THOUGHT OF THE DAY

QUESTION OF THE DAY (01/03/2016)

When all the letters of the word ARISE are arranged as in the dictionary, what will be the rank of the word RISEA?

Explanation:

The answer for the above question would be 90. Explanation: The no of letters starting with A would be A---- 4!= 24. Likeways the number of words starting with E=24 and with I= 24. Next we will have letter R. Now RA will have 6 letters, RE will have 6 lettrs and RI will have 6 letters. RISEA will be the last word starting with RI. The rank thus of RISEA will be (24+24+24+6+6+6)= 90.

Life@ IIM,Rohtak.. (Recollections of college life, made while being in the college)

“ You have been selected for the PGPM programme at Indian Institute of Management Rohtak ”.
These were the words in a mail I received on 27th June 2010 while I was working on the internet in a cyber cafe. My immediate reaction was of utter joy and disbelief at the same time. 

I read the mail again, and indeed I had made it to an IIM, a dream I had been pursuing for the last two long years. It felt like the fruition of all my hard work and effort over the last two years. It was without a doubt the best day of my life so far.

However, there were still some difficult questions before me. I had converts from lots of other established and reputed B-Schools including MDI, IMT, and NMIMS. I had to choose whether to go for an established B-school, or to bet on a new IIM with no history behind it. 

There were some fears initially about the quality of facilities, both infrastructure-wise and academically, that the first batch would get. With no alumni or seniors to support us, it was going to be a journey on uncharted terrain.

Fast forward six months, and as I sit down today to write down about my experiences here, I can honestly say that these have been the best six months of my life. It has been a roller coaster ride with more highs than lows. The quality of infrastructural facilities here has been excellent, with modernized classrooms, excellent sports facilities, very comfortable hostel rooms and a great mess.

The first few days at the campus were quite hectic, with lots of classes, guest lectures and other such activities. The faculty, all world class with many of them being internationally reputed names in their areas of expertise, made us feel comfortable and at home. 

The learning environment all along has been excellent, with some of the brightest brains in the country exchanging ideas and discussing management concepts. It was a pleasant surprise to know that three of our batch-mates had CAT percentiles in excess of 99.90.

The best thing I have felt here is the sense of camaraderie amongst the batch. We have always stood by each other in thick and thin, and have helped each other in all possible ways. We have crossed all barriers in trying to help each other .

I have personally made some great friends here, who I believe will remain so lifelong. All in all, it has been truly wonderful to study with such a great group of talented, enthusiastic, and lively people.

Weekends have provided some opportunity to play sports. I started playing tennis for the first time here, and have enjoyed it thoroughly. We have regularly organised sporting events in our campus, starting with RunSangram, a cricket tournament on the lines of the IPL. 

Apart from that, we have organised tournaments for many other sports including Carom, Chess, and Table tennis, and all of these attracted the attention of the entire batch. We have had loads of fun during these, and the camaraderie between the batch has been further strengthened by these events. Yours truly got the honour of being crowned the table tennis champion of our batch.

With the third trimester going on now, and the process for choosing electives for the second year underway , it feels strange that almost a year has passed without anyone even realising it. It still feels as if it was only yesterday that we landed here in Rohtak. 

Time has flown by very fast , and the winds of change have swept all of us in the last one year. I had some fears and suspicions at the time of joining this college, but now I can honestly say that it has been one of the best experiences of my life and the sceptic in me lies completely at rest.

Question of the day (28/02/2016)

What will be the remainder when 3^171 (3 to the power 171) is divided by 80?

Answer:

The answer is 27. 

Explanation : 3^171= (3^4)^42 * 3^3 = (80+1)^42 *27 . So the remainder when it is divided by 80 will be 27.

Question of the day!

Starting today, we will be putting one question daily for our CAT aspirants. You can put your answer and explanation to those questions in the comments section. The answers will be provided in the comments section on the very next day

Let us get started then.

Question of the Day:

What is the number of squares on a chessboard?


Answer:

The correct answer is 204. The number of 1*1 squares being 64, the no. of 2*2 squares being 49 and so on...The total number = (64+49+...+4+1)= 204.

A love affair with the CAT

Ever since I started giving the SIMCATs of IMS (a CAT coaching insti.) in 2006 , I have been in love with the CAT. I just loved those Sundays, which were a respite from boring Civil Engg lectures.

It was great fun, those two and a half to three hours in the exam hall, giving those SIMCATs. The test appealed to me in part because I was good at Maths and English and liked those two subjects from my childhood. To sit for the preparation of the so called toughest IQ based exam in the world 'CAT', it was a great thrill and fun for me personally. The fact that I was good at it helped too.

Fast forward to today, almost 10 years , four 99-percentile plus scores, 30 plus IIM calls, an IIM degree completed, the love for the exam still grows bigger.

The CAT 2015 results brought me a cool 99.85% and more than a dozen IIM calls including IIM C and IIM L,. However the lure for that perfect 100% score grows even bigger in me.

Now it seems more possible to me that indeed a 100% , or for that more multiple 100% scores are possible in the next few years. Whatever happens, I will surely keep trying to get closer to that perfect score. Now the thrill has gotten even bigger and stronger.

CAT is my drug and I cannot wait to get high on it. 

CAT 2015 experience and paper analysis…

CAT day began with a ride to the ITER, located in Khandagiri, Bhubaneswar. The centre was quite plush and scenic. The initial biometric checkign was very smooth this time, taking less than a minute and I was at my system at 8 am sharp. Now this was the tough part of waiting for around an hour before the exam begin.

One important thing is to not peeking continuosuly at the blank screen, and focusing on somethign else, especially for people who land up very early in their seats. I spent the time in doing a few stuff, starting with meditation for a while, thinking about my last year CAT effort which saw me land a good score of 99.68% and a cool dozen IIM calls, including IIM A and IIM L. 15 mins before the exam beginning,  I started doing a little bit of mental maths. Mental maths or doing speedy calculations is one activity I do before every exam as a warm up exercise to get my mind going.

Once the test began, the first section that came was English. The paper had clear demarcation of two sections , RC and VA. I started with the RC passages. The passages were of small to medium length and easy to comprehend. The questions though were slightly inferrential in nature, though not very twisted. Three passages, which were slightly lengthier, had six questions each, whiel the other three had three questions each. I ended up completing all the 24 questions in 40 minutes. Next I started with the VA questions, which included all non-MCQs. The para jumble questions were there, where on had to arrange 5 statements in an order and input your answer. Then there were two jumbles where one had to find out the odd statement from amongst the five given, four of which would form a logical paragraph. Also, the paper had a few summary based questions, where one had to find the best summary from the given options for a paragraph given in the question. Overall the VA questions were tougher compared to the RC, and also the lack of options made the task difficult here.

The next section was DI-LR and again both were clearly demarcated. The DI sets were of moderate difficulty level, but were lengthy and time consuming. One look at the LR questions made me realise it was a tough LR set this time. The LR sets had loads of information and a lot of analysis needed to be done to crack them. I ended up attemping 20 questions, LR/DI combined in this section,doing most of the DI questions and one and a half LR sets. Overall, the toughest set of this exam. The DI set on line graphs was relatively easier, though it needed some calculations. The LR set on arraning number from 1 to 343 in a cube confused me at the end of the section, and less time at end meant I could get only 2 of the 4 questions in that. Still, I ended the section happy with 20 attempts, as I foudn the section a real tough one. However I was pretty determined to rake up bigger numbers in the next section, which was Maths.

The Maths section again was the easiest one in the paper, as in CAT 2014, and I found a lot of easy to moderate level questions. There were a few tough ones though put in between, and one had to be careful not to waste time in doing those, before going through the entire paper. I ended up with 28 attempts and 1 random guess in the paper.

At the end, I checked my overall attempts in the paper, which showed 82 attempts. It was pretty similar to the number I had got in CAT 2014. Overall a decent day and I felt happy as I left the exam hall. The only regret was that may be I could have got 1 0r 2 more questions in that LR set involving cubes. Anyways, a good day at the office for me.