Everything of MBA

About 2-3 months ago, while browsing the Web, I came across a website named “PaGalGuY – Everything of MBA”. A whacky name and a bold tagline was all that was needed to entice my curiosity buds so I began surfing. More I surfed, the clearer it became to me that the bold tagline was no gag – It INDEED had EVERYTHING imaginable related to MBA.

Started in 2002, Pagalguy is India’s biggest MBA preparatory resource website. There are thousands of forums in which you can discuss anything and everything related to MBA. What is so special about this place that makes it so diverse from other preparatory resources websites?

First and foremost is the gargantuan size of its registered users. Some 7,00,000 users use this site in order to participate in more than 2 million + discussion posts.

Second USP of Pagalguy is the sheer quality of peers and seniors on board. A great chunk of Current students from almost all major B-schools are Pagalguy users that guide and help aspirants on any topic from the quality of food served to the admission criteria, placements, courses, whatever. You just shoot the question and more often than not, it will be replied enthusiastically by a student enrolled at that particular institute. Information secured in this way is more authentic and elaborate than through advertisements or college websites.

If someone is looking for serious competition during the preparation phase, and by serious I mean SERIOUS, Paagalguy is the place to be. It opens our conscience to an elite group of applicants who are invariably at the top of the table during the Mock CATs. Interacting with these people somehow brings a more competitive feel than say, reading the score of a topper on your result screen (at least it brings out a more competitive trait in my case).

Forums and Threads are easily accessible and information content available is top notch. A major task in keeping the threads clean and informative is performed by the Moderators (Pagalguy users with a helping nature and loads & loads of free time.... just kidding :P) who are somehow, not thanked enough. Kudos to you - You Guys Rock .

All this information is transmitted efficiently, believe it or not, with a Laid Back and relaxed attitude. People actually take time out to help their competitors with their queries, trials & tribulations, aspirations, dejections, etc – which is the real spirit of Pagalguy. The atmosphere is usually fun and browsing the site all day long is a pleasurable experience.

Here’s a link to the PaGalGuY Song : Sung by Sarang Tatimatla and music by Apurv Pandit. Great Work. :D

The PaGalGuY Song

Analysis & Feedback - 1121

The much awaited result for my first AIMCAT of this season is finally out and it is a mixed bag. It is a decent effort with plenty of grey areas as well. A snapshot of my performance is shown above.

ANALYSIS

L&DI: This section looked startling with mammoth data sets. A casual glance could easily have frightened off many test takers. However, on a closer look, the questions were of moderate difficulty level with some demanding serious consideration details. Also there was a set on Cubes which required heavy 3D visualization (Mechanical Engineers wouldn’t be complaining :) ). I was pleasantly surprised at my result in this section as this has never been my forte. Managed to clear the cut-off by a meager 3 marks but its still an improvement from my previous attempts.

Verbal Ability : My strongest section. Traditionally, my overall results in the AIMCATS or Actual CATs have been directly proportional to how well I have done in this section. This AIMCAT was no different with a major chunk of my marks scored of this section. Accuracy was a grey area in which I will have to improve in order to stabilize my scores in this level (My Scores in this section have varied from 89 to 99 in the previous seasons). Questions involving the conclusion of sentences were the weakest link with 4 incorrect attempts out of 5.

Quantitative Ability : It was a decent mix of easy as well as difficult questions but the overall difficulty level was more on the Easy side. This has been my weak point ever since I started my CAT preparations and I have been working tirelessly to achieve a turnaround. Missed the Cut off by 4 Marks but still I’m quite pleased with the Accuracy of 87.5. Still much preparation is required before I start scoring high consistently.

Overall, the Paper was of Moderate difficulty level and 10-12 marks could easily have been scored merely by achieving a better accuracy ad doing a better selection of which questions to attempt and which ones to leave! Pretty pleased as this is my highest ever AIMCAT percentile (2008 season included) though the no. of test takers was low at around 14k. I can expect the same effort to fetch lower percentile three or four months down the line when the number as well as the seriousness of the test takers increases.

In the words of Robert Frost

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
Miles to go before I sleep. ’’

Blast From the Past - AIMCAT 1121..!!

It is a perplexing feeling when you work very hard not to repeat a certain chapter of your life under any circumstances but the exact thing occurs – like a ghost resurrected from the past. This happened to me on the 13^th of June 2010 at 2015 hrs when I finished writing my first AIMCAT of this season. I feel a little brief of my past CAT experiences is required before moving forward:

• CAT 2008: Final year of college, studies were restricted to appearing for the All India mock CATs – No concept building and No Test reviewing whatsoever. Got 94.18 percentile with 98.99 in verbal, 60 odd in DI/LR and 54 in Quant..!!
• CAT 2009: Was settled in a job and had made up my mind towards CAT 2010 but appeared just for the sake of familiarizing myself with the CBT (Computer based test). No concept building and No Test series even this time. Got 88 percentile with 89 in Verbal, 80 odd in quant 61 in DI..!!

It is quiet clear from the above facts that whatever percentile I was getting was hugely due to the verbal section. This sort of a test strategy with majority of marks scored in just one section was in no way going to get me closer to the hallowed halls of the I.I.Ms. So I made it a point when I started studying for this year’s CAT that I was going to concentrate mainly on Quant and DI/LR and turn my weaknesses to my strengths. The process is ongoing and I now dedicate much more time to these two sections while preparation for “Verbal” section is restricted to reading novels or newspapers etc.

In the first mock CAT for this season : TIME’s AIMCAT – 1121, I noticed the first omens when I saw the Instructions: 30 Questions in Verbal as opposed to 20 each in Quant and LR/DI – Similar to quant 2008 where English had more weightage than others. The end result of the examination was:

No of Questions: 70

Attempted: 49

Correct: 35

Wrong: 14

Score: 91

The score is decent but the problem that I am hell bent on destroying is showing no signs of abating for now. Majority of marks scored were from the Verbal section which beats the purpose I’m trying to achieve. Anyways I have doubled my efforts, for if for some reason I do not do well in the actual CAT, it should not be because of lack of tenacity. I’ve learned that life is about Aspirations Vs Dejections. It is like a spring balance between the two and the direction our life takes is the direction we choose to pursue in our minds – Whether we aspire enough for achieving certain goals in our life that we overcome each and every dejection that comes our way or do we let dejections rule us so much that we give up our aspirations. “It is not how hard you fall but how quickly you bounce back that matters’’.

Gearing up for the next AIMCAT.

Foundations....

It’s been quiet a while since I last wrote something here. The rationale for this is the fact that I’ve been on the move quiet a lot during the entire last month. Loads of things have happened since my last update. For starters, I received the much awaited study material (A carton full of books – divided in 3 packages) from Career Launcher. The Test Series from all the major education service providers is underway and I have enrolled in TIME’s All India Mock Cat Series – The first of the 19 AIMCATS is on 13th June 12, 2010 and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for that one. A good start to the Test Series will go a long way in boosting my confidence for the Entire term of 20 tests: 19 being mock CAT’s and 20th one the Holy Grail.


I’ve Begun my preparations and slowly trying to gather momentum as it has been around 10-12 months since I last picked up a book (fiction excluded). The one section that has really got me apprehensive is the Quantitative Aptitude section (Yeah…. I know I’m an Engineer..!!). One Topic that has really haunted me is the Number System which is used directly or indirectly in most of the CAT questions. I’ve given myself till 20th June to Master the Concepts and solve as much conceptual questions as I can manage. Conceptual learning will be from 4 sources:

• Study material - TIME
• Study Material – Career Launcher
• Quantitative Aptitude – Arun Sharma
• PagaLguy – The Everything of MBA

The fourth one is imperative for any serious MBA enthusiast. The quality of peers and seniors along with the information one finds there is simply priceless. But more on Pagalguy in a later post (I intend to dedicate an entire one to this wonderful website). Coming back to Number Systems, following are the topics I hope to cover over the next one week:

1. Types of Numbers
2. Squares, Cubes, Square Roots, Cube Roots
3. Prime Nos.
4. LCM and GCD
5. Sum of Factors of any Given Number
6. No. of factors of a given factor
7. Even and Odd Factors
8. No. of zeroes in an expression and a Factorial value
9. The Concept of Co-Prime or Relatively prime numbers
10. Remainder theorem
11. Cyclicity or units Digit of any Expression
12. Successive Division.

On a completely different note, the FIFA World Cup 2010 is in progress and I sincerely hope that Spain lift the trophy this time. Go Torres….!! :)