Only 5 days away, the entrance examination to Indian Institute of Foreign trade (IIFT) is another very important milestone paving the way to MBA (IB) 2016-18 at IIFT Delhi or Kolkata campus. Getting into Indian Institute of Foreign Trade is probably more difficult than getting into any of more than 150 B- schools accepting CAT 2015 scores and offering numerous management programmes. This is the reason while there are around 2.18 lakh CAT 2015 takers for a few thousand seats, the test takers to IIFT for 360 seats are near about 60000.
The most sought after management programme offered by IIFT is its MBA (International Business) which has a 100 percent placement track record in good companies in India and abroad. In anticipation of high standard of learning and good career prospects, the ratio of IIFT aspirants is obviously much higher than the CAT aspirants.
IIFT will conduct the entrance test for admission to MBA (IB) 2016-18 batch for its Delhi and Kolkata campuses on Sunday, November 22, 2015 in 20 cities across India. The entrance exam will be paper pen based and will be of two hours duration from 10.00 A.M. to 12.00 Noon.
Composition of IIFT 2015
Section-1 – English comprehension- Part-1 – 20 questions; part-2-RC passages-16 questions
Section-2- Quantitative Ability- 25 questions; Data Interpretation-20 questions
Section-3- Logical Reasoning – 20 questions
Section-4-General Awareness- 30 questions
Weightage to different sections
The English comprehension section carries a weightage of 0.75 mark per question constituting around 25% weightage to the entire test. Logical Reasoning also carries a weightage of 0.75 mark per question with total weightage of 15%. General Awareness has a weightage of 0.50 mark per question and would contribute to 15% marks in total. Quant and DI have maximum weightage of 1 mark per question contributing 45% weightage to the exam.
Tips & Topics for English Comprehension
According to Prof S K Agarwal, expert on Verbal Ability and mentor on IIFT preparation, those who prepared well but still missed a few topics may revisit them and gear up for IIFT 2015 entrance. In fact, the preparation pattern to achieve a high percentile in IIFT is a lot similar to CAT. The test like CAT is full of unpredictable questions based on lesser studied topics. The advantage is that the preparation topics, practice questions are to be kept on the same line as that of CAT and this strategy will give an edge to the aspirant. The add on section is General Awareness which can improve or reduce the percentile, if not taken care of.
The revision strategy of topics for next 5 days on English Comprehension could be summed up as follows-
Question type
What we call Verbal Ability in CAT is the English Comprehension in IIFT with the difference that it is divided in two parts. Part-1 consists of Language usage, vocabulary, jumbled paragraphs with 20 questions , and part-2 has 3-4 passages of 800-900 words, each followed by 4 questions. Following are the major areas of preparation and need is to practice everything in both these parts.
Part-1: 2 questions expected on each
-- Parajumbles - you may find two questions based on it. The difficulty level is less than CAT still they consume your time which is very precious in IIFT entrance.
-- Questions on rewriting of sentences and/or paragraphs in grammatically correct order and sequence may confront you in the examination. If you know simple grammar rules you can crack them. The tip is to practice more of them.
-- questions may be found on similar relationship of words (analogy). The idea is to have the knowledge of vocabulary words and their corresponding usage. Apart from synonyms, aspirants should focus on more practice on analogy.
-- questions on one word substitution. A few words are given and out of the given options correct option describing the expanded meaning of the same, has to be picked out. One has to learn, recall the words and practice them.
-- questions are likely to appear, asking to identify the grammatically correct sentences with right sequence of words. It needs understanding of usage of fundamentals.
-- questions might be based on fill in the blanks in 4-5 sentences with correct words/phrasal verbs/vocabulary words.
-- questions may be found to identify correct figures of speech like simile, metaphor, personification, oxymoron, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, apostrophe etc. It is advisable to practice around 20-25 figures of speech, understand their key words that help to identify them.
-- questions on core synonyms/antonyms may also be found in the test. IIFT asks you to find out the antonyms of the given words.
-- questions on correctly/incorrectly spelt words may be encountered in the test. Aspirants have to find out the answer options with correct/incorrect spelling in the words in accordance with the requirement of the direction.
Part-2: RC Passages
The RC passages are not very difficult. All the four passages have different difficulty level and are based on business, economic, social and historical events, sports, TV serial etc. Answers to the questions can also be fairly understood, if the passage has been understood. The tip is to go for versatile reading especially the articles and editorials in the newspaper to improve the speed of reading with good understanding.
Expert suggests
Prof S K Agarwal, expert on Verbal Ability suggests, since IIFT entrance test is a paper pencil test, the computer skills are of not much help. It is therefore needed that candidates should practice how to appropriately darken the circle on OMR sheet. Do not tear out the OMR sheet with pointed darkening style nor leave it too light to detect the answer option.
Management of time is very important in IIFT exam. Avoid wasting time on one question. You may have less than one minute per question to attempt. Time consuming, confusing questions with doubtful answer options may not be attempted to save time and to avoid the penalty.
Every section is important since sectional cut off is also applicable in this examination.
Do not be panicky, maintain your cool. If the examination is too difficult or lengthy, it will go for lower cut off and vice-versa. Read all the options carefully before going to darken the circle.
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