prep and more

well its been a long time i wrote a blog entry
this one would be more like a diary entry with details of what i had done over last 20 days
i had started my prep in the first week of may,but if i introspect how much i had done over a period of 40 days ,i had hardly completed any(theory of geometry and 75 problems from total gadha)theory of numbersystems and some 10 previous aimcats for DI
i have done good considering the fact that when ever we start any thing moment of inertia would be there...but then it is highly competetive world out there
and then i went on vacation for 1 week and before that 1 week i had not worked...some times they happen so i should plan for all those breaks in advance....
the thing is if i complete the office work in advance,it would not be bugging me and i can concentrate well on y prep

one good thing happened to me this time is having study partner as pavan
he is very comited person and i realise how imp a study partner can be for MBA entrance preparation
last year my prep use to be hapazard but this year it is more organised with regular study of 9 to 12 every night
if i continue this ,i am definetely going to make it
the first hurdle and a good confidence booster would be the AIMCATs and the first one i am going to write in 10 days ...
points to remember:
(1)complete the office work in advance ,so that mind would be at peace for prep related work
(2)give time for unexpected breaks ine the study
(3)complete all the previous papers well in advance ,instead of procrastinating till the last moment

preparations for 2010

may has been good so far
after a long hiatus ,finally i had started doing what i am expected to do.
yes,started my preparation ;)
its been good so far,in the sense ,i did not miss preparation any day in the last 10 days
but if i introspect ..the quantity and quality,there are definetely some areas of concern
i had done 3 previous DI papers from AIMCATs.
even though i could not do all the problems ,but seeing and analysing the sets is giving immense confidence
this (DI) is one area ,which i had not concentrated in the last year and the results shows :(

well coming to the quant preparation,this is the area of concern,not that i am bad in quants but my scores in AIMCATS and XAT says otherwise ;)

i started earnestly with geometry from TG e-book but hardly done 30 questions(its better to say ,have seen the answers of 30 questions )
still it takes time to be comfortable with quants but definetely i would not leave it until i am very comfortable in it

and last,but coming to most important section Verbal..my preparation in this section is more or less confined to reading hindu editorial and business line
have plans to start with barrons word lists(i have studied them N number of times in the past few years)
but for now concentration is more on quant and DI and have to see how things work out
but have this intuition that this year i will make into XLRI :)
hope dreams come true ...

PS:writing this in office,waiting for my manager to come from his home,so that my appraisal can be taken(today is the last day for appraisals ;),....like team like manager)

SBI PO and how it went????

well today i had given SBI PO exam...so thought of sharing my adventures on reaching the centre ,using google maps etc etc

well i almost dropped the idea of writing any bank Po exams,but this one student of mine all of a sudden called me one day and said that he is going to buy the form and asked me whether i want one...
lazy me ,thought that any way i need not not go ,so asked him to bring one for me

never prepared and one day while going through pile of mails in FC1 (infy),in search of my XAT score card ,i found this big envelppe containing hall ticket of SBI
never bothered to open and least interested to write ,but since i already paid 500 of my hard earned money(may be a bit exageration)and center being in mysore ,decided to go for the exam

the centre is maharni college,mysore
A google search gave me historical imp of college(it is established in 1869)so thought every one in vicicnity will be knowing it

finally took the pains in filling biodata form,getting the certifcates xeroxed(why they want certificates during the exam time itself) and had a detail search in google and took 6 printouts of detailed map to recah there using google maps(in office printer ;) )
slept at friend's house by keeping the alarm for 6:20(not for me to wake up ;) )and woke up at 7:10 and out of my room by 7:45
earlier plan is to walk the distance,as i had detailed map with some 10-12 pointers on the way

got down the bus,(the driver said its just around the corner,idiotic me trusted more of google)
my plan is to try to find out the college by 8:30,if not take an auto(exam at 9:15)
started walking,and am happy that i can see all the pointers on the map ,but i completed all the pointers but still did not reach the spot,time 8:35
asked an old gentle man there,and he is very empathetic and siad the it is 3 km from the point we aree there and better take an auto(actually i walked those 3 kms and the point he is refering is the point where i started my journey ;( )
but still,trusted my gmaps and kept walking,now without to be seen by the old man

after some time,the road gave way to more like a village setup Time 8:40
its the time to panic and went to an auto and bargained for 30rs and got down at exactly same location where i got down the bus in the morning

so essentially i paid 30 rs and walked 3 kms for taking sbi po today
exam went fine
but writing 5 essays is the pain of life time ,some how wrote it ...may be who knows they might even select me

so this is how my sunday's day out for me

MY XAT experience

well i have told earlier that i scored 98.46 in XAT
yes,i take pride in that,and the performance gave me enough boost and confidence to go all out once again
i have never mentioned my 2 hrs of XAT experience,so thought of sharing it now
prelogue:(events happened before XAT)
i have taken my CAT exam on first sunday of december ,thanks to prometric ,i have no idea ,how i have performed in the exam
what i know is i have written the exam with a cool mind,and the graphs of DI are very confusing as i am not able to read them properly
then came JMET in the second sunday of december and i thought i had done pretty decently(ofcourse i came to know its one of the worst performances soon after)
i scored a pathetic in verbal(the section which i scored 96 in CAT and 99.81 in XAT) owing to spending very less time on that..

well so after CAT,i had solid 3 weeks time(dec 13 is JMET and JAN 3rd is XAT) for XAT
i started prep(welll after completion of CAT,i am not very interested in any more prep)
i solved one XAT paper XAt 2009 and scored 27 overall (the cut off previous year is 30)
so i thought XAT is well in my reach(in this exam i scored 6 marks in english,by not giving its quota time)
and then wrote XAT 2008,scoring this time a balanced score and attempted XAT 2009 again and scored 34 overall with 14 in verbal
my uncle and his family came to visit ooty one week before XAT and they insisted me comong with them,though not very interested went along with them

so all in all my prep for XAT is solving 2 previous year papers
so my strategy before examination is :
XLRI PMIR has higher cut offs in VA than BM ..
BM has highest cut off for QA,where as it is in 80's for PMIR
and the overall cutoff for PMIR is comparitively less for PMIR when compared to BM
so if we can score heavily in VA ,and even though misses QA cut off(worst case)will make the mark for PMIR
so thought of changing the order of my attempts(this also has some thing to do with my VA performance in JMET)
so the order i thought of attempting is VA-LR-QA (40 mins each)
during this time ,i was bit worried abt VA,as in XAT-2009 they have asked questions on figures of speech,so during the time i had also roughly gone through them
coming to LR ,i am pretty confident,can crack a puzzle of 4 questions in 15 min max,so thought if i can crack 2 puzzles along with business scenario questions ,i can sail through this section

QA ,i am confident enough,as it also contains DI part and doing 8-9 questions correctly will clear the cut off even for BM(previous years cut offs were very low)

so went to see my centre one day in advance(i think xaviers collge),had this feeling that i am going to cherish this exam centre forever,had this feel good factor(basically,because i am not expecting very much,no pressure just plain confidence)
called my mom,before entering the exam hall,she said she had a good dream of me doing well in the exam and getting into college(see again good signs)
so i entered my room after routine trip to the loo
Exam Time
............
got the paper it contained 101 questions(3 less than last year,and less negative marking compared to last year)
did not had any predetermined no of attempts in the mind,thought of attempting as many as i acan with confidence
started with english(there were no questions from grammer)
only short passages and parajumbles
started doing the paper confidently and with in 40 mins had 23 attempts in VA
haven't even seen the remaining seven questions,already had the feeling that i blasted the paper
continued to LR,seen through the puzzles and selected 2 which i thought i will attempt
done the fisrt one ,but it took close to 20 mins time (first mistake)
thought that,i cannot trust my answers in business scenarios so went with attempting the second puzzle(biggest mistake) so with 40 mins into LR i had attempted 6 LR questions along with 3 other individual questions,should have continued to QA as planned initially
but business scenario questions seemed to be very easy,so persisted for 12 more minutes and completed them
that left me with 28 mins for QA,even if i take 5 mins(worst case) i can attempt 6 questions correctly ,which would be fairly sufficient for PMIR
but pressure got the best of me..i am desperate to make more attempts
thought even though DI may take time,but i can be sure of answers ,so chose the roses and carnations set and started doing it ..10+mins into it and i completely missed the logic and i am already in panic..so with half done answers i had marked 2 options (both are wrong)
in the last 15 mins done some qa questions and they are correct ,but my scoring coming to 5 ..which is a reason to worry
in the last 10 mins of exam i can see my hand literally shaking (this is the time i understood what pressure can do to u and the importance of not just finsihing the topics required for exam but also prepartion in tackling the exam)
so after 2 hrs i know, then itself i had screwed my qa and chances for xlri
attempted the essay with half heartedness and came out

After exam
..................
it took me till evening to see for the keys(as i had to travel from bangalore to mysore)
and 1st key gave me a score of 30 (which later increased to 32 with careerlauncher and 31 for time)
have seen the performance of pagal guys and man..people commenting this is the toughest paper of the season(i felt jmet is tougher than this) and my score being among the best of scores(ofcourse screwed sectionals)

but this gave me confidence,that i have enough aptitude to crack XAT and this is my type of exam
well after the results my score card read as follows
VA 99.81 QA 70.99 LR 91.98
might be i am not made up for 2010-2012 batch
might be my destiny lies in 2011-2013 batch
who knows only time can say ;)

how i spent last 24 hrs??

well today is Ambedkar's jayanthi ,so official holiday for us.
my manager postponed my appraisal meeting which is scheduled for yesterday evening
but he gave me enough work to last for a week,and i know he is going to ask the update tomorrow morning(having given the work yesterday at 6:00pm)
ha ..who cares i will start ,but its not going to complete any time soon

there was huge rain yesterday night also,and obviously power cut.
i went to Amit's room and we watched MARINE movie till 12:00 Am in the night,then i came to my room after copying some movies
well guess what i had done then,started watching toy story -1 and then 2 till 4:00Am in the morning
so all plans of getting up early,preparing chicken biryanee (yaya i am a self proclaimed .best cook of mysore,naa my friend circle) had gone ...
so having woken up at 11:30 in the morning,started watching which movie(i don't remember now ;) ) then in the after noon watched AVATAR continued with HAPPY DAYS(telugu movie)
so finally at 5:00PM i came to office and writing this blog :)
now have plans of going to library and reading hindu editorial ,heheheh

Fresh season...fresh hopes

well the season for 2010 officially starts today on a new year(telugu new year)
i am now on a vacation in my home town(vizag),and i did told my parents i will not be coming to vizag any time soon,before the end of exams for 2010
some mistakes i had done last year should not be repeated

(1)too much discussion about CAT/XAT and previous scores(read CAT 2009/XAt 2010)is injurious to preparation,it would either lead to unnecessary anxiety or complacency

(2)should always believe from the core of heart,that i can achieve and i am deserved for the best

(3)give weightage for all th etopics and keep the prep simple,no need to go through all the stupid tough problems posted in pagalguy

(4)complete the basics and practise previous year papers

dry season ..no calls

finally the season-2009 ended today,on a sad note :(
didn't get a call from SP.Jain after scoring 98.46 in XAT(accidentally this is my highest score,even after considering my AIMCATS scores)
ofcourse i am not completely hopeful on this call(seeing the rejects last year,and considering the fact i applied for Finance with IT work experience :) )but neverthless,Rejection or to say mildly refusal hurts
now since 2009 officially came to an end ,its time to buck up and start preparing for the next season,the difference,this time with one year experience in preparing and close to two years work experience ;)

today is UGADHI(telugu new year)
so happy ugadhi to all and hope this new year brings more happiness
need to take some decissions on prep this time(in next post)

what i want to do for the next 200 odd days

yaa 200 odd days because after exactly 220 days i would be taking IIFT.
writing CAT 2009 gave me necesary boost,and its time i should make into one of the best colleges(already am having a experience of 21 months :( )
so decided that i will write IIFT,CAT,XAT,TISS,FMS this year
the main hurdle to cross is the Quant part.even though what ever CAT prep i have done for 2009 is just for quant and finally i did not got any satisfactory marks in that(i never came any where close to quant cut offs during my AIMCATS season)
this time should get a 100% fee waiver from TIME institute :),so should be ready by the time first AIMCAT starts....
quant ,even though i prepared ,but never have done it in a structured way....(never completed all the previous papers)
this time target is not to do tough problems,but to be comfortable in basics and then solve all previous years papers of all the exams
then i can definetely land among the best and one more imp thing is never to take the pressure and never to procrastinate
taking a vacation (going to home town )on march 12th and would be back on march 24th
from April 1st sinciere prep will start and this year i am going to rock

u might be wondering what happened to sp.jains percentile based calls,honestly speaking now i do not have much hopes on it and if it comes i will give my best to convert it
any how sp.jain second list will come on march 15th...once it comes i will update the status

Finally CAT results are Out

After a looooooooooooooooooooooooong wait CAT results are out.
CAT is supposed to be the biggest exam of the season,but this no one is interested in it,
lot of confusion abt how the result might be
and finally prometric came out with psychometric analysis to determine percentiles,the authenticity of which is not made obvious to the public.
but how can they pla with the dreams of 2.2 lakh young indians
IIMs could have been more cautious.being technology savvy is appreciable but before venturing into some thing big(Like CAT)they should have done enough home work
hope they rectify their mistakes by next year

any how my CAT result didn't went that well ,it is 91.72
so its 2010 now :)

why am i blogging?

Well, now a days i am not having much work to do.
from the past one year ,preparing for my CAT exam(the only prep is quant,which i screwed very badly :) ),so now i got all the free time waiting for the CAT results
ofcourse my main interest is not CAT results,where in i can get any where from 70-99.9%,but
SP.Jain results which comes along with it
i was going through all the information available regarding SP,and life at SP
in various blogs,so thought why not i start and here it goes :)



PS:scored 98.46% in XAT,so optimistic abt SP call,will update soon regarding the status