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