XAT 2021 Question Paper

Read the following statements and answer the question that follows.
1. Some countries are, at least, trying to curb emissions.
2. Morocco is building a colossal solar-power plant in the desert.
3. States in the Middle East and North Africa can do little on their own to mitigate climate change.
4. Saudi Arabia is not going to stop exporting oil, but it plans to build a solar plant that will be about 200 times the size of the biggest such facility operating today.
5. Politics often gets in the way of problem solving.
Arrange the above five statements in a logical sequence.

Read the following statements and answer the question that follows.
1. Behavioral models in finance most often critique the efficient market hypothesis, which states that if investors behave rationally then prices should reflect all available information about the financial asset in consideration.
2. A number of behavioral models, including feedback models where investors bid up the price, have been used to explain this phenomenon.
3. But asset price bubbles and crashes belie this conclusion.
4. Finance is one of the fields where behavioral models have been used extensively, enough for behavioral finance.
5. This idea of “irrational exuberance” is now widely accepted and used in financial analysis, especially while analyzing asset price bubbles.
Arrange the above five statements in a logical sequence.

Which of the following sentences uses a WRONG tag-question?

Read the following statement:
While start-ups have__________ reach, _____ they introduce ________ products, they open-up ________ markets.
Fill in the blanks meaningfully, in the above statement, from the following options.

Read the following passage and answer the question that follows.
The painting, which is in poor condition, suggests that a highly advanced artistic culture existed some 44,000 years ago, punctuated by folklore, religious myths and spiritual belief. The scene may be regarded not only as the earliest dated figurative art in the world but also as the oldest evidence for the communication of a narrative in Palaeolithic art.

"This is noteworthy, given that the ability to invent fictional stories may have been the last and most crucial stage in the evolutionary history of human language and the development of modern-like patterns of cognition” researchers said.

Which of the following can be BEST concluded from the passage?

Which of the following statements can be BEST inferred from the passage?

According to the passage, our emphasis on dualism or on unity is BEST guided by:

According to the passage, why do people in meetings routinely answer their cell phones to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t talk now, I’m in a meeting.”?

What does the author BEST intend to convey when he says, “Now more people have cell phones than have toilets?”

Which of the following can be BEST inferred from the passage?

Which of the following statements CANNOT be inferred from the passage?

Based on the passage, which of the following statements BEST defines “quorum sensing” in bacteria?

Which of the following statements is NOT based on the premises of the passage?

Read the following passage and answer the question that follows.
We can think of the history of life on earth as a vast, long-term experiment in pure competition. Every living organism is competing with all other living organisms for resources (nutrients, sunlight, water, territory, etc.). Nature, or the natural world, is a laboratory of unfettered competition. It’s a dog-eat-dog, no-holds-barred, day-in and day-out struggle.

There are no governmental regulators to protect the weak or favor the strong. All organisms are given a chance, but not necessarily an equal chance. As the climate and the environment change (and change they do), some organisms are favored over others at times, but these advantages are fleeting. What nature gives, nature can take away.

Which of the following can be BEST concluded from the passage?

Which of the following can be BEST described as the core message of the excerpt?

In conveying the core message, the Para 2:

Which of the following BEST captures the essence of the poem?

What does the poet BEST convey by mentioning grackles in these lines, “...with grackles all around, /Staring with beady eyes, and you two feet away.”?

Based on the passage, which of the following statements BEST explains “absent presence”?

Based on the passage, which of the following options BEST describes “double not thinking”?

Which of the following statements can be BEST concluded from the passage?

What does the author BEST mean when he says, “We must discuss each question within the uncertainties that are allowed?”

Which of the following BEST describes the essence of the passage?

Read the following sentences and answer the question that follows.

1. We are going to a restaurant but we haven’t decided which one.
2. We went to the toilet behind the tree.
3. It was the November after we went to Indonesia.
4. My friend is travelling to UK.
5. She drinks medicine by a litre.
6. Would you rather go out or watch a TV.

Which of the above sentences have INCORRECT usages of articles?

Read the following sentences and answer the question that follows.

1. In my opinion, Tom Jones is a picaresque novel.
2. According to me, Tom Jones is a bildungsroman.
3. The books were distributed between Jessica, Neha and Swati.
4. The books were distributed among Jessica and Neha.
5. Life teaches us important lessons.
6. The life moves forward, teaches backward.

Which of the above sentences are grammatically CORRECT?

Read the following passage and answer the question that follows.

Twitter is not on the masthead of a newspaper. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor. As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions.

Based on the passage, the writer’s disappointment can be BEST summarised as:

What BEST is known about the team compositions for the projects rated C?

What BEST is known about the team composition for the project rated A*?

Total amount of money paid for projects rated A (in lakhs of Rupees) is:

What is the number of happy male shoppers?

Which among the following is the lowest?

Which among the following cannot be determined uniquely?

The average age of the female patients who weigh 50 kg or above is approximately

The highest BMI among all patients is approximately

The BMI of the oldest person considered as normal weight is approximately

If $\log_4m + \log_4n = \log_2(m + n)$ where m and n are positive real numbers, then which of the following must be true?

Mr. Jose buys some eggs. After bringing the eggs home, he finds two to be rotten and throws them away. Of the remaining eggs, he puts five-ninth in his fridge, and brings the rest to his mother’s house. She cooks two eggs and puts the rest in her fridge. If her fridge cannot hold more than five eggs, what is the maximum possible number of eggs bought by Mr. Jose?

Mohan has some money (₹M) that he divides in the ratio of 1:2. He then deposits the smaller amount in a savings scheme that offers a certain rate of interest, and the larger amount in another savings scheme that offers half of that rate of interest. Both interests compound yearly. At the end of two years, the total interest earned from the two savings schemes is ₹830. It is known that one of the interest rates is 10% and that Mohan deposited more than ₹1000 in each saving scheme at the start. What is the value of M?

A small store has five units of a new phone model in stock: two white, two black, and one red. Three customers arrive at the shop to buy a unit each. Each one has a pre- determined choice of the colour and will not buy a unit of any other colour. All the three customers are equally likely to have chosen any of the three colours. What is the probability that the store will be able to satisfy all the three customers?

At any point of time, let x be the smaller of the two angles made by the hour hand with the minute hand on an analogue clock (in degrees). During the time interval from 2:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., what is the minimum possible value of x?

One third of the buses from City A to City B stop at City C, while the rest go non-stop to City B. One third of the passengers, in the buses stopping at City C, continue to City B, while the rest alight at City C. All the buses have equal capacity and always start full from City A. What proportion of the passengers going to City B from City A travel by a bus stopping at City C?

Rajesh, a courier delivery agent, starts at point A and makes a delivery each at points B, C and D, in that order. He travels in a straight line between any two consecutive points. The following are known: (i) AB and CD intersect at a right angle at E, and (ii) BC, CE and ED are respectively 1.3 km, 0.5 km and 2.5 km long. If AD is parallel to BC, then what is the total distance (in km) that Rajesh covers in travelling from A to D?

Let $f(x) = \frac{x^2 + 1}{x^2 - 1}$ if $x \neq 1, -1,$ and 1 if x = 1, -1. Let $g(x) = \frac{x + 1}{x - 1}$ if $x \neq 1,$ and 3 if x = 1.
What is the minimum possible values of $\frac{f(x)}{g(x)}$ ?

Swati can row a boat on still water at a speed of 5 km/hr. However, on a given river, it takes her 1 hour more to row the boat 12 km upstream than downstream. One day, Swati rows the boat on this river from X to Y, which is N km upstream from X. Then she rows back to X immediately. If she takes at least 2 hours to complete this round trip, what is the minimum possible value of N?

Rahul has just made a $3 \times 3$ magic square, in which, the sum of the cells along any row, column or diagonal, is the same number N. The entries in the cells are given as expressions in x, y, and Z. Find N?

On the bank of the pristine Tunga river, a deer and a tiger are joyfully playing with each other. The deer notices that it is 40 steps away from the tiger and starts running towards it. At the same time, the tiger starts running away from the deer. Both run on the same straight line. For every five steps the deer takes, the tiger takes six. However, the deer takes only two steps to cover the distance that the tiger covers in three. In how many steps can the deer catch the tiger?

The six faces of a wooden cube of side 6 cm are labelled A, B, C, D, E and F respectively. Three of these faces A, B, and C are each adjacent to the other two, and are painted red. The other three faces are not painted. Then, the wooden cube is neatly cut into 216 little cubes of equal size. How many of the little cubes have no sides painted?

ABC is a triangle with integer-valued sides AB = 1, BC >1, and CA >1. If D is the mid-point of AB, then, which of the following options is the closest to the maximum possible value of the angle ACD (in degrees)?

Find z, if it is known that:
a: $-y^2 + x^2 = 20$
b: $y^3 - 2x^2 - 4z \geq -12$ and
c: x, y and z are all positive integers

An encryption system operates as follows:

Step 1. Fix a number k $(k \leq 26)$.

Step 2. For each word, swap the first k letters from the front with the last k letters from the end in reverse order. If a word contains less than 2k letters, write the entire word in reverse order.

Step 3. Replace each letter by a letter k spaces ahead in the alphabet. If you cross Z in the process to move k steps ahead, start again from A.

Example: k = 2: zebra --> arbez --> ctdgb.

If the word “flight” becomes “znmorl” after encryption, then the value of k:

The topmost point of a perfectly vertical pole is marked A. The pole stands on a flat ground at point D. The points B and C are somewhere between A and D on the pole. From a point E, located on the ground at a certain distance from D, the points A, B and C are at angles of 60, 45 and 30 degrees respectively. What is AB : BC : CD?

Two circles P and Q, each of radius 2 cm, pass through each other’s centres. They intersect at points A and B. A circle R is drawn with diameter AB. What is the area of overlap (in square cm) between the circles R and P?

Four friends, Ashish, Brian, Chaitra, and Dorothy, decide to jog for 30 minutes inside a stadium with a circular running track that is 200 metres long. The friends run at different speeds. Ashish completes a lap exactly every 60 seconds. Likewise, Brian, Chaitra and Dorothy complete a lap exactly every 1 minute 30 seconds, 40 seconds and 1 minute 20 seconds respectively. The friends begin together at the start line exactly at 4 p.m. What is the total of the numbers of laps the friends would have completed when they next cross the start line together ?

Zahir and Raman are at the entrance of a dark cave. To enter this cave, they need to open a number lock. Raman sees a note on a rock: “ ... chest of pure diamonds kept for the smart one ... number has six digits ... second last digit is 2, third last is 4 ... divisible by all prime numbers less than 15 ...”. Excited, Zahir and Raman seek your help: which of these can be the first digit of the six-digit number that will help them open the lock?

The table below lists countries and capital cities

Which of the following options has the correct match of the countries with their respective capital cities?

From which organisation was Timnit Gebru terminated recently?

Which Wildlife Sanctuary/National Park is identified and prepared to translocate Asiatic Lions from Gir National Park, Gujarat?

Which of the following is a Danish dependency?

15-year old Gitanjali Rao was recently in the news. Which of the following best describes her?

Match the following wild animal species with the national parks/wildlife sanctuaries where they naturally occur in India:

Which Indian business group built the British Royal Navy ship, HMS Minden, on which the lyrics of the national anthem of the United States of America was supposedly written?

Which of the following will be a debut event in the Summer Olympics of 2024?

In India, where did Mahatma Gandhi stage his first major Satyagraha in 1917?

Who is the chief minister of Jharkhand as of 31st December 2020?

Which of the following mountain ranges houses the famous pilgrimage Amarkantak?

Who authored the famous book Economy of Permanence?

Dries Mertens, recently became the highest goal-scorer for the football club Napoli by surpassing the tally of 115 goals across all competitions. Whose goal scoring record did he surpass?

Who was the first Indian to win the Global Teacher Prize?

The first woman to lead a listed Indian Information Technology (IT) company is:

Which of the following is not an OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) member?

Vijay Prashad’s discussion event at the online Tata Literature Live!,2020, was cancelled. Who was to feature in the discussion with Vijay Prashad?

What is Hayabusa2?

Which is the first GI tagged product in India?

Who was recently appointed as the CEO of Cafe Coffee Day?

Who was the first woman chief minister in Independent India?

Tedros Adhanom has been in the news for the last one year for being:

What is the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?

Which of the following is not an online learning application?

Arecibo telescope, known for its stellar contributions in the field of astronomy, collapsed recently. Where was it located?

Ashraf feels happy after this brief email interaction with Sridevi.

Which of the following statements, if true, will BEST make Ashraf strongly hopeful about his imminent promotion?

Ashraf does not hear anything from Sridevi in the next few days. Anxious, he meets up with Sridevi and enquires if the gift vouchers were appreciated by the client. This surprises Sridevi who closely scrutinises Ashraf’s emails and discovers that they originated from sridevi@nutich.com, instead of sridevi@nutech.com, her official email ID.

Taken aback, Ashraf requests Sridevi’s help in getting compensated by the company for his ₹50,000 loss. Sridevi asks Ashraf to justify his compensation demand. Ashraf gives the following reasons:

1. I erred; however, my financial rectitude is on record.
2. I acted in the greater interest of the company.
3. The spam mail reached my inbox due to the failure of the company’s email filter.
4. A NuTech employee, who was robbed of ₹20,000 of company’s cash, was not punished.
5. In the past, some of my acquaintances had been similarly duped.

Which of the abovementioned reasons, in a combination, will BEST help Sridevi take up the issue with the top management?

Sridevi begins to doubt Ashraf’s competencies, given the way he handled the phishing emails. Thus, she convenes a meeting with the senior leadership to discuss Ashraf’s role in the company.

In the meeting, she shares the following observations:

1. Ashraf is poor at verbal communication, which is critical at subsequent levels.
2. Ashraf should have been perceptive, even though the company’s email filter failed him.
3. Ashraf joined the email filter team one month prior to his receiving the phishing emails.
4. Ashraf rushed to act on Sridevi’s request despite his busy schedule.
5. Ashraf appears to be highly anxious to get promoted.

Which of the above observations, in a combination, if true, shall BEST go against Ashraf’s chances of getting promoted?

Soon after, the MNC filed a case against PK for criminal assault and tarnishing its brand image.

Which of the following is the MOST appropriate reason for the MNC to file a case against PK?

Post the slapping incident, there was a strong social media backlash against PK. His PR team suggested the following social media releases that he could use not only to defend himself but also to garner positive reactions.

Which of the following social media releases will BEST help PK achieve the purpose?

A few months passed and the slapping incident still garnered a good number of views on social media. PK’s publicist was aware that PK harboured a desire to join politics. She wanted PK to make the most of the publicity around the incident before it fadeed away from public memory in the next few months.

Which of the following options will BEST help PK take just advantage of the situation?

Damdu, an ambitious trader of Tendua, wants to have exclusive access to all the surplus produce from Churna.

Which of the following offers to the Churna village will BEST help Damdu achieve her objective?

The head woman of Churna grants exclusive access to the surplus produce to Damdu. However, Damdu’s euphoria dies down when she finds fewer takers for Churna’s produce in Tendua. This trend continues for the next few months.

Which of the following could be the MOST possible reason for Damdu finding fewer takers for Churna’s produce at Tendua?

A few months after granting exclusive access to Damdu, the village council of Churna meets to discuss the progress. After much debate and heated discussions, the village council decides to terminate the contract with Damdu. The village council feels that if the contract continues, then:

1. Over time, Churna’s produce will lose its association with Churna.
2. Churna's people will be ignorant of new developments in the market.
3. Churna’s dance and song will lose their identity.
4. Churna’s people will lose social interaction with the outer world.
5. Churna’s people will lose their hard bargaining skills.

Which of the above concerns, when arranged in descending order of significance, will BEST support the decision to terminate the contract with Damdu?

What should be BEST held responsible for the accident?

Rohini has her concluding session scheduled the very next day.

Which of the following is the BEST course of action for Rohini regarding the final session?

With the sixth term round the corner, Rohini goes to the Maple service centre only to find that the replacement for her crashed monitor may take several weeks. However, Dhanraj, the service centre head, offers to replace the damaged monitor with a monitor from a used laptop. He assures Rohini that the used monitor is as good as a new one.

Which of the following options, if true, will give Rohini the BEST reason to accept the offer?

Sandeep shared the news of the admission offer first with Kesar, who exhibited mixed feelings. He was happy for Sandeep’s admission to the National Law School; nevertheless, he was concerned about their father’s reaction. Moreover, Saradeep had an anxiety attack a few months back and was working from their family mansion in Shimla. Kesar advised Sandeep to delay sharing his selection news with their father.

Which of the following, if true, will BEST enable Sandeep share the news with Saradeep without delay?

Saradeep requested Kesar to decide on the head of a new manufacturing plant. The plant and its culture had to be moulded in the same way as their other plants. Kesar wanted to identify a candidate, acceptable to Saradeep.

Which of the following candidates is the BEST choice for the position?

Kesar was also concerned about Taapsi’s reaction to Sandeep joining the National Law School. She wanted to be a fashion designer; however, Saradeep dissuaded her from doing anything other than production engineering. She was very upset with her father’s decision back then; nevertheless, over time, she became a staunch supporter of her father’s values and beliefs. Currently, she headed one of the plants, which also happened to be the best run company plant. Kesar felt that she would not take Sandeep’s decision well; she might try to prevent Sandeep from pursuing higher studies in Law.

Which of the following, if true, will BEST assuage Kesar’s fear regarding Taapsi?

During an informal office gathering, Himaja mustered up courage to ask Nirmal for a client-facing role.

Which of the following reasons, if true, will BEST justify Nirmal saying “no” to Himaja?

Due to her constant pleading, Nirmal assigned Himaja a client-facing role in his project. Nirmal instructed her that he would do all the talking during meetings, and she would diligently listen and take notes. However, in the first meeting, Himaja made a comment which contradicted Nirmal. In the next, she interrupted the client while he was making a point. This offended the client, resulting in Nirmal apologising to the client to save the project.

Which of the following is the MOST appropriate action that Nirmal should take against Himaja’s behaviour?

Another month passed, and Himaja was working under Shreya in a different team. Shreya was impressed by Himaja’s enthusiasm and sincerity. She asked Himaja to accompany her to a meeting with a new client. During the meeting, Himaja made a statement that offended the client. Shreya tried to diffuse the situation by asking Himaja to apologise. Though Himaja apologised, she defended her statement. This infuriated the client further, who categorically told that the statement of Himaja was against his organisation’s core values. He specifically told Shreya that unless concrete steps were taken against Himaja, he would not get into any business with the firm.

Which of the following is the MOST appropriate action that Shreya should take in the interest of all parties?

Amish is concerned with the trending boycott calls and its probable impact on FICT’s brand image.

Given the social media backlash, which of the following courses of action will help Amish BEST defend FICT’s continued association with the celebrity?

FICT’s closest competitor, ShopAtUs (SAU), wants to grab this opportunity. They have come up with a slogan, “Never at the cost of human rights!” which has started trending in the social media. Amish is unsure if he should respond to the social media campaign of the competitor.

Which of the following options, if true, will BEST assure Amish that SAU’s slogan is not affecting FICT’s business negatively?

TRACT, a major travel and hospitality conglomerate, operates globally with a significant presence in Wadiya. Ever since the celebrity has signed the contract with Wadiya Tourism, the number of international tourists in Wadiya has increased manyfold. Companies like TRACT have a great hope towards the future of tourism in Wadiya. Consequently, TRACT is looking forward to increase its investments in Wadiya. However, TRACT is concerned about the social media backlash against the celebrity. TRACT fears that the celebrity may terminate his contract with Wadiya Tourism.

Which of the following data, available in the public domain, will BEST assure TRACT that the celebrity will continue his association with the tourism sector of Wadiya?