IIFT 2017 exam analysis: Difficulty level higher, paper lengthy

IIFT 2017: Check the expected cut-off here

IIFT 2017 was conducted on December 3, 2017 for admission to the prestigious Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) located in Delhi, Kolkata, and Kakinada (AP). The duration of the exam was two hours with no sectional time limit.

Unlike last year, this time there were six sections as against four, however, the total number of questions was 114 as compared to 123. Here is section-wise analysis:

Section 1 (General Awareness)

GA included topics from sports, corporate logos, government policies, etc. This section was lengthy and time-consuming. As per TIME coaching institute, out of a total of 18 questions, four questions could be classified as easy ones and another four as moderate ones.

The cut-off in this section seems to go down. Last year, it was at 1.99.

Section 2 (Verbal Ability)

This section had more questions on English grammar identifying various phrases/clauses in the given sentences, punctuation etc. Apart from this, there were questions based on Analogies, creating a word out of jumbled letters and identifying its meaning, and replacing a part of a given sentence by the correct one.

Some candidates believe this was difficult sections while the experts believe that it was one of the toughest in five years. The cut-off in this section is expected to be around 2-3 marks.

Section 3 (Reading Comprehension)

The RC passages were fairly lengthy and demanded reading multiple times. The passages touched varied areas like ‘Entrepreneurship, & Business (Groupon)’, another one was on ‘Literature’, whereas the remaining two were on ‘Financial crisis’, and ‘Business Management’.

The cut off in this section could be around 3-4 marks.

Section 4 (Logical Reasoning)
In comparison to other sections, LR was relatively easier. However, the questions on input-output were time-consuming. The cut-off is expected to be 4-5 marks.

Section 5 (Quantitative Ability)
The difficulty level of this section was higher in comparison from last year. As has been the case, the questions were lengthier, though mostly moderate to difficult. As per expert, “only about three questions were relatively easy ones – one from Sequence & Series, one from Co-ordinate Geometry, and another from Functions.”

The cut-off in this section is expected to be 3-4 marks.

Section 6 (Data Interpretation)
DI was again a tougher section which added to the difficulty of the aspirants. Moreover, most questions demanded hefty calculations. There were a total of three sets of five questions each, one set of three questions, and one with two. The cut-off is expected to be around 2-3 marks.