IIFT 2015 Exam Analysis (2016-2018 batch)

The aspirants of Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) thronged around various exam centres across major cities in the country on Sunday morning, November 22, 2015, to write the Admission Test 2016-2018 for admission into its two-year program in International Business in its Delhi and Kolkata campus. The test was conducted across various centers in the country between 10 am and 12 noon.

There was a total of 124 questions spread over four sections with a negative marking of 1/3rd of the maximum marks allotted to that question. The test did not have many changes and surprises this time around. The difficulty level of the exam was a bit less as compared to that of the last year with a few exception. Overall, the questions in the exam were doable and a total of 100+ attempts out of 124 with 85-90% accuracy should fetch the coveted call from this elite B-school.

The distribution of IIFT 2015 has been a little staggered with differential marking system. The sectional distribution of the test is as below:

*Cutoff for General category students is most likely to be in the range of 40-42 marks. The corresponding figures for NC/OBC and SC/ST/PWD should be around 34-36 and 30-32 marks respectively.

Distribution of Marks-IIFT 2015

Sectional Analysis

General Awareness

GK questions each carrying 0.50 marks were from a varied number of topics. The section cover both static GK and current affairs from a wide range of topics such as history, geography, polity, science, business& economy, sports & misc. The difficulty level was on the moderate to higher side- hence the expected cut-off of GK is expected to be in the range of 2.00 - 2.50. An attempt of 10 - 12 questions with an effective score of 4 - 5 could be considered as a good one.
The distribution of question area is as given below:

Reading Comprehension and English Usage

English Usage and Reading comprehension was the 2nd section of IIFT- 2015 exam. This section contained 36 questions out of which 16 were from RC each carrying 1 mark and 20 from English usage each carrying 0.75 mark.

Question of RC passages were a mix of factual and inferential. Two of the four given passages slightly were tricky. .This was a section students must have cashed in on by being judicious in selecting the right questions. While RC passages were expectedly lengthy and time consuming, at least 7-8 questions, which were specific information based, could have been attempted without reading the passages completely. The time consuming questions were best avoided as they required evaluation of all the options.

A detailed breakup of the section is given below:

English Usage questions each carrying 0.75 marks were on the expected line and relatively simpler with a moderate level of Vocabulary and Para-jumble questions. An attempt of around 15-16 questions in about 20 minutes was possible for a well-prepared student. As usual the section was dominated by Vocabulary questions including Idioms and Phrasal Verb and Figure of speech. Surprisingly grammar questions were conspicuous by their absence and there were a few questions on Para-jumble and Para-completion.
A detailed breakup of the section is given below

Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation Analysis
LR & DI with 38 questions in total and around 21 Questions on Data Interpretation (DI) each carrying 1 mark and 17 questions were based on Logical Reasoning each carrying 0.75 mark. All sets were quite easy and doable. The single questions were also easy and any good candidate must have attempted all in order to maximize marks. An attempt of 18-20 questions in 25-30 min was possible.

The breakup of these questions is as below:

Break up of Logical Reasoning part of this section is as below:

Quantitative Ability
Out of 22 questions in Quant, each carrying 1 mark, most were of class 10 standard. Though candidates expected higher difficulty level questions most of them found the section not so difficult. The breakup of prominent topics on which questions were based in Quantitative Ability is as below:

Performance in each section will play an important role in getting good marks as there are differential marking system.

Disclaimer: All analysis and prediction are based on the experience shared by various test takers after the test.

Falguni Goswami Head - Test Prep (Collegedekh.com)