With the IIFT exam around the corner, it is very significant to put all your focus on learning to make a personalized strategy that will give you an edge over other test takers. You must be wondering if cracking IIFT is possible after a bad CAT attempt. Let me highlight that in your trajectory of making it to a top B-School, nothing is more important than learning to brush off the feelings of a bad exam quickly and moving on to the next. A bad CAT attempt does not define your preparation. CAT is a highly critical reasoning-based time-bound exam where you cannot switch between sections. CAT is also one of the first management exams that an aspirant appears for, so it is only natural that the test taker may panic. The key here is to keep moving ahead.
IIFT exam has a lot of advantages over CAT. This exam not only gives you a chance to make it to one of the highest-ranked B-Schools in India but also gives you an opportunity to perform according to your strength.
- It is allowed to switch between sections in the IIFT exam while it is not allowed in the CAT exam.
- CAT VARC is critical reasoning based while IIFT’s VARC is vocabulary and grammar-based.
CAT exam does not have GK while IIFT gives you an opportunity to score fast and easily through the GK section.
- CAT DILR is layered and more logically inclined while IIFT’s DILR is more calculation intensive and lengthy.
With so many differences between both exams, it is not going to be fair to judge your potential by a bad CAT attempt. Remaining calm and strategically maintaining speed is the key to solving a highly competitive exam like IIFT.
How you attempt the IIFT exam can make a lot of difference. It is always a bad idea to apply someone else’s exam-attempting strategy as it is. Everybody has different strengths and weaknesses, and everybody comes from a different background. You should write at least 9-10 actual IIFT past year exams as mocks to customize your strategy. This way you can figure out what works best for you.
Let us now see section wise strategy for attempting the IIFT exam.
Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension:
VA in the IIFT exam is vocabulary heavy. There are questions based on grammar, error correction, jumbled sentences, and direct vocabulary. To become better at it you can follow a few books like Wren and Martin by H. Martin and P. C. Wren, Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis, and basic grammar books (like Lucent and Oxford Grammar). You should make it a rule to learn root words and strengthen your basic vocabulary for IIFT VA.
RCs in the IIFT exams are lengthy, logical, and fairly straightforward. You should try using different strategies for attempting RCs in the IIFT exam by trying different strategies in mocks. I used to read questions first and then move to the RC paying special focus on the keywords that I had read in the questions. Some people prefer only reading questions, and they skim through the passage only to find the keywords. Once they have them, they only read +1 and -1 lines and try to cancel options to arrive at the right answer. I would like to mention again that it is never a good idea to copy someone else’s strategy and use it as your own. Try to write mocks and figure out for yourself what works best for you.
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Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation:
The Logical reasoning questions in the IIFT exam are simpler than what comes in the CAT exam but here, they are speed driven. While practicing LR you should focus on topics such as Venn Diagram, Games and Tournaments, Coding-Decoding, Blood Relations, and Directions Sense. There is no sectional time limit and it is very easy to get lost in solving LR questions. So, time management becomes a key in this section. Make sure you put a time cap on how long you are going to try to solve a question.
The Data Interpretation section of the IIFT exam is highly calculation intensive. You should be able to use basic mathematical operations on 12-14 rows of data. Here, if you know Speed Math or Vedic Math, it will become easier to handle the complexity.
Some questions are purposely made to trick you. It is smart to leave them and move ahead by solving all the Level 1 or Level 2 questions in a DI set. Some questions in the DI section may appear to be daunting, but remember that lengthy questions are sometimes the easiest to solve, provided you solve them using the right approach.
Learn decimal conversions, squares, cubes, and tables along with alphabet values, cardinal maps, directions, and other important quants formulas. Keep revising your formula book as a lot of questions are directly formula based.
Quantitative Aptitude:
IIFT Quants has some very easy questions and some very difficult questions. If you remember all the important formulas, you will be able to find 7-9 Level 1 difficulty questions in the Quants section. You can focus on arithmetic chapters such as percentages, profit, and loss, ratios, simple and compound interest, time and work, and arithmetic progressions. Geometry is yet another chapter that is focused a lot on in the IIFT exam. Last year we saw permutations and combinations, probability, and logarithms level 1 questions appearing in the exam.
IIFT is basically an aptitude screening examination as far as the Quants section is concerned. Ensure that you practice a lot so that you can pick out the right questions and leave the lengthy layered questions. The attempting strategy here should be to quickly judge a question by skimming through it and finding out if it is a layered lengthy question or if it can be solved instantly. You cannot afford to go wrong with this judgment as it can make or break your time management plans.
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General Awareness:
The IIFT GK section is a game changer because many students who do well in the exam are not able to clear the sectional cutoffs for GK. GK questions are quick marks. You can easily maximize your score by attempting the GK section successfully in under 7-9 minutes. You can try attempting the GK section as the first one when you see the question paper. This way you will be sure of having attempted something in the exam and you’ll be left with more logically driven parts of the exam.
The General Knowledge section of this exam is very vast and dynamic. If you do not strategically target this section, you will end up reading a lot of unnecessary things. Make it a habit to go through some of the newspapers like the Indian express, the tribune, and economic times which focus on the current business and economic standpoints of the news.
You should be aware of the occurrence of all significant international issues of the past year, changes in the trading markets, and the launch of government schemes in different countries.
Having a brief knowledge of country capitals, international treasuries, currencies, mergers & acquisitions, book awards, movie awards, and CEO & headquarters of major companies will also be helpful. You can take the help of coaching institutes that provide yearly compendiums for the preparation of IIFT GK. You can also follow a few UPSC preparation YouTube channels and Banking GK channels to get an idea of what is going on in the world.
Time management plays a crucial role in this exam. You should make sure that you do not get lost while solving because there is nobody alarming you. IIFT attempting strategy in simple terms is based on speed, mental calmness, and picking the right questions. Focus first on clearing the cut-off of each section and then come back to your strongest section in order to maximize your marks.
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Target scores:
A General Engineer Male with an 8/8 profile should target a score of 113-115 in the IIFT exam out of 300 to expect a call from IIFT for GD PI and WAT.
A General Engineer Female with an 8/8 profile should target a score of 104-106 in the IIFT Exam.
A General Non-Engineer Male with an 8/8 profile should target 84-86 marks in the IIFT Exam.
A General Non-Engineer Female with a similar profile should target a score of 76-78 in the IIFT exam.
Read: IIFT 2022 Score Vs Percentile - Score Required To Fetch 99 Percentile In IIFT
After your exam results are out, the IIFT exam scores weightage goes down to 45% from 73% in shortlisting for stage 1. 40% weightage is given to WAT+GD+PI. A non-engineer is granted 5 marks, and a female is granted 2 marks to make their composite score. There are 3 marks for work experience and 8 marks for academic consistency. You can refer to the IIFT website to know the distribution better. All in all, there are a lot of factors that come together to make your composite score based on which you receive the final call for GD PI and WAT.
For now, with the IIFT exam approaching. Focus on keeping your nerves calm. Work on GK and vocabulary. Take care of your mental health and body. Eat and sleep well.
Remember one exam cannot define your potential, be it CAT or IIFT. Learn to bounce back after a setback and use these opportunities to make a stronger version of yourself.
Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn to seek advice or assistance. I understand the journey is tough, but you will get through this by the end of it. Have faith in your preparation.
Good luck with the exam.
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