Posts in Category: Yours Truly

All about me, me and more me :-D

Long time

On September 6, 2006 by Anant With 4 Comments - Life, Rants, Yours Truly

Yes, it’s been quite long since I’ve posted. Work, a project I have recently taken up and my MBA applications have all contributed to my hardly having any spare time or for that matter, even a social life..

We have a release this month so it should be slightly easier after that.

MBA applications are killer. There is so much to do and with so little time, they are suffering the most. I have to write, on an average ~4.5 essays per University application. But one of the best things about these essays are that they force me to think about myself, my past and what I have done and what I seek to do in the future. They have required quite a bit on introspection (which I have done, sometimes into the wee hours of the night) :)

I have recently sent out questionnaires to people I work with so that I can get feedback about myself and how I am viewed by them.. This should be interesting ;)
Sleep is a precious commodity which I am losing out on big time. I feel I am perpetually in the land of tiredness :(

In other news, I received my Toefl Score which I must say I’m quite surprised with. I got a 114 out of a possible 120 which is on the higher side of my expectations. And I’m not complaining :D

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Toefl – End result

On August 6, 2006 by Anant With 2 Comments - Studies, Yours Truly

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

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Toefl

On August 3, 2006 by Anant With 5 Comments - Life, Rants, Studies, Yours Truly

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 :(

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Gmat

On July 30, 2006 by Anant With 0 Comments - Life, Rants, Studies, Yours Truly

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.

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Last call

On July 25, 2006 by Anant With 2 Comments - Life, Yours Truly

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!

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I’m (in) a Cartoon

On July 20, 2006 by Anant With 5 Comments - Comics, Humour, Yours Truly

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 ;)

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Jinxed

On July 15, 2006 by Anant With 7 Comments - Life, Rants, Yours Truly

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!

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Quickie Update

On July 6, 2006 by Anant With 0 Comments - Rants, Yours Truly

I’ve been extremely busy over the past few weeks. Work, GMAT preparations and other projects. Even study time is quite less and I plan to take a break from work to concentrate on it. And I’m finding it extremely difficult to find time to blog even though I do have a couple of ideas.
One of them is a series of posts about preparing for GMAT and what mistakes I made. Well I guess it’ll have to wait until my GMAT and TOEFL are over. For now, another period of silence ensues :(

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