[raghav507]

hi puys,
the next article in the Monday Arun Sharma series...

PLAN YOUR APPROACH

PROPER PLANNING OF YOUR CAREER CAN HELP YOU DO BETTER IN THE CAT. NOT ONLY DOES IT HELP REDUCE YOUR PRESSURE,IT HELPS YOU PUT YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD AS WELL. ARUN SHARMA ELABORATES


In today's article we would like to move out of CAT specific talks and turn our focus towards issues and perspectives that you need to keep in mind while planning for an MBA career. Many of our readers have been sending us queries on Education Times Counselors forum about such general but crucial issues which we address today.

We would try to provide a comprehensive answer to queries about these and how proper planning of your career can actually help you do better in the CAT as you can definitely reduce the pressure on yourself while taking the examination. Let us deal with this issue by issue:

Issue I: Form filling - how to decide on which forms to fill and which institutes to apply to.
Well, our take on this is that it would depend on your objectives while you are preparing for the MBA entrance exam season. Broadly there could be two approaches that one could take for the MBA entrance preparation process — both equally valid and perhaps equally advisable.

Approach 1: The 'Have to Get in this year approach.' This approach (as is clear from the name itself) does not allow an individual any flexibility with respect to the time-frame he/she has in terms of making it to a B-school — as you have to get in this year and join whatever college comes up and then try to make the best out of what you have.

Obviously, aspirants who for some reason/s do not have an option to hold back for a year and take another shot at the management entrance exam season take such an approach. Aspirants preparing with such an objective would obviously need to focus on getting everything right in this attempt. Quite naturally, this would lead to building pressure on them, which normally would have a tendency to reduce performance. Such aspirants have a tendency to take things too seriously and any hints of non-performance either in the mock CATs they take or a couple of unproductive minutes in the actual CAT is taken as an indicator of a life lived as a second class citizen. Second class compared to the IIT and IIM pass outs.

Naturally this thinking comes out of the fact that aspirants taking this approach have to make do with whatever institute they get into — in that matter they really do not have much of a choice. If you belong to this category of aspirants, the biggest favour you could perhaps do to yourself and your chances in the MBA exam season ahead is to show yourself that in case you do not make it to the IIMs then it is not the end of the road. Suppose you had to join a third-level B School, does it mean that you are always going to remain a second class citizen in corporate life; wherever the IIM passouts go you would have to bow to them?

Talk to any person who has experienced 10-15 years of corporate life and he/she would tell you that such is not the case. People from second level and third level B-schools regularly outshine people from the IIMs. It is not like the Civil Services, where once you got a second class service you would always have to bow down in front of people who beat you in one exam 30 years ago. So, perhaps all aspirants who find themselves in the 'have to get in this year stage' should relax a little. Form your plans of how you are going to make it to the top irrespective of how you do in this year's CAT/XAT etc. That way the risk factor you enter into the CAT with will be reduced and you would be ironically giving it your best shot.
If you do not create this plan of action, then even a little slip upon the D-day will lead to a psychological storm inside your mind, heart and stomach leaving you with no clear thinking — leading to gross underperformance in the exam. That's because of the tendency to create an equation between underperformance in the exam and a second-class corporate existence.

Granted, there is a lot of difference if you pass out from an IIM versus you do not. However, what you need to realise is that there are many ways in which you could overcome a failure at the CAT. One of which is the option of a second MBA. In case you do not make it to the IIMs then there would always be the option of doing an MBA from whichever best institute you make it to, and then build your working experience for 3-5 years and then plan to do a second MBA either in the form of an executive MBA from IIMs or ISB or even by planning to get into a top international B-school like Harvard, and so on.

Five years down the line you will have a superior bio-data than people who beat you to the IIMs this year. The point is that in case you find out at the end of the MBA exams process that you were not able to enter a B-school you had aspired for, there are a lot of ways of getting ahead in life

Approach 2: The 'I will make it to IIMs or a top B-school in the next three years.' Such people have the luxury of being in a no-risk zone. They can easily tell themselves that I will only enter an MBA this year in the case I make the B-school I aspire for. If I do not, my plan anyways is to get into the IIMs in 2009 or 2010 or 2011 or perhaps even 2012. I know of a lot of students who took this two-three year approach to making it into the IIMs and got in only in their third or later approach.

There are two obvious advantages of this approach —
1) Lesser pressure while taking the exams allowing you to perform freely
2) As you go on experiencing the CAT you would ideally end up developing your intelligence — if you are working through the right approach for the CAT. So, as you go for your second, third, fourth attempts, if you keep incrementing your knowledge, skills and exposure in the right direction you would end up making it eventually
The only risks inherent in this approach that you need to guard against are:

• The tendency to develop a losing mindset with respect to the CAT — something that you can guard against by working on the development of your intelligences

• The inability to augment your bio-data during the interim time.
So, our advice to those taking this approach is that you should focus on gainfully applying yourself to your bio-data building. Gaining work-ex is a must in such a case and you can also additionally join other professional courses in the interim or even try to create a reading framework in a particular direction that would help you develop your knowledge and exposure as well as the confidence to defend yourself in case you are asked the dreaded question: 'What were you doing after your graduation?'
(The author is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore, a nationally renowned CAT trainer and the author of a series of best-selling books
published by Tata McGraw Hill on CAT and
other aptitude exams)

[siddkush]

hiiiiii

Please somone tell me details to be filled on XLRI PA form envelope .
eg. address of xlri
heading of letter
etc
its urgent :new_ukliam2:

Thankx in advance

[diablorulez]

Originally Posted by siddkush

hiiiiii

Please somone tell me details to be filled on XLRI PA form envelope .
eg. address of xlri
heading of letter
etc
its urgent :new_ukliam2:

Thankx in advance

kindly post ur query here
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/other-...9-queries.html (XAT 2009 Queries)

[chekidu]

HI,

Donno whether this will be useful for CAT aspirants.

The following is an article by Kumara Mangalam Birla on Management education. @ ET sep 8 2008 . The article is slightly on the "heavier" side with lil bit of OB(organisational behaviour) concepts.. But hey its by birla.... do read it..

Thought leadership through management education

Management education represents a unique opportunity in the life of an individual to develop points of view that shape the professional and the type of individual she is





WHY has thought leadership become so important at this juncture in history? Every ideology and every system has fallen short, in some way or the other. While capitalism has brought growth and higher standards of living, it has also resulted in periodic instability and often increased inequalities. Socialism brought about greater equality and economic security, but lagged greatly in increasing the size of the pie. Authoritarian states have collapsed, but democracy has also not delivered results, at least quickly enough. So we have to live with huge contradictions: the worst of both worlds.
Thought leaders and thought leadership can broadly be segmented into five categories. The first kind of thought leaders, are those whose thoughts inspire, stoke passion, trigger a process of self-inquiry among the listeners. For instance, Rabindranath Tagore’s dream of an India: “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls”.
Or Churchill who famously said: “Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force: never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy”.
And the finest text on thought leadership — the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita contains nuggets of knowledge that are invaluable to everyday living, living more fruitfully and optimally. It is much more about philosophy than religion and is universal in its applicability, across religions, cultures and countries. It explains vividly the concept of the mind and the intellect. How one needs to sharpen the intellect to control the mind. Or, how one’s attitude determines one’s altitude, how the past is history, the future is a mystery, the present is a gift, use it optimally by keeping the mind from drifting constantly into the past and the future.
The second kind of thought leadership is when through one’s own analysis and experience, a leader forms a framework of thinking to analyse a situation or to effectively sort data. Many years after it was first expounded, Maslow’s Theory of The Hierarchy of Needs continues to be an invaluable mental framework for understanding human behaviour and human motives. Porter’s theory of The Five Forces is perhaps one of the best methods to analyse the attractiveness of an industry and its key value drivers.
Third, are thought leaders who are proponents of an ideology that is contrarian to current thinking. The most striking example, Mahatma Gandhi, who countered the forces of violence with totally non-conventional ‘weapons’ — pacifism, moral suasion, fasting.
A recent example is C K Prahalad’s Bottom of the Pyramid concept that explains how to stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden and start recognising them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value conscious consumers.
Fourth, are thought leaders who through innovations, create product or
services that meet the needs of a consumer class, very often catering to needs that are unarticulated, but help improve productivity and effectiveness. As part of our quality and TQM process every year, we receive suggestions from shop-floor workers that are amazingly innovative. It is gratifying to see that some of these suggestions result in crores of savings on an annual recurring basis, without requiring major investments. I believe, the worker who has gone beyond the call of duty to find solutions to practical problems in his area of work, is in every way a thought leader.
And fifth, is that thought leadership that is put to use for altruistic purposes. An example that fascinates me is the Jaipur foot organisation which makes artificial limbs for the disabled. It has transformed the lives of millions by providing artificial limbs at an incredibly low cost.
Having etched this background, I offer a few initial deductions. First, thought leadership is not necessarily a result of education, an example of that is G D Birla, my great-grandfather who, with little formal education himself, was a great educationist and the founder of BITS-Pilani. Another example is that of Dhirubhai Ambani. Second, it is not restricted to a few fields of work or walks of life or to any section of society. It is universal and sector agnostic.
That, takes us to the moot question, “does management education foster thought leadership”? I believe that management education and management educators can facilitate thought leadership in a number of ways. The most significant manner is by the way they conceptualise and think about management education itself and the way they prepare their students, through their curriculum, assignments, projects, question papers, methods of evaluation and above all through the insights they bring into the classroom. Also, management educators must believe that management impacts and applies to every area wherever resources are used and therefore, it goes well beyond corporates and industry, and thought leadership
across all areas of work. As Professor Donald Haider of Kellogg’s Business School says, “the universe of hospitals and universities, opera and orchestra companies, family service agencies and religious organisations, soup kitchens, environmental advocacies and civil rights organisations” are all a crucial part of our economic, social and civic life. In a situation like this, it is incomprehensible to see management or management education restricted to corporates and industries alone.
Management education usually focuses on building a professional — a brand manager, an investment banker, a financial analyst, or a market researcher. But a thought leader is not just a professional. She is a person who is aware of the context in which she works, is sensitive to society’s concerns, deeply cares about the well-being of all and has an intensely personal point of view about what can and needs to be done. It is the powerful combination of the professional and the person that stimulates thought leadership. You rarely see a thought leader without a deeply human core. Management education represents a unique opportunity in the life of an individual to develop points of view that shape the professional and can potentially shape the type of individual she is.
However, my own strong belief is that management education cannot by itself create thought leaders. Management education can play a role to an extent and no further. It provides information, ensures a minimum development of understanding, ensures a whole lot of mental gymnastics. But converting that information, refining it to knowledge and then intuition, is left entirely to the student.
Going further, to be a thought leader is entirely left to the initiative and drive of the seeker, the student. Thought leadership requires passion, commitment to a cause, the conviction in one’s beliefs. It requires the ability to train oneself to become an outstanding leader — through understanding one’s strengths and honing them, and one’s weaknesses and working on
them relentlessly. It calls for discipline, and most times for personal sacrifice. It calls for focus, patience. To get to be the best in class, you need to work at it. Daily. Consistently. Passionately.
It entails an attempt to achieve personal mastery. It requires a good human being. Very importantly, it requires facing and letting go of one’s fears and self-limiting beliefs. As Lord Chesterfield said, “it is not possible to discover new oceans, unless one is willing to lose sight of the shore”. All of this calls for personal conviction, stretching beyond imagination, a strong personal desire to make a difference.
Can this be taught through management education? I believe it can’t.
But there is a crying need for thought leadership — be it the fields of polity, bureaucracy, industry, NGOs, media, what have you. It is upon us as a country to work collaboratively and create the social environment and infrastructure to foster thought leadership. It’s time to take charge of one’s own destiny as a country.
Whilst several western economies have begun to age, we in India, have a demographic advantage. From now up until 2050, we will have the largest number of young working people in the world. Can this resource become an advantage for India, if it is bereft of thought leaders? I believe it cannot.
(The author is chairman, Aditya Birla Group)


Kumar Mangalam Birla

[chekidu]

So close to cat and so less activity in this thread??... ahem ahem:sarcasm:

anyways found this link related to CAT 2008

ps:Personally i prefer to read "online advices" hear it through one ear :bigear:and pass it out through the other ear:bigear:...

[chekidu]

Do check out the post about Bschool rankings

http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-an...ml#post1226431 (CAT 2008 for Working Professionals)

[raghav507]

hi puys,
the next article in the monday Arun Sharma series...

CATch it, if you can
YOU CAN IMPROVE YOUR TEST SCORE BY DOING A CLOSE ANALYSIS OF YOUR BEHAVIOURAL PATTERN DURING THE DURATION OF A TEST. ARUN SHARMA TELLS HOW


With just two months left for the all-important CAT exam, most of you must be revising the syllabus, desperately covering new topics and definitely taking mock-tests. This time-frame is most crucial for your CAT preparation. However, we have observed over the time that most CAT aspirants are unable to utilise this time-frame well. And the typical experience for most students is that their percentile scores get stuck in a certain range in whatever mock tests they are taking. In today's article we will concentrate on a crucial question that must have been appearing in the minds of CAT aspirants at this stage — "How do I increase my test scores?" We want to communicate to you, at this stage, that a lot is possible in this direction — provided you are able to find the right things to do.
So what can be done? You can work in three directions to improve your test score:

• Ability improvement
• Belief improvement
• Test taking behaviour improvement

In this article we would be elaborating on the third issue — the test taking behaviour improvement.

In a past article, we mentioned that the statistics of CAT 2007 revealed — while a score of about 110 out of 300 was sufficient to score 99 percentile, a score of 70 plus gave a score of about 80 percentile. It is a moot point that a student scoring in a range of 80 percentile would think that s/he was away from cracking CAT. However, we believe that improving test scores by around 40 to 50 marks does not necessarily require a year's preparations. It could be a matter of just a few days to a few weeks — provided you hit upon the correct strategy and work dimensions to execute your preparation.
For every student, who will be able to increase test scores on his/her own, there would be over 25 aspirants whose scores would get stuck in a range, which can at best be considered sub-optimal when considered against the backdrop of his/her abilities.
In context of the marking pattern used over the last couple of years — four marks per question and negative one for a wrong answer — increasing your scores by approximately 50 marks could just mean overturning about 10 errors.
A close analysis of behavioural patterns during the test can help in improving the test score.
Your test score is directly dependant on your ability, as well as behaviour pattern in each of the three sections of the paper. However, even while the multitudes focus heavily on their ability aspect, little or no attention is given to the all-important aspect of behaviour.

You will be surprised how much change you can create in your test score by closely analysing your behavioural pattern during the test. The primary reason for this is that if you go back into the way your mind worked during the exam, you will realise that for major time chunks, during the exam, your mind was not working at all! You were thinking sub-optimally. Perhaps this is the reason why most students have had the experience of having got stuck and not being able to solve a question during the test period or being able to solve the same question without the examination pressure within a matter of seconds.
What are the components that you need to measure under behaviour patterns?

1) Your inherent and expressed insecurity with a particular section: Your inherent insecurity is the amount of residual fear that you carry within your mind with respect to a particular section. If you carry negative beliefs in your mind about a particular section (and/or a particular question type) it is bound to impede on your ability to score well in that area. Your expressed insecurity is the amount of your inherent insecurity that is brought out while solving the paper.
A negative belief that tells you: "I cannot solve Quant or data interpretation questions or English section" is the main reason for these insecurities. If you allow any of these insecurities to remain in your mind, it will hurt you badly inside the CAT.
Hence, your target before CAT is to remove these insecurities. In other words, in your mind you should shift to "I can" from "I cannot." While doing this, your focus should be to deal with each section by breaking it into different question types/chapters. We will be discussing this process of dealing with insecurity in each section independently in later articles in this series.

2) Your behavioural pattern in the first 5-10 minutes of the test: This time period can be defined as the warm up time during a test. Students make the mistake of either being overcautious or over nervous during this time period.

3) Your behavioural pattern in the last 15-20 minutes of the test: We have often observed good students falter in the last 15-20 minutes of the test paper. Does it happen to you too? If yes, you need to train your mind to keep its bearings when the pressure is on.

4) Your reaction to not being able to solve a question: There is a tendency among students to carry psychological scars of not being able to solve one question or a set of questions into the next set of questions. If you also have this tendency — you better guard against it through doses of positive thinking.

5) Your tendency to hold on to a question/inability to move out of a question within the appropriate time: Every exam that students take up until CAT, the philosophy is to keep trying a question till you crack it. In CAT, the paradigm changes. Here you might be more rewarded for leaving questions unsolved rather than trying it from different angles and wasting your time. For all you know the next question might be a matter of 15 seconds. Hence, if you are having the tendency to stick to a question, you need to train yourself to leave it as soon as it conveys the first danger signals to you.

The above negative behaviour patterns have a profound impact on your test scores. Unfortunately, while students work very hard on practising questions, they miss out on the opportunity to raise their scores by making minute adjustments to their behavioural pattern.
(The author is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore, a nationally renowned CAT trainer and the author of a series of best-selling books published by Tata McGraw Hill on CAT and other aptitude exams)

[nandadarshan]

Originally Posted by raghav507

hi puys,
the next article in the monday Arun Sharma series...

CATch it, if you can
YOU CAN IMPROVE YOUR TEST SCORE BY DOING A CLOSE ANALYSIS OF YOUR BEHAVIOURAL PATTERN DURING THE DURATION OF A TEST. ARUN SHARMA TELLS HOW


With just two months left for the all-important CAT exam, most of you must be revising the syllabus, desperately covering new topics and definitely taking mock-tests. This time-frame is most crucial for your CAT preparation. However, we have observed over the time that most CAT aspirants are unable to utilise this time-frame well. And the typical experience for most students is that their percentile scores get stuck in a certain range in whatever mock tests they are taking. In today's article we will concentrate on a crucial question that must have been appearing in the minds of CAT aspirants at this stage — "How do I increase my test scores?" We want to communicate to you, at this stage, that a lot is possible in this direction — provided you are able to find the right things to do.
So what can be done? You can work in three directions to improve your test score:

• Ability improvement
• Belief improvement
• Test taking behaviour improvement

In this article we would be elaborating on the third issue — the test taking behaviour improvement.

In a past article, we mentioned that the statistics of CAT 2007 revealed — while a score of about 110 out of 300 was sufficient to score 99 percentile, a score of 70 plus gave a score of about 80 percentile. It is a moot point that a student scoring in a range of 80 percentile would think that s/he was away from cracking CAT. However, we believe that improving test scores by around 40 to 50 marks does not necessarily require a year's preparations. It could be a matter of just a few days to a few weeks — provided you hit upon the correct strategy and work dimensions to execute your preparation.
For every student, who will be able to increase test scores on his/her own, there would be over 25 aspirants whose scores would get stuck in a range, which can at best be considered sub-optimal when considered against the backdrop of his/her abilities.
In context of the marking pattern used over the last couple of years — four marks per question and negative one for a wrong answer — increasing your scores by approximately 50 marks could just mean overturning about 10 errors.
A close analysis of behavioural patterns during the test can help in improving the test score.
Your test score is directly dependant on your ability, as well as behaviour pattern in each of the three sections of the paper. However, even while the multitudes focus heavily on their ability aspect, little or no attention is given to the all-important aspect of behaviour.

You will be surprised how much change you can create in your test score by closely analysing your behavioural pattern during the test. The primary reason for this is that if you go back into the way your mind worked during the exam, you will realise that for major time chunks, during the exam, your mind was not working at all! You were thinking sub-optimally. Perhaps this is the reason why most students have had the experience of having got stuck and not being able to solve a question during the test period or being able to solve the same question without the examination pressure within a matter of seconds.
What are the components that you need to measure under behaviour patterns?

1) Your inherent and expressed insecurity with a particular section: Your inherent insecurity is the amount of residual fear that you carry within your mind with respect to a particular section. If you carry negative beliefs in your mind about a particular section (and/or a particular question type) it is bound to impede on your ability to score well in that area. Your expressed insecurity is the amount of your inherent insecurity that is brought out while solving the paper.
A negative belief that tells you: "I cannot solve Quant or data interpretation questions or English section" is the main reason for these insecurities. If you allow any of these insecurities to remain in your mind, it will hurt you badly inside the CAT.
Hence, your target before CAT is to remove these insecurities. In other words, in your mind you should shift to "I can" from "I cannot." While doing this, your focus should be to deal with each section by breaking it into different question types/chapters. We will be discussing this process of dealing with insecurity in each section independently in later articles in this series.

2) Your behavioural pattern in the first 5-10 minutes of the test: This time period can be defined as the warm up time during a test. Students make the mistake of either being overcautious or over nervous during this time period.

3) Your behavioural pattern in the last 15-20 minutes of the test: We have often observed good students falter in the last 15-20 minutes of the test paper. Does it happen to you too? If yes, you need to train your mind to keep its bearings when the pressure is on.

4) Your reaction to not being able to solve a question: There is a tendency among students to carry psychological scars of not being able to solve one question or a set of questions into the next set of questions. If you also have this tendency — you better guard against it through doses of positive thinking.

5) Your tendency to hold on to a question/inability to move out of a question within the appropriate time: Every exam that students take up until CAT, the philosophy is to keep trying a question till you crack it. In CAT, the paradigm changes. Here you might be more rewarded for leaving questions unsolved rather than trying it from different angles and wasting your time. For all you know the next question might be a matter of 15 seconds. Hence, if you are having the tendency to stick to a question, you need to train yourself to leave it as soon as it conveys the first danger signals to you.

The above negative behaviour patterns have a profound impact on your test scores. Unfortunately, while students work very hard on practising questions, they miss out on the opportunity to raise their scores by making minute adjustments to their behavioural pattern.
(The author is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore, a nationally renowned CAT trainer and the author of a series of best-selling books published by Tata McGraw Hill on CAT and other aptitude exams)

Thnxx Raghav ............ I was looking for this kind of a post in the forum ............
I will be very Kind if u post such useful matter .....

i want to solve more problems on DI and quants can u tell me the settings so tht i can get this questions in my Email ID ...................

[diablorulez]

Originally Posted by nandadarshan

Thnxx Raghav ............ I was looking for this kind of a post in the forum ............
I will be very Kind if u post such useful matter .....

i want to solve more problems on DI and quants can u tell me the settings so tht i can get this questions in my Email ID ...................

Hi Kindly avoid quoting whole of long message it creates strain and affects readability. please go thru rules and posting guidelines of the forum

about ur query check the first post of these threads

http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/quanti...stion-day.html (Season III - Quant Question A Day CAT 2008)
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/quanti...scussions.html (SolidGyan DI - Set a Day Discussions)

cheers

[vaibhav1.0]

A warm Hi to all the management gurus out there. I'm a software professional who has started his prep this month itself due to some unavoidable circumstances.
Realistically speaking , i know it's pretty late in the day to dream of near 100 percentiles , but that's not my goal. I just wanna improve my last years 95 %tile by around 3 percent to get into a decent college rather than spend another year studying hoping for the IIMs.
Verbal is my forte , quant my nemesis. So keeping that in mind any advice at all would be highly appreciated...