With the first biggie of the season out of the way in the form of IIFT 2015, let us go through the IIFT 2015 analysis and what can we expect on the day of the result.
IIFT 2015 analysis vis-a-vis IIFT 2014
| Section No. | Section | 2014 marks | 2015 marks | Compared to 2015 |
| I | General Awareness | 13 | 14 | Similar level |
| II | Reading Comprehension | 17 | 16 | Shorter RCs, Similar level |
| Verbal Ability | 15 | 15 | Easier | |
| III | Quantitative Ability | 20 | 22 | Easier |
| IV | Logical Reasoning | 15 | 15 | Easier sets with no scenarios |
| Data Interpretation | 20 | 18 | Difficult |
Let’s see the IIFT 2015 analysis section wise.
General awareness (IIFT 2015 analysis)
Probably the most frightening of the sections when it comes to an average aspirant, this section, although not significantly contributory to the overall score is kind of a make or break section when it comes to the overall analysis. Continuing with its trend of putting questions from the areas of business and being heavy on static GK, IIFT lived up to its reputation of churning out difficult GK sets. Gambling was not really a good thing to do in this section and a confident attempt of 7-8 questions was very much possible and enough to clear the sectional cut-off. We predict the sectional cut-off to be around 2-2.5 marks out of 14, in around 8-10 minutes keeping in mind that around 30% of the test taking population will be able to reach this score. The ones who had taken the Learningroots sectionals and prepared from the GK eBook would have benefited from those 2 odd hours of prep.
Must attempts: Stock indices, river – cities, Oscars, Indian CEOs, Book-author, PMs-Presidents, Inventors-Inventions, HQ-Organizations. These were simple static GK questions which would have been on the list of almost all the serious aspirants.
Reading Comprehension (IIFT 2015 analysis)
The first feeling that an aspirant would have got after seeing this section is that the RCs were shorter than usual, running into one-and-a-half page instead of the usual 2+ pages. The questions were direct and so, it was an ideal set up for those who go on a fact finding mission as soon as an RC pops up. The passage on steel was very easy and barring a confusing question/choice, the rest were easy and so, must attempts. The passage on Otlet was again straightforward and the questions were direct in nature. This was again a must-attempt set and many of those who would have attempted the set would have scored 4/4. The lending markets passage had a couple of easy questions which could have been attempted without reading the passage in its entirety. The passage on mass media and politics was again easy and had at least a couple of easy questions. So, ideally, considering an average sub-sectional duration of around 20 minutes, a good candidate could have easily solved 10 questions with almost 90% accuracy. So, a score of around 8-9 marks would be fair.
Verbal Ability (IIFT 2015 analysis)
This was probably the easiest verbal section one could expect to get in an entrance test. The downside of such sections is that it fails to differentiate between a good and a bad candidate and the stakes are so high that even one mistake could translate into a disaster. The section had a fair sprinkling of parajumbles, a lot of vocabulary, fill in the blanks, and usage based questions with a couple of questions based on antonyms.
The parajumbles were easy, and the idioms were easy for a candidate with some background in prep. The usage based questions were moderate and one should have attempted them only if one were confident. The fill in the blanks questions were many in number (total of 7 questions) but most of them were straightforward and were must attempts. The ‘Foreign Trade’ part of the test came to the fore in the form of a couple of French vocabulary based questions. Overall, the sub-section was easy and a good candidate would have breezed through the section in around 20 minutes with a score of around 10-12 marks at least.
The cut-off for the combined RC-VA section could be somewhere around 10-11 marks.
Quantitative Aptitude (IIFT 2015 analysis)
The section was easier compared to that of last year but was a tad on the moderate side compared to the VA and LR sections. There were 4 questions from permutations, combinations and probability, one question each from logarithms, indices and surds, an AP-GP question, 5 questions on percentages, a couple of geometry based questions and then questions from simple equations, time and work, and alligations. This section was again, not much of a differentiator and so, students who had a quant phobia would have rejoiced after seeing this section. Considering that a candidate gave 20-25 minutes to this section, s/he could have easily attempted around 10-12 questions with almost 100% accuracy.
The cut-off for the Quantitative Aptitude section could be somewhere around 6-7 marks.
Logical Reasoning (IIFT 2015 analysis)
This was a tricky section in the context that the questions had lower weightage compared to the other part but the questions were easier. The question on 6 engineers was probably the easiest of the lot and was a must attempt. The logic based single question was tricky and could have been left alone. The set on the 6 ‘K’ daughters was a bit tricky (and irritating with all the Ks involved) and could have eaten into precious time and so, should have been left in the first go. The series was straightforward. The set on three countries was ambiguous in the sense that the questions were labelled incorrectly. The first two questions should have started with ‘In how many ways…’ but it was not the case. In case the questions are wrong, it is a common practice that all the aspirants get the maximum marks for these questions so, it should not worry the candidates. The question on blood relations was easy but time-consuming. The question on directions and the syllogism were easy. The question on 7 cities was straightforward with no traps as such and so, should have been attempted.
A good attempt in this section would have been around 13-14 questions in around 25-30 minutes considering that DI had to be given lesser importance. The accuracy would again be on the higher side as the section was devoid of any major traps.
Data Interpretation (IIFT 2015 analysis)
Amidst the overall lowering of the level of difficulty of the question paper, one section stood true to its reputation – Data Interpretation. The ones who got tangled in this section were the ones who would have suffered the most. None of the sets was particularly straightforward and some of the sets were downright ridiculous. The set on Torrent Enterprises was of the latter kind and it was a no-no right from the time a candidate saw the options for the first question. The set on Ellen Inc. was probably the easiest and if one would have spent some time on this set, one could have gained 5 marks easily. The set on the competitive indices of countries was a bit difficult and only someone who was comfortable with ratios would have cracked it, but after investing around 10 minutes nonetheless. The set on the website statistics was again moderate to difficult and heavily based on comparison of ratios. A couple of questions were doable in this and it would require a highly trained aspirant to spot these.
On the whole, this section was best left alone. One could have invested around 10-15 minutes in this section and gained 3-4 marks out of it. This will probably be the differentiator between a strong and a competent candidate in the sense that one would have time left after attempting the other sections and the one who came out of this section with 5+ marks will probably have an advantage going into the GDPI-Essay process.
The overall cut-off for the LR-DI section would be somewhere around 7 marks.
The overall cut-off for the paper would be around 48-49 marks in our opinion for the General category. Anything less than 45 would mean a very low chance of making it through and anything upward of 50 should mean that you start preparing yourself for a callback from the institute for the further rounds. Hope you found our IIFT 2015 analysis useful.
All the best!
