IIFT 2016 Exam Analysis: Unexpected Surprises Result in Poor Time Management

Sunday, 27th November 2016 Written Test for the flagship program Master of Business Administration in International Business (MBA-IB) of IIFT was held between 10.00 a.m. and 12.00 noon across 20 cities across the country. Nearly 40000 thousand aspirants slogged it out for 360 seats in two coveted IIFT campuses - Delhi campus with 220 seats and Kolkata campus with 140 seats.

True to its reputation, IIFT 2016 IIFT didn’t shy away from throwing up surprises, which left many a test taker struggling for time management as they found it difficult to attempt the maximum possible number of questions than they could actually do. The IIFT 2016 exam had a total of 123 questions. It is interesting to note that the weightage of LRDI section was increased to 36.5% in IIFT 2016 from 33% in IIFT 2015.

As in the past, the overall difficulty level exam was moderate to high and due to a time crunch; many candidates found it difficult to attempt many questions even though they thought they knew the answers of those unattempted questions. Most of the candidates reported solved only about 50 to 60% of the questions.

2016 IIFT Exam had 123 questions, 1 less than IIFT 2015. This time the weightage awarded to each section was – 36.5% on LRDI; 31% on VARC; 20% on Quant and 14% on General Awareness. The cut-off is expected between a score of 47 to 49 marks in IIFT 2016 out of maximum 100 marks.

Many a coaching has taken an initiative to predict your IIFT 2016 score/ rank in the exam and help predict whether you would get a call from IIFT based on your performance.

A quick look at IIFT 2016 Paper Pattern:

A total of 123 questions spread over four sections with a negative marking of 1/3rd of the maximum marks allotted to that question. The details of the sections are given below:

*Cutoff mentioned above is for General category students. The corresponding figures for NC/OBC and SC/ST/PWD should be around 37-40 and 32-35 marks respectively.

IIFT Section-Wise Analysis & Cut-off:

General Awareness

General Awareness (GK) section in IIFT exam has traditionally been difficult & this year too, it was no exception. The number of GK questions was reduced to 25 in IIFT 2016 from 28 in IIFT 2015, as also marks per question is reduced from 14% to 12.5% as 0.50, thereby reducing the weightage of the GK section in the overall scheme of the things.

Candidates found the level of questions difficult. But there was a silver lining as the cut-off in the GK section has been very low historically. In IIFT 2016, the cut-off is expected to be of 1 mark as against only 0.82 mark last year.

Questions in this section were asked from static Business & Economy and current affairs as well as miscellaneous GK. There were questions from history, geography, polity, science, books & author, sports etc. as well. The difficulty level was almost same as last year, and the expected cut-off of GK should be around 1.5-2.5 marks. An attempt of 10 - 15 questions with an effective score of 4 - 5 can be considered as a good one.

The sectional details are as given below:

Reading Comprehension and English Usage

Reading Comprehension, as usual, will make the difference in 2016 as well. Students who have not attempted this section might regret. The passages were short or at least not lengthy. There were four passages with four questions each. The passages came from familiar areas and most of the questions were direct making it easy to optimize the score in this section. An attempt of around 10-12 questions with 80% accuracy in 20 minutes is a good attempt.

English usage was challenging as usual. The vocabulary questions had three questions that were etymology-based. The idioms were also difficult. Spelling, cloze test, and sentence jumble questions were quite doable. An attempt of 15 questions 80% accuracy in 15 minutes is a good attempt.

A detailed breakup of the section is given below:

Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation (LDRI)

LRDI was the game changer and it is imperative to score well here. The section started with LR and choosing the right question was the key to scoring high. Reasoning questions comprised of Grouping and Arrangement, Analogy, Series, Blood relation and Syllogism. An attempt of 14-16 questions with 80% accuracy would be good.

DI portion of this section had 20 questions, which was not very difficult. The two sets of tables should surely have been attempted. The bar charts on A, B, C Ltd. were doable and approximation would have helped. An attempt of 14-16 questions with 80% accuracy would be a good attempt.

Quantitative Ability (QA)

Focus in QA shifted from Arithmetic to Algebra and Modern Math in 2016 IIFT exam. The section comprised of Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Mensuration and Trigonometry, P&C and Probability, Set theory and Numbers. A couple of questions from P&C and Probability were slightly difficult and the language of the right circular cylinder questions was slightly misleading. Most of the other questions were. 15-16 attempts in 30 minutes with an accuracy of 80% would be good.