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EXAM ANALYSIS - IIFT 2014

EXAM SNAPSHOT

Exam Duration: 2 hours with no sectional time limit; sectional cut-offs apply

Negative Marking: One third of the allotted mark.

Let us have a closer look at the individual sections before we discuss the cut-off scenario.

DATA INTERPRETATION (15 Q - 1 mark each) AND QUANTITATIVE ABILITY (20 Q - 1 mark each)

Of the three DI sets, the first one (travelling between different cities via different means) was solvable while the other 2 sets proved to be very calculation-intensive and students would wish they played it smart and attempted 1-2 questions in the 2nd and the 3rd sets which were doable with lesser effort. Since the cut-off applies to QA-DI section as a whole, sufficient attempts in QA should ensure that students don't miss the cut-off.

Quantitative ability section didn't throw too many surprises though the level of some of the questions was definitely a notch higher than the previous year's. The questions in the QA section continue their legacy of being lengthy while at the same time intertwining a mathematical problem with a real-life situation. Two questions in the section (8-digit telephone number question and the question on the ferry carrying passengers to the Rock of Vivekananda) ended up being ambiguous and left the test-takers wanting for more information. Another question based on a pharmaceutical company warranted making a few assumptions during the process of solving it.

Overall, a good candidate would have been able to attempt around 6-7 questions in DI and 9-12 questions in QA with 80% accuracy.

GENERAL AWARENESS (26 Q - 0.5 mark each)

The section had a bias towards current affairs at the expense of static GK. We could expect the section to have a higher cut-off than last year. Someone who is not preparing for a competitive exam with GK in it but who casually skims through everyday news in the papers and online articles could also answer a good 8-10 of those questions.

VERBAL ABILITY (20 Q - 0.75 mark each) AND READING COMPREHENSION (4 Passages: 17 Q - 1 mark each)

The Verbal Ability part was greatly dominant in vocabulary questions, as was last year's, with as many as ten questions of various types (Fill in the Blanks, Analogy, Odd one out, spellings and word formations). There were six grammar questions of three types (Best replacement of the underlined part, Sentence formation and Select the correct sentence). The other questions were the usual PFQs and Idiom questions, two of each in number.

Barring a few vocabulary questions (the word formation ones) and a couple of grammar questions (Select the correct sentence), which were time consuming, the section, overall, was easy to deal with, when compared to the RC part. Most questions could be answered with just quick thinking. An academic observation would not be out of place here: one of the grammar questions, in which, the test takers were asked to identify the 'correct' sentence from among the given four, was wrong. All the given sentences had grammar errors, though one was supposed to be grammatically correct.

In the RC part, he four passages were very easy to read and the questions were all direct. They were such that one needed just to go back to the passages and 'locate' the answers. The flip side, though, was that the passages were pretty long, with some of them as long as three pages. Also, some of the questions needed relatively more time than the others, as the answer options had to be 'dealt with' with subtlety.

Overall, a good test taker could have attempted around 7-8 questions in RC and around 10-12 in VA part of the section.

LOGICAL REASONING (20 Q - 1 mark each)

The section had a good mix of selection-based problems, puzzles, input-output problems and other questions that are known to appear frequently in IIFT. The questions in the section are more difficult compared to the previous year's; a couple of sets in the section were very lengthy and time-consuming. The cut-off for LR section is expected to come down as a result, as compared to IIFT-2013, which saw easier caselets.

With the acumen for choosing the right kind of questions, a good student could have solved around 9-11 questions, by leaving the lengthy sets.

Our verdict - Overall, we believe the heightened difficulty in the DI and LR parts of the paper undermines the advantage a student may have had due to the reduction in the overall number of questions (118 vs. last year's 128). The overall cut-off was around 47 last year, it is likely to be in the range 42-44 this year.

Note - The second-stage shortlist for IIFT is common for both the campuses. Also, IIFT usually declares the written exam results in under a month of the written test. In the meantime, students are advised to focus on preparing for other tests. T.I.M.E. wishes you the best for the remainder of the exam season.