Friday, June 27, 2008

Hello World!

Long time! And I have many an excuse for what kept me away from blogworld.

First, my car. After coming back from India, someone decided to put in a dent in the front of my car and as I contemplated reporting it, I found a nail happily buried in the tire. In the process of fixing the flat, I realized only the drivers side window works and the rest do not slide up (or down). So I moved into the mechanics house and spent few days educating myself on fixing cars.

Once this was done with, my laptop decided to conk off. Did I tell anyone I got a new laptop like.... 3 weeks ago. And after working fine for few days it refused to accept any electrical input. Few weeks were spent waiting for SONY to send a technician home, who ripped the entire laptop apart and changed the motherboard. Hence, after car education, I was into laptop education.

And I thought since I am getting so much of an education, I might as well try to get it from Harvard. Hence most evenings are spent reading up on the GMAT. Now let me tell you about the GMAT. This is no piece of cake. My entire life I have played around with the system. Wanna know how I passed my 10th grade? And my 12th Grade? And my engineering? Ok, all you guys who are still in your teens, writing exams and cursing yourself on having to cram every small letter in a book which resembles the encyclopaedia. What I tell you now is the guide to your success.

In most of my exams, we used to have questions which went - "Answer any 7 out of the 10" or something similar. Now this was my strategy. Let me first warn you, I was a duffer. I never knew more than 5 or 6 out of those 10 answers. So if you are the kinds who knows 11 out of 10, this tip is not for you. Well, this is how I went about answering the questions:

Answer 3
Answer 7
Answer 1
Answer 9
Answer 2
Answer 3
Answer 8

Notice something? I answered Question 3 twice, happily avoiding 10, 4, 5 and 6. 90% of the time, the examiner would not notice I have answered Q3 twice. All that was verified was I answered 7 questions, total it up and write down the marks for that section. 10% of the time, I have seen a red mark, something saying answer is repeated.

When is it safe to do this?
- When you are absolutely sure that the best you can get in the other four questions is a zero.
- When the answer sheet does not have a grid box on the main (first page) having a space for evaluating every question (you know those irritating little boxes which have 1a, 1b, 1c etc. typed in it and all the examiner has to do is fill in the marks next to each box).

What you should do:
- The answer which you repeat, please do not write it word to word matching to the previous one. The examiner is gonna say, "Didnt I read these exact words before?" (unless you are asked to quote). Write it in a different way. In fact, keep it little incomplete and lose a point or two if you like.

Variations:
Answer 3
Answer 7
Answer 1
Answer 9
Answer 2
Answer 3
Answer 8
Answer 10
Answer 5

You didnt know 10 or 5 too well, but good enough to perhaps get a point or two. In this case, the examiner is going to pick the top seven answers as per your score in each one. If he figures out you have repeated Q3, he will just mark it out and award you points from 10 or 5. Caveat: You need the time to attempt those extra questions.


For those who are not aware, the GMAT follows a pattern where all questions are compulsory. Which is my third reason for not being visible on the blogworld. I need to sit and study as all my above theories which got me all the way to an engineering degree have been tossed into the bin. And as I read this post again, I notice so many grammatical errors, which is an indication that I need to work more on my sentence correction!

If you come across someone who could pass off as my twin, and happens to have taken the GMAT with an 800 score, kindly get his phone #. I would much appreciate it.

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18 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

saala you should have met me before SSC and HSC... atleast i would have got addtional marks...

June 27, 2008 8:32 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Arre awesome pointers u have given here...

thou i would never have tried it...if not 11 out of 10...im one of those who knew 9 out of 10..n cld get a mark or 2 in the 10th one :P

good to see u after a long hiatus!

goodluck for the GMAT!

June 27, 2008 12:24 PM  
Blogger Solitaire said...

WOW! Awesome!
Arent you afraid that an examiner or grader might read this blog?

June 27, 2008 4:16 PM  
Blogger APOO said...

# Iyer: Now you know how Abhi passed his exams!

# Illusion: You should still try it, just to test the theory you know.. :P And thanks, I need all the luck I can get!

# Solitaire: Erm... why would I be afraid of that?

June 27, 2008 6:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am so sure that after going thru GMAT you will comeup with a technique for GMAT as well....though it wont b for u to use but others.
i hav tried this question repeating trick thrice...twice got caught....and once my teacher was so dumb he actually asked me to choose one more question to answer, he thought i did it by mistake (i was so angelic to him)

June 28, 2008 1:26 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

i'm in awe of such deviousness! I'm send Pickwick to you for special tuitions when it's time or his boards.

June 28, 2008 5:42 AM  
Blogger Neetal said...

GMAT ... I've been reading it lately too... the score is awefully ugly right now... ...okay i will say it ..... (580)... gotta improve big time..... GRE was much more easy... now i feel.. atleast all i did was cram those barrons words... ...

I completly empathise your situation... My laptop broke up with me on my finals day... it was aweful..

Oh well... its good to know that things are going well after all the mishaps...

here is the deal...I'll let you know if i find your twin.... u tell me when you find mine... :)

And offcours..

May Good Goodwalla Luck be with you too !

June 29, 2008 1:16 PM  
Blogger Still Searching said...

Btw, you didn't tell us what was really wrong with your car windows! What did you learn about car windows from your days and nights at the mechanic? :))

June 29, 2008 10:41 PM  
Blogger Tazeen said...

and i thought I was the only one who did it.
I once had a history paper where i attempted a question on unification of Germany (in the 18th century) and French Revolution. I answered the German unification question in detail and wrote a couple of pages on the french revolution with a note that said: "the events leading up to the revolution of france and unification of germany were same and need not to be repeated again. The examiner can refer to the answer of question number 2.

June 30, 2008 6:36 AM  
Blogger Friendly Stranger said...

Good zolgiri in attempting the questions.....
You are spoiling young generation dude :D LOL
Anyways, wish you all the best for your date with GMAT!

June 30, 2008 10:10 AM  
Blogger Solitaire said...

You have been tagged.
Check WARM FUZZIES!

July 01, 2008 12:27 AM  
Blogger Sameera Ansari said...

Can't imagine a day without my laptop!*shudders*

Nice tips to trick examiners.Lol

Have a nice weekend :)

July 05, 2008 2:39 PM  
Blogger Scribblers Inc said...

brilliant stuff...thats actually a great strategy...get outta the GMAT hogwash; patent your technique and start conducting seminars across india....the kids would bless you for centuries to come!!

wishes,
Scribblers Inc.

P.S.-you would need a secret community like an Illuminati or somesuch to run these seminars cuz I realy dunno if you could rely on the teachers on that one!!:P

July 07, 2008 9:08 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi There....nice ways to bluff around in tests! LOL

I'm Mayur from linq.
I got to know about your blog from http://news.linq.in
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I Request you to review linq and provide your valuable feedback to feedback@linq.in
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July 10, 2008 12:07 PM  
Blogger Solitaire said...

Helllllllllo!!
You have not done the tag yet!!?
Where have you disappeared?
And thought I will let you know that Psychobabble is up and running!

July 12, 2008 1:30 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Either unemployment stats have gone real high or spammers like (LinQIndia - above) are getting really desperate- making personal house calls and all. Wow!

Good luck with the GMAT prep, dude!
-Another 800 hopeful!

July 13, 2008 11:17 AM  
Blogger APOO said...

#Kulsoom: LOL! U must have a real innocent face!

#sense: Send him from 5th grade. Practice shall make him perfect!

#Neeku: Shabaash! You have competition for who scores less. I am currently at 530!

#Searching: Whats spoken on the phone shall nto be used on this blog!

#Tazeen: You lost me at French Revolution.

#Stranger: Thanks! I hope this date ends well!

#Sameera: Thanks! U shud try it! Its nice once u get rid of it.

#Scribbler: Would you like to partner the INdia operations? :P

#Solitaire: I hate tags :(. But I'll do it. In due time... problem is I never get embarassed. I find it more funny than embarassing.

#Brad: Thanks bud!

July 15, 2008 10:24 PM  
Blogger Neetal said...

yeah right you are at 530... i know you are just underplaying it ... anyways, i gave up the idea... of it... may be later will do it .. not now...

but Good luck to you :)

July 21, 2008 1:33 PM  

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