Now that CAT is almost done with, the next big entrance exam of the season will be the test conducted by the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade(IIFT) on Sunday the 28^th of November.

A few months back, we brought to you the IIFT Ready Reckoner which explained a bit about the test and also compiled a few preparation tips from seniors at IIFT. With about a week left for the test, here is a review of few of the past years’ IIFT tests and the to-do things in this week so as to get ready for the exam.

Surprise marking scheme:

No one really knows what the marking scheme, number of sections, weightage given to a particular section, whether or not there are going to be sectional cut-offs before the test starts. But then, what has been the trend for the past few years is, the general awareness section has been given lesser weightage compared to the other sections(20 marks in 2005, 10 marks in 2006, 11 marks in 2007, 9 marks in 2008 and 8 marks in 2009). The remaining marks are more or less uniformly distributed across the other sections. The number of sections have varied from as many as six in 2008 to five in 2006 to four in 2005, 2007 and 2009. Also, the 2006 test saw multiple options being correct for many of the questions. So, as far as the IIFT entrance is concerned the only thing which is constant is change. Speaking of sectional cut-offs, when we had asked the IIFT Registrar, Dr L.D. Mago, he said, We have been having sectional cut-offs for the last few years and it might continue this year too.

But the good news is, the basics remain the same. The sections even if they are segregated do not go beyond the familiar Verbal, Quantitative, Data Interpretation, Logical Reasoning and General Awareness sections. Just that if there is a mention of sectional cut-offs being considered, one has to do justice to the paper by allotting adequate/proportionate time to each section.

Logical Reasoning Sets:

The Logical Reasoning sets are the lifeline of many a candidate who isn’t too good with the long calculations the DI sets usually offer. The questions aren’t very difficult and have touched topics such as input-output, logical puzzles, blood relations, directions, syllogisms, numerical reasoning, criteria based decision making, etc. A practice of the previous IIFT papers should be sufficient to tackle this section/sub-section.

DI caselets:

The test is known to throw some outrageously difficult DI sets which are usually time consuming and almost undoable in some instances. Having a good calculation speed and approximation techniques does not necessarily translate into a superior performance in this section. If it comes as a sub-section with difficult sets, the best thing would be to attempt the easiest sets without wasting time on the more difficult ones. If it is combined with the LR section and seems more difficult than it, doing the LR questions first would be a good idea. The most important aspect of the IIFT entrance test is the time management. If one wastes his time doing time consuming questions which give less/no output one can very well wave his chances of making to the next round goodbye.

Reading Comprehension passages:

The RC passages have a history of being long and the questions fact based. However, the questions often require you to read the entire passage as they want you to find the fact present/not present in the passage. Also, there have been instances of a few match the following questions in the RCs. These are few of the must attempt questions as one can very well play with the options thereby reducing the amount of data to be scanned. Again, a time consuming section and one can simply leave the section after picking few doable questions and then go for other sections where the chances of scoring high are better.

The Quant section:

The Quant section requires a good grasp on fundamentals if one is to score high in this section. A good knowledge of the basics of higher maths should help one score a few more marks by investing slightly more time. Past few years have seen a higher percentage of questions from algebra and geometry and so, if one is thorough with these topics, one can score well. A few topics from higher maths one should be familiar with for this test include:

1) Binomial expansion

2) Maxima-minima and derivatives

3) Basic statistics

4) Stocks & shares

5) Trigonometry

6) Complex numbers

7) Modular functions

General awareness:

This is the make or break section for many aspirants. Many people who are confident of doing well across all the other sections are apprehensive about the general awareness section. But with a bit of application, this section can get you past the cut-off in 5-10 minutes. The topics which are stressed upon in the last few years, if taken care of, can fetch a good score in this section.

A few topics which have appeared in this section in the last few years are:

1. Award winners (Nobel Prize, Magsaysay awards, Pulitzer award winners, Man Booker prize winners, the Oscars, Bharat Ratna, Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, Arjuna award recipients, etc.).

2. The sport events, their venues and the years when they were held (the Olympics, the Asian games, the Commonwealth Games, Cricket/football world cups, F1 racing, Tennis Grand Slams etc.)

3. CEOs/Heads of important organisations and locations of headquarters of prominent organisations.

4. Products of leading organisations

5. Taglines of companies

6. Mergers & acquisitions

7. Prime ministers, presidents and heads and capitals and currencies of countries

8. Abbreviations of organisations/projects/plans/programmes.

9) Important dates

Also, there have been many match-the-following questions in this section. One always should keep an eye on the options which in many cases do not require one to know everything except one/two associations.

Whether one should take chances or not in this section depends on how confident one is of the other answers in the section. If one is sure of a sufficient number of answers in this section, say more than half the number of questions, one can go for maximizing one’s score. If one is confident of a few answers it might affect one negatively if one guesses. In such a case, it would be wise to move on rather than guessing wildly. So, one can first mark the answers one is confident of and then decide how to go about things from there.

Verbal Ability:

This is one section which is doable most of the time and requires no extra preparation apart from what one has done. The section has historically focused on vocabulary, parajumbles, sentence corrections and word usage questions. No major surprises have been seen in this section.

Wrong Questions:

IIFT 2009 saw one wrong DI set for which marks were awarded to all the candidates irrespective of whether they had attempted it or not thus taking the cut-off to an all time high of 37.40 for general candidates. So, one should ideally not get entangled in the wrong questions, if any and should move on to the next question.

Wishing you all the very best of luck for the test.