While paper was quite lengthy, students found it to be moderately difficult to tackle. Given the time crunch, one had to select right set of questions to ace, says SUMIT SINGH GANDHI

Overall the exam was doable, not very tough but lengthy when compared to the previous years. LR was a little time consuming and lengthy. DI was easy and not too calculation intensive. It was noticed that a data interpretation set was similar to a DI set of CAT 2019. VARC was more fact based which was easy to solve. However, the length of the passages was a challenge. Overall it had 35 questions with 16 questions from RC and 19 questions from verbal ability. Arithmetic rules the roast in the quantitative ability section as expected. The questions were lengthy and time consuming but not difficult. The first few sentences of the questions were just meant to eat up the student’s time, hence one had to scout out the right amount of information from the question and solve it as quickly as possible. The GK section was more on the current affairs side including questions related to sports personalities and their professions.

Exam tested students on speed, logic and analytical skills, a sincere student with well-rounded preparation of concepts and a good practice of mocks would make their way to the IIFT.

It was an exam with no twist. Well prepared students should be able to outperform. Logical reasoning section was a little difficult and time consuming, we saw the changes in reading comprehension passages with dominance of fact-based questions. However, ones with the habit of reading a lot of books and essays have nailed it.

Negative marking existed for the multiple-choice questions. In VARC, DILR, and QA sections, for each correct response, +3 is rewarded and for each incorrect, -1 is deducted.

In the GA section for every correct response, +1.5 is awarded and for every incorrect, -0.5 is deducted.

The exam was not very difficult, it was manageable provided your concepts were clear.

Feedback from some of the students

“The paper was overall moderate to difficult. The verbal section was lengthy but comparatively easier than last year. What was surprising was to see no data interpretation questions to be calculation intensive like the previous years, however, logical reasoning took up a lot more time than I had initially planned.” – Jayant

“The paper was very structured but lengthy and time crunching. VARC was time consuming with concerns with the fact-based questions in all Reading comprehensions not many inference questions. DI was pretty easy and had glimpses of old cat papers. Overall in the paper,selection was the key so now let’s hope for the best.” – Aakrosh

Sectional Analysis

Overall Difficulty: Moderate to Difficult

VARC 35 Questions: Reading comprehension was dominated in the verbal section. There were 2 passages with 5 questions each and 2 passages with 3 questions each.

Verbal ability was overall easy.

Summary of Questions

Reading Comprehension 16 questions

Verbal Ability 19 questions

Ideal attempts in VARC Section: 11-13 questions

DILR: 30 questions

LR/DI was easy to moderate, lengthy and time consuming. Here the success mantra was the set selection as a few sets were the toughest and time consuming, so the students should first wrap up the easy ones and grab a good base and then move to the trickier ones. Also, as mentioned by one of our students, practicing for CAT gave him a little extra boost for IIFT.

Summary of Questions

Ideal attempts in DILR Section: 16-19 questions

Quants 25 Questions:

Quants were the easiest out of the three sections with direct formula application and concept based questions dominated by arithmetic and little geometry and algebra. There was no need for having a lot of shortcuts and tricks, your solving speed and your temperament to understand what the question is asking was the main focus. Arithmetic dominated the paper then algebra and numbers, geometry saw a lesser.

General awareness 20 Questions:

General awareness was fairly easy with more current affairs questions than static GK questions. The section was well structured and diverse to cover a wide variety.

Summary of Questions

Ideal attempts 45+ with 90 per cent accuracy can be expected to get a call for IIFT.

Overall a happy day for students who know their basics and have preached their books with building conceptual clarity and like Rahul Sir always says “Success comes to those who work for it. Keep working hard and you will see the results !”

For an in-depth analysis on each section, overall cut-off, which colleges to apply and how to gear up ahead stay tuned to the CATKing Youtube Channel.

Now let the karma play its role, party tonight and come back with a bang for the series of exams lined up ahead, one day one exam can never give an idea about one’s aptitude nor decide your career path.

The writer is CEO, Director, CATKing