IIFT conducted the admission test for its 2019-2021 batch on 02nd December 2018 in a single session from 10 AM to 12 Noon. IIFT entrance was a paper-pencil test. Around 55000 students appeared for the test for admission to the 420 seats of IIFT spread across its three campuses in New Delhi, Kolkata and Kakinada.
The overall difficulty of IIFT could be termed a shade difficult than IIFT 2017 but this year there were no major surprises in terms of sections. The test had 114 Questions spread across 6 sections with differential marking system and negative marking.
Below we find a table depicting the section wise details.
| Section | Questions | Marks/Ques | Total Marks | Negative/Ques |
| General Awareness |
18 |
0.5 |
9 |
0.17 |
| Reading Comprehension |
16 |
1 |
16 |
0.33 |
| English Usage |
20 |
0.75 |
15 |
0.25 |
| Quantitative Ability |
20 |
1 |
20 |
0.33 |
| Data Interpretation |
20 |
1 |
20 |
0.33 |
| Logical Reasoning |
20 |
1 |
20 |
0.33 |
| Total |
114 |
100 |
Now, we go in for a detailed section wise analysis.
General Awareness
This section was a little easier than last year and had around 10 questions from Business & Economy. The other questions were from Science, Geography, Current Affairs, Sports etc. Around 8-11 Questions were in the easy to moderate range and could have been done by the test takers. An attempt of around 9-10 with 60-65% accuracy would be a good job in this section.
Reading Comprehension
The passages in Reading Comprehension were on the lengthier side. There were 5 passages with 4 Passages containing 3 questions each and 1 Passage containing 4 Questions. Passages were from GDP, Culture, Liberal Arts education etc. The passages were of Academic nature and thus required careful reading. The questions also needed application though they were not very tough. Overall this section was of moderate level and a good reader would attempt around 10-11 questions.
English Usage
English Usage was of the standard of IIFT exams in the past. This section was on the tougher side. The Analogy and Word matching questions were on the difficult side. The Grammar based questions, Sentence Rearrangement and Fill in the blanks question were on the easier side. There were some questions on Word roots and Sentence Improvement as well. Overall, an attempt of 9-11 questions with 80-85% accuracy would be a decent work in this section.
Quantitative Ability
This section was of lengthy nature. The questions were not straight forward. There were 5 questions from Geometry and Arithmetic each which were of Moderate level. The other questions were from Algebra, Permutation Combination and Probability and were of easy to moderate level. Overall, and attempt of 11 with 85% accuracy would be a good job in this section.
Data Interpretation
This section was quite time consuming and required a lot of calculations. Alongside, this section was difficult as well. There were questions of Mixed Graphs and Tables. An attempt of 6-8 questions with an accuracy of 85% in this section would be a great work. A lower attempt with an accuracy of over 95% would also be enough in this section.
Logical Reasoning
Even this section was time consuming. This had questions from Selection, Arrangement, Input-Output, Venn Diagram, Matrix etc. The questions on Matrix and Arrangements were easy but the others were time consuming. An ideal attempt in this section would be around 11-13 with an accuracy of 85%.
The Overall cut-off is expected to be lower this year than the previous year and a score of 33-36 should be fine for a General candidate to scale the exam. However, we need to remember that Individual sectional cut-offs need to be cleared in each section to procced for the next phase of evaluation.
Wish all the students Good Luck for their Forthcoming Exams.