IIFT 2021 Exam Analysis by Endeavor Careers
: Endeavor Career shares IIFT 2021 exam analysis for the aspirants who appeared for the exam on 24th January 2021. Find out exam difficulty level, expected cutoff and concur it with your performance in IIFT 2021.

IIFT 2021 exam was conducted successfully at the designated test centers on 24th January 2021 (Sunday) for thousands of aspirants. The IIFT 2021 was conducted online by National Testing Agency (NTA) for the second consecutive year since 2020. Endeavor Career which is one of the leading institutes imparting coaching for the Management entrance exams shares the IIFT 2021 exam analysis. Read on to find out IIFT difficulty level, IIFT expected cut-off, and concur it with your performance in the exam.
IIFT 2021 Exam Analysis – Endeavor Career
Last year was the first time that IIFT had taken its entrance test online. This year in its second online edition, one clearly gets a feeling that now IIFT has started moving towards a standardised exam pattern. This can be said from the fact that this year’s test pattern and marking system were same as those last years.
IIFT 2021 Exam Pattern
Sections |
Number of Questions |
Marks/question |
Negative Marking |
Total Marks per Section |
Quantitative Ability |
25 |
3 |
1 |
75 |
Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension |
35 |
105 |
||
Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning |
30 |
90 |
||
General Awareness |
20 |
1.5 |
0.5 |
30 |
Total |
110 |
|
|
300 |
Now let us look at each of these sections individually
Section 1: Quantitative Aptitude:
The section had 25 questions with around 45% of the questions were from Arithmetic. In terms of difficulty, this section was more or less similar to last year.
The detailed distribution in this section is as follows:
Topic |
Number of Questions |
Arithmetic |
11 |
Algebra |
4 |
Geometry |
5 |
Modern Maths |
4 |
Numbers |
1 |
Among the Arithmetic questions, 2 questions from Time Speed and Distance, 1 question each from Time and Work, Partnership and Clock were doable. The rest of the questions Profit Loss, SICI, Ratio Proportion and Time and Work were lengthy and supposed to be avoided during the exam. Here, one question on SICI seems technically wrong. 2 questions from Algebra; Age question and one based on Quadratic equation were easy but those based on surds and indices were difficult and time consuming. 4 out of 5 Geometry questions were doable. Of these, 1 question was on Height and Distance and 3 other on Circles. 1 out of 4 Higher Arithmetic question which was on Probability was doable and others on Permutation and Combination and miscellaneous type were difficult. The lone question on numbers was doable.
Difficulty Level: Moderate to Difficult
Ideal Attempts: 10-12
Ideal Time: 35-40 minutes
Cut off: 11-13 marks
Section 2: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension
The section had 35 questions out of which 16 questions were on Reading Comprehension and 19 were on Verbal Ability.
The detailed question distribution in this section is as follows:
Topic |
Sub-Topic |
Number of Questions |
Reading Comprehensions |
4 passages with 4 questions each |
16 |
Verbal Ability |
Set of 15 words - Questions based on Crosswords, synonyms/antonyms of some words from the list |
4 |
Verbal Ability |
Etymology |
3 |
Verbal Ability |
Match the Following – Words and Meanings |
1 |
Verbal Ability |
Meanings and words |
2 |
Verbal Ability |
Grammar – Choose the correct sentence/sentences |
6 |
Verbal Ability |
Para-jumbles |
3 |
Among the Reading Comprehensions, 2 passages were quite lengthy, but they also had more number of direct questions. Of the remaining 2, one was a bit dense and could have been avoided. There were a good number of true/false based questions in the RCs and this could have acted as a speed breaker for few students.
In Verbal ability, a lot of students would have been surprised by 3 Etymology based questions and would have found those questions difficult. Also surprising was the absence of Fill in the blanks and Idioms based questions. Out of the 6 grammar-based questions, 2 questions were based on punctuations (both on Question Mark). Rest of the questions asked the students to identify the correct sentences/sentences from the 4 given sentences. These questions could easily be attempted through option elimination.
There were 7 vocabulary-based questions – 4 questions were based on a set of words that was given in the paper and one of these 4 questions was based on crosswords. Of the remaining 3 vocabulary-based questions 1 question was based on match the following and the other 2 asked the students to identify the word for given meaning. Out of 7, at least 4 of the vocabulary-based questions could have been easily attempted through option elimination.
Among the 3 questions of parajumbles, 2 questions had 6 sentences to be arranged and this could have been time consuming. 1 question had 4 sentences and it was quite easy
Difficulty Level: Easy to Moderate
Ideal Attempts: 22-25
Ideal Time: 35 minutes
Cutoff: 28-30 marks
Section 3: Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning
The section had 30 questions wherein there were 7 sets; of which 6 sets had 4 questions each and 1 set had 2 question. The rest 4 questions were individual questions. The individual questions and one set based question on Calendar were easy and doable. One of the reasoning set on Circular arrangement was bit lengthy but a smart test taker could have solved the set by looking at the option. Another Reasoning set on Games and Tournament was difficult as it had variation from the normal set rules. There were 4 sets on Data Interpretation of which one based on table (which had information about Production, Consumption and Export) was doable and another based on combination of Line and Stack Graph (which had average of 10 years for 3 different product) was moderate level difficulty and one could have solved 2 or 3 questions out of 4 questions. Another set on Pic chart and Table (which had city wise sample and total wastage) could been solved. The set on combination of Line Graph and Bar Graph could have been avoided as it involved lots of lengthy calculations.
Difficulty Level: Difficult
Ideal Attempts: 11-12
Ideal Time: 35-40 minutes
Cut-off: 13-15 marks
Section 4: General Awareness
This section had questions from almost all topics ranging from Static GK to Current Affairs. There were questions based on, UPI payment – Whatsapp, Mahindra Marrazo, Paris climate treaty, Poverty Index, Logistic Index, Country with highest labour force, Indian origin parliamentarian in New Zealand, World Economic Forum, ASEAN, Recentlyconcluded Naval exercise in the Malabar strait, sports and 2 match the following questions – one on sportspersons and their country and another on pharma companies and their owners
Difficulty Level: Easy to Moderate
Ideal Attempts: 6-8
Ideal Time: 10 minutes
Cut-off: 5-6.5 marks
IIFT 2021 - Overall and Sectional Cut-off
Sections |
Number of Questions |
Marks/question |
Negative Marking |
Total Marks per Section |
Ideal Attempts |
Cut-offs |
Quantitative Ability |
25 |
3 |
1 |
75 |
10-12 |
11-13 |
Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension |
35 |
3 |
1 |
105 |
22-25 |
28-30 |
Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation |
30 |
3 |
1 |
90 |
11-12 |
13-15 |
General Awareness |
20 |
1.5 |
0.5 |
30 |
6-8 |
5-6.5 |
Total |
110 |
|
|
300 |
Overall Cut-off*– 115-117 |
The above-mentioned overall cut-off is for General category student. However, looking the past experiences, the overall cut-off for EWS category would be 92-94 marks and that for SC-ST category should be 74-76 marks.
*If like last year some questions are found to be wrong then the cut-off would increase. Last year IIFT had given 15 bonus marks for 5 wrong questions so the cut-off went to 138 marks. Otherwise the actual cut-off would been 123 marks.
Jaimin Shah and Dipak Takodara
Chief Mentor
Endeavor Careers
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