XAT 2024 – How to Crack Verbal Ability

In the first part of the XAT exam, you get a total of 165 minutes to answer 75 questions. This includes verbal questions in the verbal & logical ability section. It’s important not to exceed 45 minutes on the Verbal & Logical Ability section. Keep in mind that some top institutes consider sectional cut-offs, so try to balance your attempts across sections if these institutes are your goal. In this article we have shared tips and tricks on How to Crack Verbal Ability, read entire article for more information.

How to Crack Verbal Ability – Exam Pattern 

In 2024, the XAT Exam organizers made a few changes. They added a new part called ‘Mock Keyboard Testing’ in Section B. The General Knowledge and Essay writing parts were moved to Section C. Instead of 101 questions, there were now 105, and the whole exam lasted for 210 minutes.

Section	Subjects	Number of Questions	XAT Exam Time
Part-I	Decision Making	22	175 minutes
	Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation	28
	Verbal and Logical Ability	26
Part-II	Mock Keyboard Testing (new section)	–	5 minutes
Part-III	General Knowledge	25	30 minutes
	Essay	1 (to be answered out of 3)
Total		105	210 minutes

Note: There is no sectional time limit for Part-1

How to Crack Verbal Ability

The XAT verbal ability section consists of 26 questions as per the XAT exam pattern. Out of these, the majority of the questions will be focused on reading comprehension. It is well known that XAT reading comprehension passages are tough as they are not fact-based like other exams, instead, they are more inclined towards inference based. In addition to that, the reading comprehension section is lengthy and information-dense.

XAT Verbal Ability – Important Points

• The verbal ability section consists of 26 questions
• The level of difficulty for the verbal section is moderate to tough
• The verbal ability section contains questions mostly from RC passages
• The RC passages are lengthy, inference based and information dense, thus consuming quite a bit of time to solve.
• Candidates can expect a minimum of 4 RC passages in the exam, each consisting of three questions.
• In addition to the RC passages, there might also be poems included. The poems can be moderate to difficult.

XAT 2024 – Verbal Ability Break-up

The topic-wise break up of the Verbal ability for XAT 2024 is presented below for the candidate’s reference. Candidates preparing for XAT 2024 can expect a similar kind of paper in the exam.

Topics	Questions
Reading Comprehension (Passage + Poem)	17
Fill in the blanks – 4 blanks	1
Grammar – Correct the sentence	3
Para jumble – 5 sentences	2
Critical Reasoning	3

It can be seen that XAT verbal ability sections give more than 50% weightage to reading comprehension. Therefore, candidates should give more emphasis on reading comprehension to score good marks in the verbal ability section.

The other areas that are covered under the VALR section include critical reasoning, para jumbles, filling in the blanks, poem comprehension and correcting the sentence etc.

Tips to Crack XAT Verbal Ability

The following preparation tips will help the candidates appearing for XAT 2024 in their preparation for the XAT exam.

• Candidates should form a habit of extensive reading during the preparation of XAT 2024, as it will benefit them not only in reading comprehension but also in other areas such as sentence correction, vocabulary etc.
• The area of study should be broad as the reading comprehension passages in the XAT paper are mostly based on history, arts and culture, psychology and philosophy.
• It is suggested to candidates to not indulge in speed reading in XAT. This is due to the fact that XAT reading comprehension passages are inference based and candidates may miss out on vital information if it is read like fact-based passages.
• Also, some of the candidates may have the habit of reading the question first and then the passage. This approach also needs to be changed as XAT passages are more complex and answers are inference based, therefore it will be time-consuming to shuffle between questions and passages in the exam.
• Try and complete the verbal ability section within 50-55 minutes as it will give you enough time to concentrate on the other two sections in part1.
• Do not spend too much time on one question as it will reduce the time for attempting other questions.
• If you are not sure of any answer do not try to guess, as the XAT exam has negative marking for the Part-1 sections. Negative marking will only reduce your score.

XAT Verbal Ability – Best Books

The following are the list of some books that can be used for XAT verbal ability preparation:

• High School English Grammar & Composition by Wren & Martin.
• Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis 
• Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension by Ajay Singh
• A Modern Approach to Verbal & Non-Verbal Reasoning by R.S. Aggarwal

Conclusion

XAT Verbal ability is one of those sections with most questions after Quantitative aptitude, so candidates must prepare well for this section. We hope this blog tips on how to crack verbal ability for XAT help the candidates in their XAT exam preparation.

How to Crack Verbal Ability – Frequently Asked Question