IIFT 2016: 1 mark in GK, 9 in DILR, 5 in Quant and 9 in VARC may take you to PI round; learn from topper's past cut offs

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MBAUniverse.com News Desk |
November 18, 2016
Past cut offs in IIFT exam reveal how difficult is the exam and what minimum score you need to obtain in each section to get shortlisted for PI round
Mohit Rakesh Sharma who scored 99.98 percentile in the IIFT 2015 entrance exam found that GK had 0.82 mark out of total 100 marks as the cut off for the section

Missing your score even by a fraction in IIFT 2016 entrance test can throw you out of the race for admission to MBA (IB) 2017-19 and this is true especially for GK section where maximum marks are only 14 and it is very difficult for the candidates to score more than 7-8 marks while cut-off goes even below 1 mark in GK section.

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IIFT topper Mohit Sharma who scored 99.98 percentile in the IIFT 2015 entrance exam found that GK had 0.82 mark out of total 100 marks as the cut off for the section. He shares that each section in IIFT exam is important and you should not ignore GK as it needs to be qualified and the score in GK section is counted to determine the overall percentile score in the exam.

IIFT exam scoring pattern recognizes the significance of even minute decimal fraction of scores to a great extent. If you lose even a minute fraction of 0.01 mark, you may go out of admission race to MBA (IB) 2017-19 batch. The exam is not about number of questions but it is all about score weightage awarded to each section. This is the reason that despite containing more than 120 questions, the total maximum score is restricted to 100 marks in IIFT entrance exam.

Past cut off trends
Those who have earlier appeared in IIFT entrance or know its features well are aware that scoring 49 or 50 marks in IIFT 2016 can get you through the exam and may open the gates of the institute for you.

Harshit Goswami, student of IIM Udaipur and one of the CAT toppers in 2015 with 98.01 percentile could score 95.86 percentile in IIFT entrance with a raw score of 48.26 and missed the cut off by 0.24 mark only. So if you score 48 you may be out of the admission race but if score 48.8 marks in IIFT 2016 exam, you can expect to be shortlisted by the institute for final selection round.

GK Sectional Cut off : 0.82 mark
Maximum marks that can be scored in General Awareness section are 14 for 28 questions of MCQ type. Each correct answer will be awarded 0.50 mark. In IIFT 2015 exam held last year, the cut-off remained at 0.82 mark. IIFT topper Mohit Sharma, however scored 8.64 marks after allowing for the negative marking in GK section.

VARC Sectional cut off : 8.75 marks
Maximum score that can be obtained in VARC section is 31 marks. The section has unique differential scoring pattern. The 20 questions on Verbal Ability carry the weightage of 0.75 mark per correct answer while 16 questions based on Reading comprehension carry a weightage of 1 mark for each correct answer. 

If you can get all the RC questions correct, you can score 16 marks and if you  can mark all the 20 VA questions correct, you can score 15 marks. However, a balance and good combination between the 2 sub-sections can fetch you good marks needed to score high percentile score.

IIFT topper Mohit cracked the VARC section with 28.34 marks which became instrumental in pushing up his percentile score to 99.98.

Quant section cut off: 4.34 marks
Maximum marks assigned for Quantitative Techniques in IIFT 2015 exam were 22. The section had 22 questions with scoring pattern of 1 mark for each correct answer. The cut off however remained as low as 4.34 marks, while Mohit scored 12.68 marks after allowing for negative marking.

DILR sectional cut off: 8.68 marks
Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation (LRDI) section had 33 questions and the scoring pattern was to award 1 mark for each correct answer. The cut off in the section dipped to 8.68 marks. Mohit scored 19.68 marks in LRDI section which helped to boost his percentile to 99.98.

Guess the high LOD
IIFT entrance exam is one of the toughest MBA entrance tests as is evident by the fact that it has too low cut off. However the silver lining is that your low score can also award you high percentile and you can expect to be shortlisted for final admission round with a meagre score of 48 and above marks.

Mohit Sharma scored a decent 69.34 and got the admission in the coveted MBA (IB) 2016-18 batch at IIFT Delhi campus after being awarded 99.98 percentile.

Topper’s score card
A quick glimpse on IIFT topper Mohit’s score card will clarify about the scoring pattern, maximum and minimum marks required to be scored in IIFT exam to clear the cut off-

Choose the right question
It is not necessary that more number of questions in IIFT entrance test will carry more marks. Even the fewer questions in one section can carry higher scores as compared to other sections which may award lower scores despite consisting of more questions.

According to Prof S K Agarwal, expert on Verbal Ability and mentor on IIFT preparation, if you do not focus on sectional weightage during your preparation and while attempting the exam, you may go low on merit despite attempting more questions with 100% accuracy in case the weightage awarded to each question in that section is low. 

IIFT consists of multiple choice objective type questions (in English). The exam comprises the questions covering English Comprehension, General Knowledge & Awareness, Logical Reasoning and Quantitative Analysis. The candidate may attempt any question from any section during the time allotted to attempt the test in the examination. 

Unique Marking pattern: Devise testing room strategy
Marking pattern in IIFT entrance is unique. Questions in different sections and sub sections in IIFT entrance exam carry different marking pattern. While overall maximum marks are 100, the maximum marks allotted to different questions vary from 0.5 to 1. Sectional cut offs also play an important role and a candidate has to clear them as well. 

Penalty of one third marks will be awarded for every wrong answer. The candidates therefore have to be careful to avoid this negative marking by choosing the answer options with well calculated thought process.
Keep Balance among sections
Prof S K Agarwal, expert and mentor on IIFT 2016 exam preparation, shares that the 4-5 sections and their sub sections in IIFT entrance test carry different weightage in calculation of overall score. While it is very important that you must prepare in the manner to get the minimum cut off in each of the 4 sections, it is also necessary that you score overall high score in the exam. This is possible when you attempt more questions from the high weightage sections with speed and accuracy.

Please note that each section needs minimum qualifying score, so take care to target high balanced sectional score in IIFT 2016 entrance exam. Interestingly, the cut off marks for admission to IIFT MBA (IB) programme remain less than 50%. So you need to be accurate while attempting the well selected questions from your strong areas.

IIFT entrance exam will be paper pen based and will be of two hours duration from 10.00 A.M. to 12.00 Noon to be held on November 27, 2016 in 20 cities across the country for its Delhi and Kolkata campuses.

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