IIFT General Knowledge: Preparatory tips and resources

I will try to make the aspirants aware of the vast plethora of resources available for mastering the General Knowledge section of exams like IIFT (Indian Institute of Foreign Trade) in this article.

The best way for preparing for this section is to be aware of ones surroundings.

Here are a preparatory tips and resources for IIFT GK:

1) Subscribe to a general affairs and a business newspaper. Note down the major economic and political stories on a day by day basis. Follow this procedure religiously for the next few months. I would advise you to read The Hindu and The Economic Times daily. While The Hindu is a very good general newspaper for improving English and GK, ET is one of the most comprehensive newspapers on the business and economic affairs.

Many newspapers are available online for free. You may read these if you do not wish to subscribe to the newspapers. Additionaly, reading it online will help you in reading RC passages in CAT.

2) For those of you who may not find the time to do the above step (although it is recommended) subscribe to websites like GK Today. They come out with daily and monthly snippets of information.

3) Pagalguy runs a thread on GK preparation too. Click here to go to GK thread. Here you will find useful matter shared by fellow MBA aspirants.

4) Towards the end of October, you will also find coaching preparation institutes coming out with GK Capsules. They are a must read for all. Last year there were more than a handful questions directly lifted from those capsules.

Eg. In one of the GK questions of last year, the name of the parliament of various countries were mentioned and they were to be matched with the corresponding country names.

Those of the test takers who may have gone through the booklets would vividly remember that the name of the Japanese Parliament is Diet.

Yup.. this is the diet..

And there was only one option that was matching the said combination. So, even if someone is not aware of the other options, knowing just one option would have sufficed.

5) In fact such a technique of eliminating answers by options comes in handy in the GK Section of the paper.

6) Another useful source of study are the magazines Competition Success Review (CSR) and Pratiyogita Darpan. All one needs to go through is the major happenings section of these magazines.

7) Besides, the GK Quest of IMS and Gyan Dhara of Career Launcher are also good for practice.  PT Education GK

My suggestion to everybody is to keep noting down the latest economic data, political appointments, foreign guest visits , Merger and Acquisitions as they happen.

Go through them once in a week and 2-3 weeks before the exam date, put in a little more rigorous effort.

That should put your ship in a safe harbor at least for the GK section.

All the Best