PREPARE FOR MBA » CAT

Why MBA?? Why not Something else?

Ansh — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 10:27:47 +0000

Why MBA?? Yes the most cliched question of our generation, but the MOST apt also. You must be thinking why am I asking this question, of course…. most of the people landing on this page have figured out this for themselves. Wait!!! It is not that easy. Lets dig a bit deeper into this question.

This question is the most scared question across all MBA interview panels. In 1908, the Graduate School of Business Administration (GSBA) at Harvard University was established; it offered the world’s first MBA program, with a faculty of 15 plus 33 regular students and 47 special students. The mission of the program was to produce leaders and ideas that will shape the practice of management in vital organizations of every kind around the globe. What makes an idea or a leader successful is the clarity. That is why each applicant was asked to write in their SOP [statement of purpose] the answer to the question “Why you want to do MBA?”. Since many B-schools do not have the concept of SOP, they ask this during the interview.

But as smart we think we are, the people in the interview room sitting across the table are Smarter. Don’t forget these are the people [the Profs] who are taking interviews over the years. Some of them have career span more than the age of the certain candidates. So no prize for guessing that how easy it is for interviewer to catch fake or made up [as spoon fed by the coaching institutes] answers. And if you are successful in doing that [first of all give yourself a pat], the story does not end there. Read ahead.

90% of the students who join MBA have no clear idea why they joined this program

The point I am trying to highlight here is that it is really important for any B-school aspirant [for his future career] to figure out the answer to the Holy question “Why MBA??” I have been interacting with students here at IIM L for two years now and it is purely from personal interaction with students here [now across 3 batches my senior, my batch and my junior] I conclude that 90% of the students who join MBA have no clear idea why they joined this program. Many of them realize that they could have been better somewhere else [in my job or may be pursuing my core field]. Many of them feel two years are wasted here, and they spend 2 yrs [the most crucial phase of their life] just cribbing about system and about their decision [which they realize was due to herd mentality]. Many of them flunk, not being able to cope up with the system, they don’t relate with the studies here [what the hell is Debit and Credit, why i have to read all the maths again ]. This is what my experience at IIM L and I am sure [talking to my friends in other IIMs] the scene is pretty much same everywhere. Believe my words “Its harder to Pass out from an IIM than getting in“. The student is not he only one who is at loss here, it is the whole system. The institute does not get good bunch of students, the companies come for placement complain about quality of talent, the performance of the batch across various competitions through out the year goes down. And it is all because we [the aspirants] do not get TRUE answer to the question WHY MBA?? What is my take away from MBA program?

I hope I have been able to draw your attention towards the issue in the right way. I am sure most of you still have not got YOUR answer to THE question. This is fairly okay… it is good if you are searching for your own rather waiting for someone to spoon feed you.The answer has to come from within and believe me it is going to come some day.

To help the readers about being clear about their thoughts and organize them, here are few books I would suggest that will give you fair idea how can live your dream and please appreciate that its not going to be MBA for all of you.

Virgin King -Richard Branson
Business at Speed of ligth- Bill Gates
Snap shots from Hell The making of an MBA- Peter Robinson
Alchemist- Paulo Cohelo
Jonathan Livingstone Seagull- Richard Bach
Rules of revolutionaries – Guy Kawasaki
Odyssey – Pepsi to Apple – John Sculley

Some of these books will give you good idea to introspect and how managers handle things at work place. In the next article I am going to suggest some more books, which will help you figure out YOUR own answer to WHY MBA??

P.S — Please share your thoughts, doubts and questions. I will try to answer each of them.Similar Posts:

CAT 2009 will be computer based test

Gaurav — Sun, 03 May 2009 07:09:14 +0000

So it’s been finally officially declared that the CAT 2009 will be a computer based test. Right now it’s not very clear that whether it will be computer adaptive test (CAT) like GMAT in which next question will depend on your marking of the previous question i.e if you mark the previous question right then a more difficult question will come else the less difficult one or not. Also in CAT (Computer Adaptive Test) the marks to each question varies according to its difficulty.

Here is one excerpt:

“The CAT will be conducted at Prometric centers across the country. The locations of these centers will be determined only after all applications have been received. Students will get some idea about how to prepare for this year’s test when the CAT advertisements and booklets are released,” said IIM Bangalore (IIM-B) Professor Amarnath Krishnaswamy.

Here is the official press release by IIM:

Computerization of CAT

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Brochures & Catalogs online cat cat 2009

PS: Don’t get confused between CAT (Common Admission Test) and CAT (Computer Adaptive Test). CAT 2009 pagalguy discussion threadSimilar Posts:

Chat Archive of T.I.M.E

Gaurav — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 15:42:04 +0000

[kml_flashembed movie="/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/chat-archives-of-time1.swf" height="1100" width="650" /]Similar Posts:

CAT 2008 Result Out

Gaurav — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:00:46 +0000

Here is the link where you can check your score of CAT 2008.

CAT 2008 Results

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Download FREE CAT, XAT, JMET, NMAT, IIFT etc Mock Papers

Gaurav — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 08:22:00 +0000

I am sharing my collection with you guys. This is my collection of mock papers which I get from different sources, all online though. I never found such collection at one place, that’s why I am making a portfolio in which everyone can contribute and make it useful for future aspirants too. If you want to contribute in this effort, please email me your material and I will put it here with full acknowledgement. My email id is: gaurav[at]mbatutes.com.

Download Mock Papers

Please Note: if you want to get such items in future too, subscribe to mbatutes so that you don’t have to visit again and again to check whats new in here.

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Cat Fundae at UTVi

Gaurav — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 14:50:29 +0000

Similar Posts: TIPS for CAT on UTVi Fundae of Clock Crack the CAT 2008 CAT ANALYSIS CAT 2008 Result Out

CAT 2008 Audio-Video Solutions

Gaurav — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 09:03:03 +0000

So here are some of the solutions of CAT 2008 questions. They are uploaded by career launcher on you-tube.

Here are some other links:

Bibliography: Career Launcher ChannelSimilar Posts:

TIPS for CAT on UTVi

Gaurav — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:38:14 +0000

Summary:

1) Practice your formulae list daily.

2) Don’t strategise now.

3) Give mocks at 10:30 a.m.

4) Have a bash on 15th Nov, 08 (but no alcohol please ).

It feels good when I watch such videos which say don’t study too much now.Similar Posts:

Crack the CAT 2008

Gaurav — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:32:18 +0000

CRACK CAT

There’s an excellent article written by Director (R&D), Career Launcher India Ltd, on Education Times on “Crack the CAT”. He is sharing the last minute ideal strategy to bell the CAT. This is the apt time to read this article and should try to follow what he is saying. I am giving you the link of the article in the form of image to the left. Click the image to directly go to the article.

Main Key points are:

Get motivated

Identify the apt frequency of test taking for you

go through the last few years’ CAT papers

Identify the type of questions that you are good at and revise them

devote equal time to all sections

read a lot

but don’t scrutinise through funda books

Start thinking about a strategy

Do not go too hard on testing yourself

Stay calm and relax. Sleep properly, watch movies, and spend some time in the playground.

These highlighted points is a verbatim from the very well written article.

Thanks Education TimesSimilar Posts:

CAT ANALYSIS

Gaurav — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:43:35 +0000

CAT has always lived up to its expectations of being the most uncertain examination held in India, and come November and all the MBA aspirants in the nation will be set to face the CAT-astrophic storm of 2008. And it’s not always the changing pattern that students face as the demonstration of CAT-astrophy.

For instance, CAT 2007 did not surprise the takers with its pattern, though it’s Quantitative and Verbal sections certainly gave the test takers a hard time.CAT 2007 was characterised by a tough Quantitative section, a lengthier (over 180 words per question) Verbal section and the only life saver in the form of DI section.

The test security was unbeatable with four sets of question papers having answer options jumbled even for the same questions in all the four sets. That is, if your answer in Series 111 for a particular Quant question was Option 4, the answer for the same question in Series 222, 333 and 444 may not be the same (ie Option 4).

This was a proactive step taken by the exam setters because, since CAT 2006, students are getting more than two minutes per question (considering the fact that no one attempts all the questions) increasing the possibility of copying.

To help this year’s test takers crack CAT 2008, experts from TCYonline.com have analysed the last 4 CATs in the deepest possible detail. Let’s analyse the components one by one:

CAT Quantitative Section
This section was the toughest of all. The topic wise break-up of the Quantitative section is as follows:

Once again, the greatest share was of Number theory. Surprisingly, Higher Math occurred second as regards the share in total number of questions. A comparison of the CAT 2007 with the previous 4 CATs (Chart No 2) shows that Number Theory and Geometry are becoming hot favourites of the exam setters. On the other hand the number of Area/Volume questions has fallen drastically since last CAT.

CAT Verbal Section
Though seemed similar from the outset, CAT 2007 verbal was much different from CAT 2006. The return of Grammar; a new creative face of vocabulary under the guise of sentence completion and lengthier Para jumbles as compared to the earlier versions. An overview of CAT 2007 verbal is given below:

As one can see from the pie chart, reading comprehension had a clean sweep over the rest in CAT 2007. This section seemed difficult with the number of RC passages going up from 12 in CAT 2006 to 15 this year and the number of RC questions going down from 15 in CAT 2006 to 12 this year.

Para Jumbles took the RC avatar with long paragraphs in place of sentences as jumbled parts. A careful comparison ofCAT 2007 with the past 4 CATs (Chart No 4) shows that RC is the hot favourite of the verbal exam setters. On the other hand, Para Jumbles appeared as an important ingredient of CAT only after CAT 2004.

CAT DI Section

This was the only scoring section in the CAT 2007. The questions were easier but trickier as compared to CAT 2006. Data Sufficiency appeared in this section after a long absence. But the most important fact is that Logical reasoning is getting more and more preference of the test takers (see Chart No 5). Moreover, it is retaining the trend since CAT 2005.

Courtesy :- Rediff

Please forgive for the small texts in pics.Similar Posts: