settlement of Bengal
4. Introduction of Rowlatt Act

What is Article 356 of Indian Constitution?

Which are the three sessions of the Parliament of India?

For the post of Consultant Professor in the Trust, two internal candidates, Mr. Rana and Mr. Charan were interviewed. Mr. Charan was selected as he was considered to be academically gifted with impressive leadership skills, even though he had less experience than the other. Three days later, Mr. Rana came to your office complaining that the selection was unfair as he had more experience than Mr. Charan.

Which of the following is the best way to handle the issue raised by Rana?

Ms. Deelipa has asked you to conduct a Non Teaching Staff Induction Training. You are to call for a tender from various agencies with specifications that include the contents, duration, experience, budget and other relevant information. You then need to shortlist five agencies from the list of 20 and make a presentation within two days.

Review the following responses:

1. Rate all 20 agencies on a scale of 1 to 5 on information available and select the top 5.
2. Select the five lowest bids based on the price quoted.
3. Seek selection criteria from Deelipa and the HR Director and shortlist the bidders accordingly.
4. Follow the advise of a person who has completed a similar task.

Select the best of the following responses in the descending order of effectiveness?

The Vikash Trust has recently been plagued by a high turnover of teaching assistants with many looking for higher salary and better facilities. You have been asked to design and run a campaign to attract and appoint 10 teaching assistants. One of your measures of success will be the retention of the new recruits. You have 4 weeks for the interview.

Review the following:

1. Shortlist apt candidates who reflect values of the Trust from among respondees to your wide advertisement campaign.
2.Design an ad that attracts candidates with values that matches the Trust's, release it at an appropriate time and re-validate the candidates' credentials at the time of shortlisting.
3. Repeat the process that was followed by the Trust last time.
4. Seek expert advice on drafting an attractive advertisement.

Select the best of the following responses in the descending order of effectiveness?

The new induction training program has been a roaring success. All new induction courses for the next 12 months have been tightly scheduled. This morning, you receive a call from Mr. Surya, the Head of the Trust requesting you to train eight newly recruited teaching assistants before they start their job next month. You explain that all the slots are fully booked for the next 3 months, but he insists that the new teaching assistants be trained immediately, to hopefully reduce turnover among them. You speak to Deelipa, who wants you to deal with the issue on your own.

Review the following responses that you wish to communicate to Mr. Surya:

1. Inform him that once the schedules are drawn up, it is not possible to effect any change as the reputation of the Trust would be at stake.
2. Suggest that a new agency may be permitted to run induction sessions for these teaching assistants, as a special case.
3. Tell him that if some inductees dropout in the first month, at least some teaching assistants can be accommodated.
4. Tell him that since no space is available in the induction training sessions for three months, you, as the HR manager would conduct induction sessions for them after office hours.

Select the best of the following responses in the descending order of effectiveness.

Which of these is the best course of action for the department?

Which of these new developments, if true, would most justify a larger utilization of the advertising budget?

Consider the following actions:

1. Conduct a survey of all stakeholders and ascertain their needs and suggestions.
2. Build consensus among doctors and paramedics on a possible way forward.
3. Prepare an action plan that details the road map along with financial implications.
4. Design differential service packages based on the affordability of the patients.
5. Run a brainstorming session among the leading doctors of the area.

Which of the following sequence of actions is most appropriate for the hospital administration in achieving their goal?

Which of the following decisions is most likely to satisfy all the stakeholders?

Given the current situation, which of the following is the most interactive and effective way to increase the learning among paramedics and doctors?

If Thakur Raja wants to create a lasting impact, the most reasonable option for him is to:

Identify the best argument for Raja to decide in favor of the IRA.

According to DTC, each athlete/sportsperson needs to submit their schedule for the next three months specifying an hour each day when they can be randomly tested for drugs. DTC also ensures the confidentiality of the submitted schedule by:

i. Limiting access of player-supplied information only to two senior officers.
ii. Allowing these officers to access the schedule of only those sports persons who are randomly selected for testing.
iii. Introducing similar security features for DTC database as is the case with financial institutions.

The top three popular players realize security is the only reason for them to get a favorable decision from Raja. Hence during discussions, they should focus on all options except:

Which of the following is most likely to get the affluent parents to accept the school’s policy?

While Mrs. Bhalla understands the problems of overcrowded classrooms and classroom management, she foresees in them an opportunity to develop more sensitive and self-motivated learners.

Mrs. Bhalla is considering the following actions:

1. Take the student and teacher councils on board and seek their ideas to redress the challenge the school faces.
2. Brainstorm with teachers and students on a strategy to engage all learners in teams for meaningful learning and healthy relationships.
3. Encourage students for self-learning and teachers into more supervisory roles to ensure discipline.
4. Engage students in a process of periodic reflection so that they can get in touch with their thoughts, feelings and actions towards self and others.
5. Create achievement based student groups to encourage competition and ease classroom management.

Which of the following combination of actions would be most effective in developing sensitive and self-motivated learners?

Which of the following options will empower students the most?

Which of the following options, if true, would most likely interest Divya to start a franchise?

Which of the following is least likely to demotivate Divya?

What could be the most likely reason for Divya opting for Kazipet?

Which is the most important decision criterion for Divya to consider in such a business situation?

The indian subsidiary is concerned that the delay in launching the product will give undue advantage to some competitor. The organization was considering the following strategies to keep customers engaged with the company:

1. Ask the dealers to encourage their prospective customers to seek similar products from the competition, rather than wait for Limo’s launch.
2. Suggest the dealers to accept booking for Limo, announcing the launch within six months of booking, while in reality plan to keep postponing launch indefinitely.
3. Run full page advertisements in the papers, every month, to keep the interest in the model from ebbing, with no mention of the launch date.
4. Import parts from outside India, and launch the product, at a 30% premium, planning a relaunch a few years later of the indianized version.
5. Go against its worldwide policy of non-interference in supplier plants, and announce a hefty bonus to the employees of the supplier with a hope to temporarily bring the plant to life.
6. Promise the supplier plant (that has some unrest) a higher margin share of about 5% compared to what was shared earlier, with an eye to stem the unrest.

Which of the following combination of responses above, will most likely keep the prospective customers engaged with the company and not jump to some competitor’s product?

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. Electro Automobile is yet to announce the actual price, and the process for allocation of the vehicles.
Which of the following is the best option for Ahmed?