PI Preparation Questions

Mentioned below is the list of probable PI questions that cover the scope of any MBA interview as far as hygiene factors are concerned. The list is based on personal experience and preparation so please use your best judgement.

Hygiene Set
1. Introduce yourself
2. Why MBA
3. Why this institute
4. Mission in life
5. Strengths/Weakness(can be referred to as your developmental areas)
6. Interest/Hobbies
7. Incident that influenced the most in life
8. Why should I take you
9. Why should I reject you
10. Which specialization and why(and a related question to the field to test your interest)
11. Greatest success/failure
12. What does success mean to you
13. If selected what unique do you bring to the campus?
14. When was the last time you lied?
15. Your view on any of the current GK scenario


Addendum questions : Work-ex

16. Tell us about your work
17. Tell us about a situation where your leadership/teamwork skills came into play
18. Tell us about a critical situation and the way you handled it

Addendum questions : HR applications

19. Situational questions to test your task and/or people orientation


Spend time on getting to know yourself better, talk to people around you and weave a story that gives a true(if not the "best" representation) of yourself. Leave the rest on the panel to decide if you would be a good fit for the organization.

Cheers and all the best!

Anubhav Sehgal 
NMIMS Mumbai, MBA(Marketing) 2015-17 Batch

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MBA-CAT-XAT Preparation Facebook Events

Hola!

Ad-hoc post again. Derived out of revisiting memories before I take another event today for XAT Number System.
Event Link : https://www.facebook.com/events/1528102904180601/

These are the links to previous public events on facebook. Some others are restricted as they were created for specific facebook groups. Check them out for a quick review/practice of the topic.

Number System Basics 1: Factors
https://www.facebook.com/events/765327033547390/

Number System Practice Gym 1
https://www.facebook.com/events/636602586451450/

Sentence Correction Practice Gym 1
https://www.facebook.com/events/1534583576795350/

Permutations and Combinations
https://www.facebook.com/events/390681477777307/

Critical Reasoning
https://www.facebook.com/events/869859036404876/

Vocab Session
https://www.facebook.com/events/284119501712439/

Number System 1
https://www.facebook.com/events/641085785996519/

Remainders Evaluation Test Discussion
https://www.facebook.com/events/639919766109628/

Small Quant Session
https://www.facebook.com/events/876785575697342/


Cheers!
Spread the word on Lagom and facebook if you like the content!
Until next time..

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CAT 2015 : New pattern insights

It's been quite a while since my last post and this as well comes in an ad-hoc manner. No time to waste, something useful to offer, maybe. Let's get on with this right away.
CAT-mania is back again with IIM announcing the new pattern details for MBA aspirants this morning. Let me list down the highlights and elucidate what it could mean for the aspirant(it would be subject to opinion, judgment and suggestions, so please free to ignore or accept at your discretion).

Highlights : 
1. Duration : 180 minutes ; Changing up from last year's 170 minutes allocation.

Might just be some OCD problem for the deliberators to have 60-60-60 minutes for the later mentioned pattern change to 3 sections. Don't worry about this!

2. 3 sections : Quantitative Ability(34 Questions); Verbal Ability(34 Questions); LRDI(32 Questions)

Umm..really what's the change?
Last year had two sections : QA-DI(50 Questions) and VA-LR(50 Questions) with invariably a 34-16 question distribution across slots. Teaching you the associative law of addition maybe.

Okay. You might be wondering what's the point of reading this one if there's no change.So let's get to the noticeable changes now which could be significant in tweaking your exam strategies to suit the need.

3. Some questions may not be multiple-choice questions(MCQs) and answer would be required to be typed directly into a text box.

Change : ETG(Elimination To Glory) technique might not come handy in some questions.

Strategy : Do work on concepts from ground zero and not superficially or with just short-cuts. Concept clarity will help you eliminate this pit-fall. QA section will be sorted through these minute considerations and for the DI section, well, the formulators offer you the solution in their next change.

4. Use of basic on-screen calculator is allowed! (First time ever. God bless their souls)

Change : You have calculators to do your calculations(Misdirection!)


Strategy : Don't take this as a cue for not doing calculations while preparation. You will be highly misdirected in that approach. Just fine tune your calculation and approximation methods to use calculator wherever manual calculation is subject to rounding off things and similar areas. I ll try to come up with an article to describe where you could use it in another ad-hoc article someday if possible. Till then use your own discretion.
5. 60 minutes for each section with no section switching allowed.

Change : Change is not in the section-switching scheme but in the scheme of things of your overall strategy for score maximization

Strategy : You cannot be thinking of dominating LR to cover up for VA(vice-versa) or DI for QA(vice-versa). A test of your managerial abilities in the screening phase. Reaching optimum levels in each and maximizing the score in your strength area would be key to success.


Additional Tip : Use a round-robin form of preparation initially for varied topics in each section and then work towards focused strengthening of 2 sub-topics in each section to help you an easy sail in the stormy weather.


Leave comments for any queries, worries or questions you may have. Like and share the post to relieve the jitters flowing around that come with pattern change each time.
Rules of game have changed, but the game hasn't. All the best!

Cheers!
AS

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Number System Ebook

I will be launching soon the e-book on number systems for which pre-registrations have already begun.
The e-book will contain :
+ All prevalent concepts covered with explanation and examples wherever required
+ Special individual concepts that frequent in MBA Examinations
+ Practice exercise with solutions to extend your learning into application of basic concepts
+ 30 days promised support through email for any doubts that you may have for the content of the e-book cleared directly by the author to the best of his knowledge.
Price : Rs 200
Let us know if you are interested by filling this form with your valid information.
Expected release : End of April or first week of May.

You may do your registrations on the following link if interested :
Registration Link : Click here


Cheers
AS

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Mock Season Strategy

In a month or two it would be the beginning of mocks season for all MBA 15-16 aspirants. What you learn is what you will score but what you gain in terms of percentile to reach from a point A to a higher ground B would majorly depend on how you analyze mocks and work to improve through it. Hence today I write or rather illustrate how to go about analyzing your mocks..

Principle of Mocks
First come first, you need to understand the principle of mocks. Mocks are there to provide you a wide array of expected pattern and variety in terms of content and structure. The sole purpose is to ready you for anything that might be thrown at you on D-day. So, don't let any extremes in terms of scores affect you. Maintaining consistency and/or improving should be your sole purpose of taking mocks.

Which mocks to take?
It is advisable you opt for two different test series but if you do not wish to for some reason you should opt for one that you follow religiously and get previous years from your friends or form a sharing mechanism within your peer groups. MBA is going to be most of all about peer learning and developing networks,so you might as well step up on that from now only.

Now that you understand the prerequisites of the mock season ahead of you, let's try and understand how you go about taking them and analyzing them for improvement.

Taking the mocks powerplay at the right time
It is very important to pace your development during this journey to cracking the MBA exams(Maybe you can get some tips from MS Dhoni for that). There is a time to consolidate,a time to powerplay, and there is a time to peak and finish it off in style.

You should ideally make a schedule or work intuitively but nevertheless plan to conclude your major learning of concepts by June/July. You will never feel ready enough until you start taking mocks. Understand that your syllabus is not over until you take mocks and take a few more learnings out of it.


Analyzing and improvement strategy
If you have read other articles for it online, you might have heard that there is no one common strategy. Well, I will just say there is one common goal and that is improving our percentiles. I have developed a simple template for you all which you can simply download and print multiple copies for each mock and then combine results at some stages.

What will be these stages?
Stage 1 : In any of the mock test series, initially mocks are spaced out and happen at longer intervals. You take a period of about 1.5-2 months from start,at the end of which you combine your results. You will be in August mid to end by this time. You need to put in 2 weeks at this moment to sort out any major issues for you conceptually or strategically.

Stage 2 : Mocks will start to occur frequently and you need to start using your powerplay during this period. With your set strategy and concepts plus continuous analysis improve and consolidate your position in this phase. Don't let the low scores/fall of wickets stop you, keep building partnerships/analysis and you will reach a good score eventually.

Stage 3 : Close to the exams, mocks shall still continue happening ever more frequently now. It's my personal view that 15-20 days before exam you need to pick your mocks at the right intervals for you. Take out your consolidated notes at this time,analysis of mocks and just fine tune the little things. Whenever you try focusing on bigger unknown domains, you end up faltering on the little things done easily. So revise the basics, take a small topic test for some topic you do not feel comfortable with. It will pop up some small areas you don't remember, just revisit them briefly and get it done with.

Being consistent with your scores/percentiles at this stage would be a positive influence, but it is no sure indicator for anyone having or not having them. So just stick to your plan and be confident in your preparation.

Maybe bookmark this post's link to revisit when you are losing focus or confidence and don't worry as sometimes the pitches are dicey and you will need to persevere with your preparation but you will succeed one way or the other.

Download the template from the following link and take out copies later whenever you need them :

Click this link to download the Mock analysis sheet

or you could use the details presented by institutes and analyze them on the parameters presented in the mock analysis sheet in the link.


Cheers!
AS

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Para Jumbles Ebook

Content of the ebook :
1) 3 solved examples with complete explanation to illustrate how you go about each type.
2) Key Parameters to look for while reading the para jumbles
3) 185 unsolved examples compiled from various sources to give you a good practice across all parajumble types followed up by answer keys to confirm your answer[Explanation is not provided for this part]

Due to the overwhelming response, this ebook is being made available for free by simply downloading through the following link :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0mcpRjZ14mFMnFhNnlkUUNSQTQ/view?usp=sharing

Do not use it for commercial purposes.

Ebook password : Lagom_Anubhav

Please do fill the feedback form after viewing and/or using the ebook. Much appreciated.
http://goo.gl/forms/NjGDtrMLQt

Cheers!
AS

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