My first admit : The Indian School of Business

The pure unadulterated joy of getting your first admit has to be felt to be believed. I do not have the talent to express the feeling in words and so … what the heck… its my blog 🙂 …  The closest feeling  I can point to in my life where I felt similar would be when I went Bungee Jumping. The anxiety of awaiting your turn, the terror of climbing up and the adrenaline rush of the actual jump parallels very well with the anxiety of refreshing pagalguy (aah pagalguy.. the necessary evil.. very evil) awaiting any news, the terror of opening the web site and checking your result and the jumping jack impressions done after reading that one beautiful ohh so beautiful word “CONGRATULATION”. And then just like after Bungee jumping my room mates started clicking away (true horror pics that will never see the light of day.. on both instances actually) and I start calling away to glory (Airtel made a lot of MONEY!!) shouting and screaming, laughing and crying at the same time. I love that day and I don’t think I will ever forget it.

The GMAT (Verbal)

Okay .. so this is the third in my series of GMAT related posts. In this one I am going to talk about the verbal section of the GMAT and hopefully help you sort through the huge amount of available resources to get to the stuff that matters. To give credibility to the post let me tell you that I scored a 46 in the verbal section 🙂 (phew!!).

Okay, first things first the so called must have reference material. I would suggest the following:

1. Manhattan SC : I found this to be a very good starting point in my preparation for the SC part of the equation. If you really sit down and give time to this book SC should go through like a breeze, although it does take time and as far as I was concerned this was the place where I spent the maximum time in my prep
2. Spidey GMAT Notes : A few days before the exam there is no better refresher course than the spidey notes
3. OG 10 and 11 : For the critical reasoning and reading comprehension parts of the verbal section and to practice the skills learnt in Manhattan SC there is no better place to go than the OG. Do not miss out on OG 10 because it is the older edition, it has a bigger set of questions and overall a better place to begin than OG11.
4. Kaplan 800 : Please tackle this only after you are done with all the above because it will not help otherwise
5. Newspapers : No better place to increasing reading skills than the editorials. So make reading the newspaper a habit.

The 1000 pack question bank available is a huge waste of time and I feel should be avoided. In the end the it is very important to give sample tests regularly to see your progress and mark out area’s that need improvement and then attack them. I did not touched any other material other than that mentioned above and would not even recommend you tackling more.

The important thing to remember is that GMAT is not testing true English but the GMAT English which we have to get used to. That the name of the game. The comfort factor. The more comfortable you get with the material the more relaxed you will be in the test and the better you will score. In the test play follow your instincts and believe your ear for the language. After all this prep there is no chance that it will fail you.

Best of luck!!!!

The Narayan Rane revolt

Well well.. they are at it again 🙂 Our so called leaders never seize to amaze us do they. When the public sentiment is at its lowest, there is anger and fear in the streets, tensions with Pakistan are mounting our dear Mr Narayan decided to belittle the Congress parties choice for Chief Minister.. and that to before the official announcement was made. He said that Chavan is not “Fit” to be the Chief Minister and what is happening in the   party now is all “Natak”. Well Mr Rane, India agrees with the natak part however I for one agree with Sonia Gandhi’s choice in this matter. The time had come for  a new face to lead Mumbai in this state of crisis and she took the tough decision of taking the road less traveled. I am not saying that Chavan is the right choice. I do not know Chavan but Rane was a definite bad choice especially after Chhagan Bhujbal (of the Telgi scam fame) was named the the Deputy chief minister. Rane’s comments against Deshmukh

“Vilasrao Deshmukh’s behavior was shameful. He is a blot on the position of CM and has the blood of all dead and injured on his hands”

are also disgraceful because going by his behavior today the situation would have been no different had Rane been the chief minister.

What remains to be seen is how the next few days will chalk out. Rane has categorically stated that he wont work under Chavan and as such the Congress party is in danger of falling into minority. Also  we should remember that Mr Rane is an ex Sena member.

When will they realize the publics mood. Dear “leaders” we are in NO MOOD for political bickering. It is the time for action NOT infighting. At a time like this we should take bipartisan stands and work together, but alas what we get is political infighting. Is there any hope for the people of Mumbai. Only time will tell. As of now i feel that the “Spirit” of mumbai is dying a slow death. There are some very interesting opinions here.

On a brighter note petrol will be cheaper by Rs 5 from tomorrow. Time to fill up the bike and take a trip into the wilderness. As it is the wilderness is safer than the cities 🙂

What not to do while blogging :)

People say never do the stuff shown in the pics below while blogging 🙂 I will try not to (but not to hard)

Damn.. i think i just did both of then!!

Gateway Peace March. Amazing catch lines..

Indians are ingenious in the way they come up with catch phrases. I guess the vedio below show the public sentiment very well and also show why indian ads win so many awards on the international stage !! Also the song i feel is highly appropriate.

Mumbai… Has the end game started??

 

Is the end game here?

Well it seems that stuff is actually happening in south block. The wheels of our government are in motion and India is looking to flex its muscles. My first realization that things were about to happen came when Pranab Mukherjee said something to the tune of wait and watch what happens. A statement like that says that the government will stay away from gimmickry and actually do somthing about it.  Later when asked about the military option he went on to say “As and when it takes place, people will come to know, it’s not publicized”. Dear Indians life is about to become interesting very interesting.  To add to Mukherjee statements Mr Shiv Shankar Menon is doing the rounds in Washington making sure that the world knows that India’s patience is wearing thin and as the news channels are saying “Enough is Enough”. The onus is now clearly on Pakistan to make good on its promises and show some concrete action. Statements from president Zardari like

“We have not been given any tangible proof to say that he is definitely a Pakistani. I very much doubt that he’s a Pakistani. These terrorists are stateless actors who have been operating throughout the region. The state of Pakistan is not responsible for the attacks in Mumbai”

are immature and show the world that the Pakistani government is in a fix. The civilian government does not have control over all of the Pakistani territory and has been cornered. But this is where the true danger lies. The reaction of a cornered dog are not predictable and with growing support towards India’s sentiment and the possibility of a International sanctioned strike, I feel we are moving towards the end game in our war on terror.

For more insight read this and this

Why do we do stuff like this???

This is an old post of mine. It brings back amazing memories so I am putting it up here…So here goes….

City : Bangalore
Starting Point : Rice Bowl, Residency Road
Ending Point : Jappo’s house, HSR Layout
Date : 11/11/06

All of us (Jappo, Mehta and Naveen (Mehta’s friend)) were sitting at Rice bowl generally cribbing about the Bangalore traffic and the time we waste just driving. Then jappo said that that all this driving in traffic and the time is just bull shit. If u want u can go from MG road to his place in 20 min flat. Well what followed is well read on…

The Bet : 20 min MG to HSR
The Reward : A Dominoes pizza for lunch

Below is a minute to min description (Tushar don’t get any idea’s please…)

Min 1 : We leave ( Jappo driving and me scared to death)

Min 2 : We almost hit a bus at turn number 1 and I bid farewell to this world and start wondering what would life after death be. (Oxymoron I know but what the hell)

Min 3 : Jappo get’s lost. He has no idea where to go.. left right or straight. After 1 year in Bangalore and we being on MG road it is quite an achievement. Jappo beg’s pleads and a new deal is struck. Time extension 2 min (I thing jappo was imagining himself in a video game.. shit I was going to die.) I was felling sorry for Hira. I had done this so many times with him. Sorry hira but man do u have balls of steel.

Min 4 : Jappo jumps the first of many red lights. No looking left no looking right just go go go (boy somebody Sword Fish to seriously. Relax man it was a movie this is real life)

Min 10 : DEATH DEATH DEATH. I stupid female(10 km/h), 2stupid sardars on a bike (that would be us)(90km/h) and a Tata safari (from the other side 50 – 60 km/hr) . The result was an extreamy large skid mark on the road and and a huge amount of deafening screaming (I think I was the primary source of the screaming).

Min 18 to 20 : The bastard manages to hit every pot hole on the road and sadly I do not have balls of steel!!!
Min 21.30 : We reach home and that to alive. I congratulate jappo ( did not say that the congratulations were for his and mine EXTREAME Stupidity)

Leasson learnt :
(Mehta please read this carefully. Please please it’s a request from the bottom of my
heart)

Never ever ever leave the 2 of us alone.

My GMAT Prep – An Overview

A lot of people asked me to summarize my prep and put it up as a simple short post. So here it is.

I had a lot (and I mean a lot) of false starts in my prep. By false starts I mean that I used to study for 2 – 3 days and then chuck it again. I needed a jatka to really start preparing and I got that around October (My girl gave the GMAT.. and she started talking about it 1 year after me !!!).

So people if you are the lazy kinds trust me. Pick a date. It aint gonna happen till you actually pick a date and pay out the cash. That’s when it pinches and studies get serious.

As for the material

1. Princeton review (good but not comprehensive.. a good place to start)
2. OG 10 and 11 (between the two of them a HUGE question bank)
3. Manhattan for SC (gets all your concepts straight..a must do)
4. Spidey notes on SC.. great resource for the finer points
5. 1000 question pack (did only 20 %)

Practice tests and my scores with stage of prep

1. Gmat Prep Test 1 : 720 : first week of prep
2. Princeton Review test 1 : 690 (47Q/39V) : 18 oct
3. Kaplan Test 1 : 650 |
4. Kaplan Test 2 : 640 |                   Basically i did one
5. Kaplan Test 3 : 660 |                   every weekend
6. Kaplan Test 4 : 620 | — this one was a shocker
7. Princeton Review test 2 : 710 (51Q/37V) : 18 dec
8. Princeton Review test 3 : 690 (51Q/34V) : 19 dec
9. Princeton Review test 4 : 680 (44Q/40V) : 21 dec (this one scared the SHIT out of me)

While I was preparing i never really looked on to these forums much and definitely did not do any questions I found on the net. What the tests told me continuously was that I sucked at SC. So i attacked that by doing sheer numbers.

Another thing I did (and this really helped) is maintain excel sheets containing all my answers. This helped me in attacking the ones I had gotten wrong on a later date and also to figure out where I needed more study.

Ne thing else u need to know please ask…

Ohh and I got 770 on the 2nd GMAT prep test. They say what u get on this is what u get on the exam.. Guess they were right. (thank god for that)

The world of firefox addons

Firefox Addons

The best thing I like about firefox are its addons. They make surfing easier, faster and in some cases more fun. The problem comes when you have no idea about how to differentiate between the ones that actually help and make life easier in the long run and the ones that just add to the clutter and confusion. It becomes very difficult to choose from the absolute huge collection available at the firefox addons site. Hence I felt the need for this post. Below is the list of addons I use and have come to appreciate (after a lot of trial and error I might add).

1.Cooliris: An amazing way to while away time seeing  photos. Works very well with google image search and the UI is breathtaking.

2. Firefox Showcase : If you are like me and open up about 10 tabs in just as many minutes this one is a life saver

3. Flashblock : This makes browsing soooo much faster. It basically disables all flash content on a site till you actually click on it. Gets rid of a huge amount of unwanted adds.

4. Flashgot : The best way to download in forefox. No comparison.

5. Download status Bar : Gets rid of the extra windows that pops up while downloading

6. Flagfox : If you want to know where all those torrent sites are hosted this is the way to go

If any of u guys know of more cool addons, please do let me know about them. I am always willing to experiment, as it is it is time for an OS Reinstall!!!!

Some outragious stuff that came out of the mahem in Mumbai … a new update

And the stupidity just does not end. The Kerala cheif minister (another idiotic politician) did something that i feel was worse than RR Patils remark. His words outside the Major’s Sandeep Unnikrishnan house after trying to barge his way in uninvited were “If it had not been (Major) Sandeep’s house, not even a dog would have glanced that way.” WTF!!!! how can a person be so insensitive… and the best part is the stupid guy failed at what politicians are famous for.. maintaining a good public image. Read more here

Another point. The PM announced that the NSG will be based out of 4 (or more dont remember) but he also goes on to say that they will have 3 aircrafts for their use… what may i ask is the 4th base supposed to do??