MBA Entrance Exams: GK Section Preparation For IIFT, CMAT, XAT, TISS And Other

GK section is an important section for every competitive examination. This is because it plays a huge role in shortlisting as well in the personal interview round for the final admission.

Benefits Of The GK Section

1. Better accuracy:

GK based questions offer the chance to extend one’s accuracy. This is mainly because if a candidate knows the correct answer, there is no scope of losing marks.

2. Time efficiency:

One can manage time well as there is no calculation or analysis involved in the GK section. The candidate can use this to their advantage by allocating longer time to other sections of the examination.

3. Easy to score:

If a candidate has prepared well, it can be a very scoring section.

We bring to you the similarities as well as the differences that a student has to keep in his mind whilst preparing for the GK section (for the mentioned 4 examinations). Let’s have a closer look.

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Static GK and Current GK Topics for all these 4 exams are similar:

Static GK covers areas of discussion that do not generally change over time (Hence the name static). One may expect questions from the following subtopics in XAT Static GK: Indian Political System and Constitution, Organizations, Science and technology, geography, Economy, Companies and brands, sports and miscellaneous.

In Current GK, a candidate can expect questions from broad areas like Economy, Business and company news, Indian Polity, Organizations, people in News, Sports, and Miscellaneous.

Questions from Current GK will specialize in the important national and international events within the past 12 months regarding the areas mentioned above.

We strongly recommend one to read the newspaper, preferably ‘The Hindu’, daily.

GK In Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT)

IIFT General Knowledge section carries 8% weightage as an individual section. This means that a candidate must clear the sectional cut off apart from overall cut-offs to get shortlisted for IIFT. IIFT General Knowledge specializes in International Trade, so there lies a special emphasis on the International Trade deals which have happened in the past or in the recent times. There are around 18 questions in total that the IIFT GK section offers, out of which there are around 9-10 questions coming from the Current Affairs portion and the rest from Static GK.

GK in Common Management Admission Test (CMAT)

The General Knowledge section in CMAT has 25 questions. A distinguishing feature about the CMAT GK is that it has equal weightage i.e., 25% as that of the other sections. This is unlike papers like IIFT and XAT, which give relatively less weightage to the present section. Thus, the General Knowledge Section proves to be very important if one aims to score well overall in CMAT. It focuses on Static & Current GK.

GK in Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT)

XAT functions as the gateway to a lot of reputed MBA colleges in India, including XLRI and XIMB. A unique feature about XAT is that it has a separate section for General Knowledge.

Since the General Knowledge section here constitutes around 20-25% of the total marks, a candidate must not take this section lightly. There are no sectional time limits in the XAT, so a candidate can spend as much as the time they feel is appropriate for every section. This section also has 0.25 negative marking for marking wrong answers. XAT General Knowledge section focuses on questions based on Static GK and also current affairs like Economics, Organisations Science, Technology, and Business among others.

Tata Institute of Social Sciences National Entrance Test (TISSNET)

TISSNET is an exam which is conducted for admission to programs offered by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). The GK section is considered to be the toughest of the three among other sections. The GK for this particular examination focuses on the current affairs, polity, history, and current social issues.

This exam also covers all the broad discussion areas like Economy, Science and Technology, History, Geography Sports, and Awards. However, as always, their main focus had been on Static GK, but students are advised to thoroughly study the current affairs of 9-12 months previously from the date of the exam

How To Prepare For The GK Section

As far as Preparations and Tips for the GK Section are considered, they remain more or less for all these 4 exams

1. Yearbook is one of the best recommended General Knowledge Book for competitive exams.

2. Business General Knowledge and also for the Current Affairs one can read ‘The Hindu’, ‘Financial Express’, ‘Business Standard’, ‘The Economist’, ‘Economic Times’. Along with these readings, one must study the changes that have taken place in RBI policy guidelines, Economic Survey of India, and other important trending news.

3. In order to remember all the points, it is recommended for the students to write down each and every bit of news or information they gather from everyday news or articles. Not only will that help in listing down the important points but helps in quick grasping of the topics. One should go through the listed points daily.

4. Since the time a candidate decides to appear for any of the competitive exams, it is then that they should start focusing on the General Knowledge Section. There is no particular time set for the preparation of this section. The earlier a candidate starts, the better they will perform.

Tips on how to solve the GK section

Ideally, one should never spend more than 12-14 minutes on the General Knowledge section. This will allow the candidate to allocate more time to other time-consuming sections. Further, a 2-cycle method is advised to follow for the solving of these questions:

Cycle 1

1. Identify the easiest questions and attempt them.

2. Identify those questions which are answerable if some more time is spent on them.

3. Questions which cannot be attempted are best left untouched if carries there is negative marking

Cycle 2

In the second cycle, mark the answers to maximum possible questions that you simply have identified in Step (2) of Cycle 1. Do this through intelligent guessing or by using option elimination.

Key Areas for General Knowledge Preparation

1. Business & Economics – Fiscal and Monetary policy changes

2. Current Affairs & Social Issues

3. International Current Affairs & Events

4. UNO – Wings, agencies, HQs, Abbreviations

5. Countries-Capital, Currency, prominent development

6. Global Summits

7. Latest Who’s is Who

8. Constitution of India and recent amendments

9. Sports – National & International

10. Awards, Honours, National, International days

11. Books, Authors

12. Company Logo identification

13. Questions related to History, Geography, General Science

Some of the key statistics where the General Knowledge Section of these respective exams differ are the number of questions, marking scheme, number of good attempts, and the Difficulty level.

With respect to the analysis drawn from the last 5 years (2015-2020)
papers for these examinations, the key differences stand as:

EXAM	NO. OF QUESTIONS	WEIGHTAGE PERCENT	Negative Marking	NUMBER OF GOOD ATTEMPTS	Overall Difficulty level
IIFT	18	8% (0.5 marks for each correct answer)	– 0.33 for every wrong answer	8-9 attempts with 70% accuracy	Difficult
CMAT	25	25% (4 marks for each correct answer)	– 1or every wrong answer	13-15 with 80% accuracy	Difficult
XAT	25	25% (1 mark for each correct answer)	– 0.25 or every wrong answer	14-15 attempts with 70% accuracy	Moderate
TISS	40	40% (1 mark for each correct answer)	NA	25 attempts with accuracy of 60% accuracy	Difficult – Moderate

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MBA Entrance Exams: GK Section Preparation For IIFT, CMAT, XAT, TISS And Other

Benefits Of The GK Section

1. Better accuracy:

2. Time efficiency:

3. Easy to score:

Static GK and Current GK Topics for all these 4 exams are similar:

GK In Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT)

GK in Common Management Admission Test (CMAT)

GK in Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT)

Tata Institute of Social Sciences National Entrance Test (TISSNET)

How To Prepare For The GK Section

Tips on how to solve the GK section

Cycle 1

Cycle 2

Key Areas for General Knowledge Preparation

With respect to the analysis drawn from the last 5 years (2015-2020)
papers for these examinations, the key differences stand as:

Details on This Page

Words From Our Students

CAT Quantitative Aptitude

CAT DILR

CAT Verbal Ability

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MBA Entrance Exams: GK Section Preparation For IIFT, CMAT, XAT, TISS And Other

Benefits Of The GK Section

1. Better accuracy:

2. Time efficiency:

3. Easy to score:

Static GK and Current GK Topics for all these 4 exams are similar:

GK In Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT)

GK in Common Management Admission Test (CMAT)

GK in Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT)

Tata Institute of Social Sciences National Entrance Test (TISSNET)

How To Prepare For The GK Section

Tips on how to solve the GK section

Cycle 1

Cycle 2

Key Areas for General Knowledge Preparation

With respect to the analysis drawn from the last 5 years (2015-2020) papers for these examinations, the key differences stand as:

Details on This Page

Words From Our Students

CAT Quantitative Aptitude

CAT DILR

CAT Verbal Ability

Reach Us

Study With Us

Free Material Area

primary Menu

Go Social

With respect to the analysis drawn from the last 5 years (2015-2020)
papers for these examinations, the key differences stand as: