Hi so recently in the November 2014 exams, I got 72 in IDT (CLICK HERE: /forum/details.asp?mod_id=319152&offset=1#.VQWx9NKUc1Z)
As a result, some of you have asked me to share my strategy for the preparation of this subject. However before reading my tips, suggestions and strategies, you should understand, appreciate, accept, agree and acknowledge the fact that it's not going to be easy. So you should be willing to work hard and stay determined every single day untill the exams are over. Or else, it won't be possible. In other words, without hardwork, you won't clear the exams (this applies not just with IDT; but in the case of any subject).
So here's my strategy:
1. Service Tax is extremely important for your IDT exam, since it has a weightage of 50 marks, but the syllabus is very less when compared to Excise and Customs. So first try to complete all the topics in Service Tax. Do not leave even a single chapter. When you're reading for the first time, do not worry about memorizing it. Just try to understand what you're reading.
2. Once you're done reading all topics in Service Tax (i.e., after your first time reading of the same), now start Excise. The syllabus of Excise is comparitively very huge. So you need to be very careful that you won't end up spending too much time in it. There isn't anything like important in CA. All the topics are important. But based on my experience, you have to emphasize more on Valuation, CENVAT credit and Small Scale Exemption.
3. And now after Excise start Customs. In the case of Customs, except for the first chapter i.e., basics, for all the remaining chapters, concentrate only on the practical problems and only those theory questions which are relevant for the practical problems. You can leave the remaining theory part since it will be very time consuming but the weightage is very less. It's not worth spending time on the theory for the purpose of your exam (you can read it for your knowledge purpose though 
)
4. Assuming that the book, which you're referring to, contains seperate section for "Common Topics in Excise, Customs and Service Tax", now you should read these Common Topics (however, please ensure that you don't spend much time on these topics i.e., just have a quick reading). And then read Foreign Trade Policy. In the case of FTP, focus more on the practical type of problems rather on the theory.
Now that you're done with the entire syllabus, revise the same strategy twice. Since you're already familiar with the entire syllabus now, it will be a lot easier for you to work on memorizing the same.
P.S. For case laws in IDT, I suggest you to only read the "select case laws" publish by ICAI. You can download the same here: https://220.227.161.86/35312scasesp8.pdf (You can ignore the case law related questions in your text book; otherwise you'll overwhelmed with too much of syllabus)
I hope this post will be of some help for you.
Good luck 
CAclubindia
