IIFT Exam

Intro

The aim of the institute is to professionalize the country's foreign trade management and increase exports by developing human resources; generating, analyzing and disseminating data; and conducting research.
The Institute's portfolio of long-term programmes is diverse, catering to the requirements of aspiring International Business executives and mid-career professionals alike. These are:

1. Two-year MBA (International Business) New Delhi, Kolkata, and Dar-es-Salaam
2. Three-year MBA (International Business) (Part-Time) New Delhi and Kolkata
3. Executive Masters in International Business, New Delhi
4. Certificate Programme in Export Management, New Delhi

IIFT has, over the years, undertaken path-breaking research studies with organisations like WTO, World Bank, UNCTAD and the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India

Pattern

Dates:

The IIFT exam is generally held on the 4th Sunday of November. The results are released by mid-December. The registrations for the exam start about 2 months prior to the exam.

IIFT 2014 Paper Analysis

Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) conducted the Admission Test 2015-2017 for admission into its two-year program in International Business, on Sunday, November 23, 2014. The test was conducted across various centers in the country between 10 am and 12 noon.
Unlike a relatively easier CAT, IIFT did not prove to be a cakewalk. The hard work done for CAT would have paid off in this paper. IIFT, this year, saw some major changes with respect to both, the pattern of the paper and the difficulty level. While the total number of questions went down from 128 last year to 118, the difficulty level of the paper as a whole went up. This is likely to pull down the cutoffs by at least 8-10 marks.

There was a total of 118 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:

	Section	Total no. of questions	Marks per question	Total Marks	Good Attempts	Achievable Score	Sectional Cutoff	Ideal Time (in minutes)
Section 1	General Awareness	26	0.50	13	12-15	4-5	2-3	10-12
Section 2 - Part 1	English Usage	20	0.75	15	20-22	11-13	5-6	35-40
Section 2 - Part 2	Reading Comprehension	17	1.00	17
Section 3	Logical Reasoning	20	1.00	20	10-12	9-11	6-6.5	20-25
Section 4 - Part 1	Data Interpretation	15	1.00	15	14-16	11-12	6-7	40-45
Section 4 - Part 2	Quantitative Ability	20	1.00	20
	Overall	118		100	56-65	38-40	35-36*	120

*Cutoff for General category students is most likely to be in the range of 35-36 marks. The corresponding figures for NC/OBC and SC/ST/PWD should be around 32-33 and 29-30 marks respectively.

General Awareness

This section of the paper was mostly dominated by current affairs with more emphasis on Business and Sports Personalities. A few questions from Economy were based on Human Development Index (HDI), Census, etc. The remaining questions were largely on expected lines. So, those students who follow Gyan Dhara and Daily GK Update provided by CL Educate Ltd. on its SIS page would have easily attempted at least 16-18 questions.
The sectional details are as given below:

Topic	Number of Questions	Level of Difficulty
Current Affairs	16	Moderate
Business and Economy	9	Easy
Miscellaneous	1	Moderate
TOTAL	26	Moderate

Reading Comprehension and English Usage

This was a section that the students could have capitalized on by judiciously selecting the right questions. While RC passages were expectedly lengthy, at least 7-8 questions, which were specific information based, could have been attempted without reading the passages completely. It was not wise to attempt time consuming questions that required evaluation of all the options since the passages were replete with information.

English Usage questions were relatively simpler with moderate level of vocabulary and grammar based questions. A candidate could have easily attempted around 14-15 questions in about 20-22 minutes.
A detailed breakup of the section is given below:

Part	Topic	Number of Questions	Level of Difficulty
Part 1: Reading Comprehension	Passage 1: Wigan Athletic	5	Easy-Moderate
	Passage 2: Jemubhai	4	Easy
	Passage 3: Garibaldi	5	Moderate
	Passage 4: Credit Disbursement	3	Easy-Moderate
Part 2: English Usage	Grammar	6	Moderate
	Vocabulary	8	Moderate
	Spelling	2	Easy
	Para Jumble	2	Easy
	Sentence Jumble	2	Easy

Logical Reasoning

Apart from the 4 questions on Verbal Logic and one on sequence, the rest of the questions were difficult and/or time-consuming. There was a particular set of questions which was an ideal set to leave. Most of the aspirants who attempted this set would have ended up squandering 10-15 minutes and thus, would have got under some avoidable pressure. One needed to be extremely careful in selecting questions in this section. One of the sets, here, is present in our preparatory material for MBA entrance exams. An attempt of 10-12 questions in 20-25 minutes is a good attempt in this section.

Topic	Number of Questions	Level of Difficulty
Selection Criteria	4	Easy-Moderate
Arrangement	9	Moderate-Difficult
Input/Output	2	Easy
Series	1	Easy
Verbal Reasoning	4	Easy-Moderate

Data Interpretation and Quantitative Ability

Almost all the sets in DI were lengthy and calculation intensive. Unless one is was very fond of attempting DI, this section should have been largely left un-attempted. There was only one set that could have been attempted.
The QA part of this section was reminiscent of CAT of yore. Though there were 5-6 sitters in this overall difficult section, these sitters were camouflaged in lengthy text. There were a couple of questions which could be done by just looking at the options carefully. Overall, the recipe of this section would have been delectable to Quant enthusiasts.

 

Part	Topic	Number of Questions	Level of Difficulty
Data Interpretation	Table based	10	Moderate-Difficult
	Mixed Graph	5	Moderate-Difficult
Quantitative Ability	Arithmetic	7	Moderate
	Algebra	4	Difficult
	Geometry, Mensuration and Trigonometry	5	Moderate-Difficult
	P&C and Probability	3	Easy-Moderate
	Set theory	1	Easy

All the best! Keep working hard for the forthcoming examinations.

Team CL
Disclaimer: The analysis given above has been prepared by Career Launcher experts. The information given here has no bearing on your actual score. Career Launcher does not take responsibility for any discrepancy between information in this document and the actual result.

B-schools accepting IIFT scores

IIFT entrance exam scores are accepted by IIFT Delhi and IIFT Kolkata. Those aspiring for a career in Foreign Trade should aspire to crack this exam.

Strategy

The IIFT entrance exam is perhaps the most volatile of all B-School exams. The term volatility here refers to the level of difficulty of the paper. The last 3 years have seen cut-offs range from 48 to 36. Thus it becomes very important to be able to judge the Level of Difficulty of the paper early on in the piece. An easy paper would mean that a candidate needs to score in the late 40s whereas a difficult paper (2014 for example) would mean a candidate scoring in late 30s would make the cut. The strategy would also change accordingly. An easy paper would mean good accuracy + large number of attempts. A difficult paper would mean selecting the right questions and aiming for high accuracy.