GMAT - The exam!!

In my previous post I mentioned about the Dos and Donts of the preperation involved. In this post i would mainly concentrate on the nuances involved in giving the exam.

GMAT - Graduate Management Admission Test.

GMAT is an exam with a maximum score of 800. It comprises of two sections, Verbal and Quant. I will not go into the details of explaining the individual sections. The details can be looked in at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_Management_Admission_Test

It is an adaptive exam which means that the difficulty of the questions we encounter depends on our previous replies/answers or in other words, the difficulty of the exam adapts itself to match the competence of the exam taker.

The first few questions is where the exam decides on our competence and adjusts the level of the questions to come. Hence it is of utmost importance to spend sufficient time in the begining of the exam and to make sure that the accuracy of answering is optimal.

Time management:

There can be different strategies to manage time efficiently and excel in GMAT. I will take the example of Quant senction and explain the strategy i followed. Quant section has 37 questions to be answered in 75 mins, which gives approximately 2 mins for every question. I spent nearly 35-40 mins on the first 10 questions, 25-30 mins on the next 15 questions and the remaining 10-15 mins on the last 17 questions. This strategy suited me the best during my practice mocks as well.

A simple thumb rule for adaptive exams like GMAT and GRE, " you can afford to make mistakes in the tougher questions but never in the easier ones"

In the exam if you encounter a series of tough questions, that means your performance is pretty good and you are sure of a decent score. The score is decided in the first 10 questions of each section with a deviation of +- 30.

General Tips:

Keep your cool during the exam, you need not carry any material for rough work. The concerened people in the examination centre will provide you with the needful. I would advice you to take a bottle of water and a few energy supplements like chocolates/ red bull with you.

Never try to finish the exam before the prescribed time. There are NO bonus marks for early finishers.

You have an option to cancel your score at the end of the exam, but be extremely careful before opting for cancellation. Remeber that GMAT is a competitive exam and no performance is absolute. GMAT is just one of the many parameters involved in the admission process for an MBA. 99 out of 100 times you should go ahead with the score you get.

I have tried to cover the general aspects of giving the exam. If you have any specific doubts please feel free to drop in your queries.

GMAT dos and donts

Its been almost 6 months since i have given my GMAT. Got a score of 700. Its an average/good score, no where near an excellent score. I thought I should jot down a few Dos and Donts before i forget about the experience completely. As a side note, a good GMAT score alone doesn't guarantee an admission in a good school nor an avg score rule out the possibility of an admission, its just one of the many parameters the ad com takes into account.

I will start of with the donts...

Donts

1. Do not take GMAT lightly. Its a general perception of we Indians that quant is a cake walk, verbal requires a little hard work. NO. The DS part of quant is quite tricky. Scope to make a good score a great score.

2. Verbal is what i found difficult. Not because of the vocabulary usage or anything, but because of the erratic strike rates (accuracy). Do not take this section lightly. The RCs and CRs seemed easy. The SCs are the one where i was never confident.

3. There will come a stage where you will hit a plateau, do not take this level to be your optimal level. Persevere during this phase. This is the difference between a 710 and a 750.

4. Do not book your exam date just a week before the desired date. Booking the date late is advised by most GMAT gurus. Its a shit load of crap. As long as you do not book a date, your prep will not get serious.

5. Do not join any of the coaching institutes. A sheer waste of time and money. GMAT is all about self learning.


Dos

1. Start your preparation well in advance. I would advice people to prepare for at least 45 days. 45 days is an ideal time to prepare and give the GMAT. Ideally you should be peaking in 35-40 days.

2. Book the date early. It helps in preparing. Until and unless we have a deadline to look up for we don't tend to be serious.

3. Treat OG like bible. Do it once, twice, thrice...every time i solved OG i learned something new.

4. Remember that GMAT is an adaptive exam. Be extremely careful while solving the first few questions. Device a time management strategy as per your strengths and convenience. No use completing the exam well before the time limit.

I covered most of the aspects of prep I felt important. I will keep updating as and when I remember more points.

This post mainly concerns with the preparation for the GMAT. I will write another post on giving the exam soon.

Golden Bollock!!!

Statuary warning:

Any resemblance to real life incidents or people is purely and obviously a coincidence and is not intended by the author.

Excerpt from a babaji’s address to the youth of the nation.

"....u people should concentrate more on spirituality than on materialistic interests. live a simple life...do good ...be good...and then you will have true happiness. You will understand the purpose of life……"

The same guy wakes up every morning in a palatial house ....has dry fruits roasted in butter for breakfast (remember always ...u should be as close to nature as possible). Unfortunately has to wear whites or saffrons when he his out preaching people. I presume they are linens designed by rohit bal. has the most expensive of cars parked in his garage.

Only people with fat wallets get to meet him. Gets millions of nontaxable money in donations. Stays on a holiday for most part of the year. Even if he is not, all he has got to do is to talk some golden bullshit which everyone of us seems to have an idea of. Of course the art lies in making to sound new every time.

This is one of the most impeccable business models i have come across. No wonder many of the IITians are getting into this business now days.

Ps: want to write more on this ….but as the topic suggests, its only shit that’s coming in mind.

My journey continues....

(Wed 15:43 hrs)

Adi: (on the phone) “hello…hey jeet, sup man? How u doing?

Jeet: doing good dude….long time. How u doing? Actually was not doing too well since a month. Was on bed due to my knee operation… getting really frustrated with this.

Adi: oh…that’s bad…how does it feel now?

Jeet: Feels much better now. Hey, do you remember we were planning to drive down to Bangalore?

Adi: “YA” Y?

Jeet: shall we do it today?

Adi: What?? Bangalore?? TODAY????!!!! Hmmm….lesse….@#%^%*%#% FINE, lets do it!!!

This small dialogue led to one of the most exciting and adventurous trips I have been to.

You call it a moment of madness, craziness personified, two jobless pricks trying to keep themselves busy…..etc etc….

I prefer to call it “Passion to Drive Cars”

(Wed 20:43 hrs)

We start out on our journey, filled up fuel, got the pollution check done, checked the air pressure in all the tyres. We planned for a frugal trip, took just the essential stuff like bottles of water, deo (just struck me how imp a deo is :P) snacks to eat and a load of CDs and the Road map book of Bangalore. I was carrying around 1.5k and so was Jeet.

(Wed 21:00 hrs)

Set out on the highway, long unwinding road.

We planned our journey in such a way that we reach Bangalore by dawn, have breakfast, chill for a while(sleep in this case), check out a few things in the city, meet a few old friends, start on our journey back , reach hyderabad by the dawn again.

Cruising at speeds of 120kmph, we were covering good distances every hour. Racing against the trucks (which were a nomatch honestly), Volvo buses which I would confess was a little difficult and also constituted most of the adrenaline pumping moments.

We reached Kurnool (a mid point of sorts) by mid night. It was now that we realized our calculation about the fuel required was a little off track. We estimated that we had to fill up again only at Bangalore. It dint seem to be anymore. We continued to hit the pedal, I wish I could give a more romantic description of the surroundings, but all we could hear or see was the enthralling sound of the car engine, smell of the red hot burning rubber, the speedo needle showing 115kmph, the RPM needle showing 2800.

We had reached Anantapur at 0200 hrs Thursday, another checkpoint. This is where we decided that the money we allotted for buying a few stuff had to be put in on the fuel itself as the fuel needle showed almost empty with more than 1/3^rd of the distance remaining to Bangalore. The road got really horrible, a blessing in disguise of sorts as it never allowed us to feel sleepy or doze off. Not sure if it was because of the road or the speeds at which we were going in spite of it, the car was literally gulping in fuel. The fuel needle was now freakingly close to the E. We had our fingers crossed, the ganesha idol on the dash board suddenly went loose which made matters worse. Maybe superstition is just another way of expressing helplessness. Suddenly as a flash of light we could see a fuelling station(F.S) at a distance. We stopped by only to find that it was closed. Continuing on, constantly changing view from the fuel needle and the empty roads, stopped at a place where we saw a few trucks parked. Got down the car to negotiate with the drivers for a few bottles of diesel in exchange for a few bucks. To our much needed relief they informed us that there was a F.S. at a distance of 5km. We were at peace as we knew the fuel in the tank is sufficient to go the distance. 5kms passed, 10kms passed, no sign of the F.S. 20kms have passed, and we could feel the engine pulling back due to the lack of fuel. We dropped the speed to 60kmph in hope of improving the fuel efficiency. At 25km we finally found what had become the wish of our life in the last 15 mins. Filled the tank, started cruising again at speeds in excess of 110kmph. It was 0430 hrs with less than 150km for Bangalore; spot on in terms of the timeline. Feeling a sense of accomplishment and contented with ourselves that we actually pursued our passion, we decided to further elongate our journey to Mysore(150km further down) instead of Bangalore. Meeting our old friends was just an excuse to convince ourselves that there was enough reason to make the trip. Bangalore was fast approaching as we could see the narrow pot holes filled road turn into an awesome 6 lane highway. The speedo needle now read almost 150 kmph. We lowered down the windows to feel the cool wind in our faces. Everything else went numb, the car was in harmony with the road, the surroundings were a mere dark blue shade. Suddenly as if the string of an instrument is broken, or an orchestra missing a note rather disturbing to the ear, we had a deadly jerk. The car was suspended in the air for a second. It took us a while to understand of what happened; we hit a speed breaker (proved to be a little more than just a speed breaker) at a speed of 120kmph. Slowed down to a side and inspected the car. To our pleasant surprise, the car took the shock really well. Kudos to the Indian engineers who designed it. There was a slight bend in the front left wheel. We continued on, on our journey of life. Found our way in and out of a seemingly polluted Bangalore. The Bangalore – Mysore highway was a misplace in India, we felt. The amazing 8 lane highway on which speeds like 100 kmph looked like a mere stroll in the park. At a stunning average speed of 115kmph we covered the remaining distance in less than 90mins. Finally we reached Mysore at 0843 hrs.

A sense of jubilation, a sense achievement of the unknown embraced us. But we knew the journey was only half complete. Infact the tougher part was the return journey as we need to fight fatigue and sleep to finish what we set out to.

The return journey in the next post……too much to write in just one post.

for whom are we living for??

just recovering from the hibernation mode....so please bare with me if my language is lethargic at places.

For whom are we really living for.....our daily schedules are so busy and monotonic i get a feeling people( or atleast me) are losing their focus on what they really want and what they are doing to get there....

life is just moving along like a rudderless ship not knowing what to do next. We can positively put forward this state as " being and living in the present" i wish i was so ignorant as ignorance is bliss.
people walk into ur lives ...demand ur time, ur attention etc etc . We go ahead doing all the stuff we need not do, but we do them just to make them happy or just to see a smile on their faces. the real pain is when they in the same casual manner just walk out of ur life. Then we sit down and ponder about all the deeds we have done. The same actions which made us proud once will now make no sense and make us look stupid. At the end of it all is it really worth it???

The solution for this is ......just do ur own stuff,go ahead with things caring a damn for what others might say,say what u feel is right....basically call a spade a spade. But the problem with this attitude is people might mistake you for being arrogant , high headed .....

But then again man is a social animal and is responsible for the so called 'society' around him.....so still not sure how far this attitude will take me.....

still pondering ....for whom are we really living for......

Do i love or hate myself?

This was the topic of discussion when i last went home. My mom and aunt both being english profs, these kinda discussions are pretty common. Well that much for the topic. I blah blahed whatever that came to my mind and thought there would end the matter. But later that one small question has triggered in me a series of thoughts, opinions about what we feel about ourselves. We take pride in most of whatever we do (if not everthing). As time passes ...the deeds that were a moment of pride appear to be too trivial to be thought about. I at times love myself soooo much that the mind loses its discretion between good and bad and do things that feel right to me. Once that self admiration subsides, i start contemplating my past actions. I go crazy some times...wonder if this kinda things happen only to me or its only natural. Lots and lots to express ...but as i am writing this my already unstable mind is racing towards one more of such kind of intriguing thoughts. So thats all i guess......hope next time i'll be able to control my mind more to write a longer post.