Posts By Anant

Nadia Ali – iiO

Remember the runaway hit in 2001 titled Rapture by the band iiO. It is one of my favorite songs and I had loved the video due to the model featured in the video. I just found out that the model was none other than the singer of the song, also the lyricist Nadia Ali. She is one of the two member of the band. And man she is hot and pretty too ;) . I loved the video due to her but never knew her name or any other information about her.

Oh and did I mention she is a very good singer? I love her voice and singing style with the slow drag she gives to the songs..

Check out Rapture the rapture video.

Toefl – End result

Toefl went well. It is much more easy than I expected. But it’s not like I aced it and will max it.

Reading section was pretty easy although I was a bit nervous at first because I had heard or rather read on the Toefl forums that sometimes instead of the regular 3, 5 essays are given in this section for the same amount of time. Well I got only 3 so I was relieved when the section started.

Listening was a breeze although I might have gotten a couple of inference questions incorrect.

Speaking! This is the section I did the worst on. In one of the questions, I got a bit flustered and so forgot what I wanted to say. In another, I could not finish what I had to say in the allotted time so it was kinda incomplete.

Essay writing was pretty easy. The summarizing section was easy enough. The opinion essay was a cracker. The topic was such a trivial one that I initially did not know what to write. However I managed to wrangle something out and write a decent enough essay (Due to the NDA, I cannot disclose what the topic was)

Ps. Received my GMAT essay score. Scored a 5 on 6. Much better than I expected

Toefl

I have my toefl tomorrow. Finally ;)

Unfortunately, it starts at 4 pm and with it being a 4 hour test, I might have to be in the test center till 8 pm :(
Whew.. That is a looong time and it will be late!

Anyway, I’m not quite as nervous as I was for GMAT since Toefl seems relatively easier. Buuuut, being as prepared I was for GMAT and yet I screwed it up, I hope I don’t do the same for Toefl :(

OT: Went out of my house for the first time in 6 days. Had to get my bike fixed before the test and did not want to take a chance tomorrow. Realized what an awesome weather the city is experiencing and was pissed of at having to miss all that due to these bleeding exams :(

Gmat

Ok.. I’m done with GMAT. Atleast for the first time. The reason why I have not posted about it yet is because I’m disappointed with both myself and the measly score I could achieve :(

Anyway, I got a 700 but I’m not happy at all with it. Some of the nicer people in my life ( :) ) tried to cheer me up by saying it’s a good score but it’s not, atleast not for me!

I will have to see what to do next after my Toefl (on the 4th of Aug) firstly hoping I don’t screw that up. I will definitely consult someone with more experience, most likely a career/US education counselor to try and put my score in better perspective and what chances I have!

Sigh.. C’est la vie :(

Update: Got my essay score report. Scored a 5 on 6. More than I expected :)
Will have to see if it balances the lower main score.

Last call

So I’ll be flying out to Hyderabad tomorrow morning. Reason: My gmat center is in Hyd. I could not get a Bangalore slot :(

The test itself is day after tomorrow at 1 pm. So I have sufficient time to scope out the test center and maybe get in a bit of last min revision/cram etc. (Not that there is anything to cram in the GMAT ;) )

Regardless I’m mostly prepared for the test except for a couple of topics. Mainly Probability in Quants and Sentence correction and Reading comprehension in verbal. I am hoping I’ll be able to manage the essays though they still feel messy.

Piece of advice to all those planning to write GMAT, work hard on SC and RC in verbal. And concetrate more on verbal, it is much more important that quants and more tricky too.

A more detailed post will follow after my Gmat and Toefl to explain my studying and mistakes I made while doing so ;) As well as a comprehensive list of resources, links etc for reference to others :)

Wish me luck!

I’m (in) a Cartoon

Not that I wasn’t ;) Well comic actually but that’s just being technical. :P

But I’ve been sorta featured in a cartoon :D I’d posted a few weeks earlier about Skeletor and Hordak, Partner’s in crime. It’s in the same one..
Link to the comic

Ps. You need to read the previous few issues to actually understand why I’m there and what penguins are doing in a Skeletor & Hordak Comic strip. Oh and do read the community info to understand more about the community ;)

Jinxed

Looks like my GMAT preps are royally jinxed :(
Why? Let me try to explain.

When I first started preparing, soon after that there was an upcoming function which made me virtually give up all studying for about a forthnight. A month after that there was another function, the temple opening which again caused a break for a fortnight.

Now I am the type who, even after multiple breaks can almost always resume studying right from where I stopped the previous time, even middle of the chapters. So this time I resolved to study much more determinedly and take no breaks no matter what. But it had hardly been 10 days (by days I mean normal days when I have to work as well as rush back home and study for whatever little time I get in the evenings), when I came down with a viral fever. That caused an interruption of another 3-4 days because I usually felt too tired to even sit for half an hour.

Well I recovered from that and had been studying when yesterday I think I have contracted conjunctivitis. Now it’s not confirmed since by the time I could visit my ophthalmologist, it was closing time and she would not take a look at my eye. I’ll be going to the doc and will be hoping that it is _not_ an infection but just a false alarm and if it is, it’s relatively mild and will allow me to study atleast semi-normally!

Bah!

Football World Cup

Italy have won the world cup Yaay…. Although I wanted Germany to win and Portugal second
Actually France did not win it so a bigger yaaaaay :D

And Zidane, you suck >:P