XAT — Essay
XAT is one of the few entrance tests that puts an essay inside the paper rather than at the interview stage, and its prompts are deliberately abstract — the marks are for reasoning under a clock, not for information.
Write on the statement given below. Your essay may be discussed at the interview stage.
- A society that fears failure will never produce anything worth keeping. Discuss.(250 words)
One XAT Essay answer, from question to marked report
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A society that fears failure will never produce anything worth keeping. Discuss.
Type it against the clock, the way the real paper is answered.
Marked in place, with every criterion scored.
Failure is a part of life and society should not fear it. If people fear failure they will not take risks. Entrepreneurs often fail before they succeed. Many great inventions came after many failures. Countries which allow failure have more innovation.? Therefore society should accept failure as part of progress. From childhood we are taught that marks decide everything and that a mistake is something to be ashamed of. A student who is afraid of failing chooses the safest subject and the safest career, and a company whose employees are afraid of blame will keep doing what it did last year. Over time the fear becomes a habit of the whole society and nobody asks a difficult question. In business the same fear appears as a preference for a small certain profit over a large uncertain one. A venture that fails is treated as a personal disgrace and its founder finds it hard to raise money again, so fewer people try at all. Where a failed venture is treated as experience the same person starts again and often succeeds the second or the third time, and investors there expect most of their bets to fail and allow for it. Failure also produces information which success does not, because it shows exactly where the idea broke. A society that hides its failures loses that information and repeats the same mistake in a new form.
- Interpreting worth keeping — the prompt's real hinge
- A non-business example: scientific research, or the arts
- The counter-case: societies that institutionalise risk without accountability
Model answer for this question
Spend the first two lines interpreting the statement, because on an abstract prompt the interpretation IS the essay. Take worth keeping to cover science, art and institutions as well as enterprise. Then one paragraph on the mechanism by which fear of failure suppresses each. Then the honest counter-case, where tolerance of failure becomes tolerance of carelessness. Close with the distinction that resolves it.
Fast enough to write, read the report and rewrite the same answer in one sitting — which is where the improvement actually comes from.
The scoring behind those pen marks: every criterion, what it was worth, what you earned, and a model answer.
Taken literally. The prompt is about what a society keeps, which invites art, science and institutions, not only startups.
Linear and clear, but every paragraph makes the same point.
The most predictable examples available.
Correct and economical.
XAT Essay at a glance
| Conducting body | XLRI Xavier School of Management |
|---|---|
| Mode | Typed in the exam interface |
| Papers | 1 |
| Marking | XAT Essay — examiner criteria |
What XAT Essay sets
The papers you sit, and what each is worth.
A short argumentative essay on an abstract, ethical or policy statement.
- Marked to the XAT Essay scheme
- Model answer, every time
- Handwriting read from a photo
- AI viva on any topic
- Full timed papers
- Every attempt kept in your archive
- WriteA question, answered and marked.
- VivaQuestioned on Capitalism with a conscience and more.
- Full paperA timed paper, one scorecard.