Indian Institute of Foreign Trade is conducting the IIFT exam on December 02, 2018. Around 60k candidates will appear for the examination for admission to the academic year 2019-21. Students who have an exam must download the admit card and follow the exam instruction written on it. Since IIFT is taking place after many surprises in CAT 2018, candidates are now aspiring to perform better in other exams to improve the prospect to study in the top b-schools in India.
IIFT is one of the major national level exams that offer admission to MBA in International Business. Though the difficulty level of both the exams is same, still IIFT can be cracked if attempted with proper strategy. The preparation of IIFT is same as CAT but what makes the former different is the General Knowledge section. Let’s go one by one and check how IIFT is different and how to tackle each section.
Reading comprehension
The major difference in IIFT and CAT Reading comprehension is the length of the passage. Generally, RCs in IIFT are long (1000-1200 words) but more of fact-based. Whereas in CAT passages are more of both inferences based and fact-based type questions. So, candidates can read questions first and mark the keywords. Following that read the passage and mark the keywords wherever they are mentioned. It will help to solve questions without reading the long passage again and again.
Allot 20-25 minutes for this section in the exam. Last year, the cut off was 2.69 out of 16. So, keep the target of solving atleast 8 questions correctly.
Verbal Ability
The verbal ability section of IIFT is quite different from CAT. There is no fixed pattern for IIFT, sometimes the exam is dominated by vocabulary, grammar and so on. Thus for this section, revise the grammar rules, vocabulary, confusing words, homophones, idioms, phrases, sentence correction etc. So in the exam, candidates can start with vocabulary questions, para jumbles and then other questions.
Solve: IIFT Previous Year Question papers
Allot 10-15 minutes for this section in the exam. Last year, the cut off was 3.35 out of 20. So, keep the target of solving atleast 8-10 questions correctly.
Quantitative Ability
In IIFT this section is quite direct, lengthy and requires lots of calculation. Apart from that, it is more or less similar to CAT. So in this section, try to start with the known topics, as long calculation is required do not spend much time if a question seems undoable. Remembering the formulas helps to solve most of the questions in IIFT.
As a good startegy, allot 30-35 minutes for this section. Last year, the cut off was 3.01 out of 20. So, keep the target of solving atleast 7-10 questions correctly.
Data Interpretation
Questions of this section in IIFT requires intensive calculation. Solving even one set can help to clear the cutoff. So, work a little on the calculation speed also revise the squares, cubes, fraction which helps to do calculation fast. In the exam, it is not important to solve all questions of the set. Candidates can do 2 questions in one set and 2 in another.
Allot 25-30 minutes for this section. Last year, the cut off was only 0.25 out of 15. So, looking at the difficulty level, solving even three questions correctly can help to clear the cut off.
Logical Reasoning
This section is a little bit easier than CAT but candidates sometimes do have to face the tricky questions in this section. Apart from puzzle questions, candidates must also prepare questions from critical reasoning, Strong-Weak Arguments, Family Tree etc.
Allot 20-325 minutes for this section. Last year, the cut off was highest for this section, 5.67 out of 15. So, keep the target of solving 12-13 questions correctly.
General Knowledge
GK is one of the difficult section of the exam. This section can be completed in a maximum of 5 minutes. The difficulty arises when the questions are in a passage form as compared to direct one. As only a few days has been left, instead of grasping GK in last days, try to attempt this section with 100% accuracy. Last year, the cut off was only 0.88 out of 9.
Recommended: How to prepare for IIFT GK?
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