Stop and Take Heed

Today is a new day.

Although time seems to fly, it never travels faster than one day at a time. Each day is a new opportunity to live your life to the fullest. In each waking day, you will find scores of blessings and opportunities for positive change. Do not let your TODAY be stolen by the unchangeable past or the indefinite future! Today is a new day!

Go On.... Live Your Best Life.

CAT Quants -- No Room for Lethargy

Hi Friends,

Just a little caveat while you prepare the Quants section of CAT.

Most of us go chapter-wise from some standard book like Arun Sharma. Others follow some different material.

Irrespective of the text you choose, you must aim to finish the basics of every chapter (Theory and level1 difficulty question), within a month or as soon as it is possible for you.

If you let the subject linger, over a period of time, you will start feeling frustrated and also will not be in a position, both technically and morally, to attempt random questions from previous year papers or some mock tests as well.

I am saying this from personal experience. Though I aim to make amends, starting now.

So, get over with the theory in a smooth and efficient manner and this journey will become far less daunting.

Hope the suggestion helps some of us shape our strategies,

Till Next Time,

Take Care,

Ashish

Finally....Burning the Boats

Hello Friends,

After months of contemplation, I have finally decided to "burn the boats", and set out towards my only aim - CAT.

I have decided to leave the company I am currently working for, to prepare full time for this exam.

Now, there are no IFs and BUTs left. I am going to win or win.

Till Next time,

Take Care,

Ashish Mishra

Thank You All

Hello Friends,

This post is just to say Thank You to All. Just wanted to stop by for a second and thank every body around me and god for making me what I am today. I am truly delighted and thankful for whatever I have at this point of my life.

With that in hindsight, I continue to move ahead and keep learning.

Until Next Time,

Bye and Take Care,

Ashish Mishra

Latest Draft for Important words

Ostracize:-

Definition: Exclude (someone) from a society or group.

Ostracized by the community!

The socially ostracized people have been trained in various crafts and their products are now marketed all over the country.

Abhor

Definition: Regard with disgust and hatred

Usage:

1) Professional tax preparers abhor a flat tax because it would dry up their business.

2) I abhor my Boss :)

3) Children generally abhor green leafy vegetables.

4) Racial discrimination was abhorrent to us all.

Abeyance

A state of temporary disuse or suspension.

Usage:

1) matters were held in abeyance pending further inquiries.

2) This is a good plan but not at this time. Let's just hold it in abeyance until things get better.

Bedraggled

Definition:- Dirty and disheveled

Usage:-

1) the beggar's bedraggled clothes

2) On warm summer days, the kids would get out the shampoo and hosepipe and he'd soon be a very bedraggled doggie indeed.

Very First Question from CAT 2005

Hello Friends,

Today, while just flipping through a bunch of question papers, I came across this Quant question from CAT 2005. In fact, it was the very first question of the paper. IT goes like this :-

------------------------------------------------------------------

If x= (16^3 + 17^3 + 18^3 + 19^3)

then what is the remainder when x is divided by 70.

a) 0

b) 1

c) 69

d) 35

------------------------------------------------------------------

Here, at first sight, it looks somewhat solvable through remainder theorem.

But the question setters have definitely, tried to take advantage of the narrow thinking that many of the students develop. Once we are through with the "Remainder theorem ", topic in our quant preparation, we become somewhat bent towards using it, the moment we see the word remainder feature in a question.

However, here, the trick lies in understanding and capitalising on the fact that:-

(a^3 + b^3) will always be divisible by (a+b)

Since, (a^3 + b^3) = (a+b) (a^2 + b^2 - ab)

So, here we have

16^3 + 17^3 + 18^3 + 19^3

If we rearrange the expression as : -

(16^3 + 19^3 ) + (17^3 + 18^3)

16+19 = 17+18 = 35

therefore each of the sub-expressions in (16^3 + 19^3 ) + (17^3 + 18^3)

are divisible by 35.

So rewriting the expression as :-

35L + 35 M

Also worth noting is that:-

(16^3 + 19^3 ) has an odd unit digit (as their unit digits add to odd (6+9))

(17^3 + 18^3) has an odd unit digit (as their unit digits add to odd (3+2))

therefore we Now know that,

(16^3 + 19^3 ) + (17^3 + 18^3) is even as well as divisible by 35.

This is enough to conclude that (16^3 + 19^3 ) + (17^3 + 18^3)

is purely divisible by 70 = (35 * 2).

Hence the remainder is 0.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Ans = (a)

------------------------------------------------------------------

Till Next Time,

Good Bye and Happy Problem Solving,

Ashish

Guidelines to Crack CAT

Having given the title for this article, I would like to take some time out to elaborate upon it.
I could have easily used the word 'Strategy' instead of 'Guidelines', but this word has been overused to such an extent that it has become cliched among the coterie of CAT aspirants.

"What is the proper way to prepare for the CAT ?"
This ever-persistent question has given sleepless nights to CAT aspirants since time immemorial.

Frankly, there is no concrete answer to this. But there are certain "general" guidelines to follow. Hence the title.

Well, what better place to begin the analysis than the paper-pattern itself.


The CAT 2011 will have only two sections.
1) a) Quantitative Ability.
b) Data Interpretation.

2) a) Verbal Ability.
b) Logical Reasoning.

Both sections will be of 70 minutes and 30 questions each.

Observations and Learning :-

1) Each section can be attempted in its exclusive time zone only. Hence you cannot steal time from one of the sections to utilize it for the other. Once you are done with section1 or the first 70 minutes, which ever be the earlier, then only can you move on to the next section with a no options to return back.

2) Given the fact that we have sectional cutoffs in CAT, It is good news that we have fewer sections to clear this time. The less the merrier :)

3) But the individual break-up per topic can never be guessed.Hence a sufficient grasp on every subsection (Quants, DI, Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning.) is something that we all should aim for.

Moving on to the finer details of preparation:-

1) EMBRACE TRUTH: Let us face the fact. It takes a very honest effort to crack CAT, or more precisely, to receive Calls from IIMs. The preparation time can span from anywhere between 5 months to 15 months and believe me Ladies and Gentlemen, that nothing else will ever test your temperament better than this phase.

2) WHY CAT: Keep yourself motivated. It will definitely take more than just a love for Brand Names to bell this pretty CAT. You need to have a very good reason for taking up CAT and choosing MBA as a career; something, that will keep you motivated during those tough times when you want to quit and when your hard-work seems to be unfruitful.
Keep that fire burning.

3) Rough Picture: Have a rough plan for how you will go about preparing for this exam. For example, you can divide the total time under - 'Brushing Up of Basics' 'Mock Tests' , 'Dealing with weak areas' 'Mock Tests part 2' and 'Final touch Up phase'.
You must aim to finish each phase of preparation in a stipulated amount of time.

4) Aim high: That is, always keep yourself on toes academically. Attempt as many quality questions as possible per day.

5) Mock Tests: Throughout preparation, beware of falling into the very destructive practice of "Finishing Up the Syllabus". Remember that the CAT syllabus is something you have already finished when you were in 10th standard !!!

So the suggested approach is to think about the applications of the basic knowledge that you already have with you; and hone it with attempting as many questions as possible. Also, it is imperative that you fully understand a concept rather than mugging it up. Take up as many mocks as possible, irrespective of the phase of your preparation. This may sound a little inconvenient for most of us, as most of us want to be through with the syllabus before attempting question papers. Thanks to our orthodox education system :(.
But leaving our comfort zone is the sole purpose of this activity.
The joy of exploring the unknown will fascinate you and will encourage you to study more, and will add to the much needed "Fireworks" to the seemingly boring process of MBA prep.
The learning curve really takes a full up-swing, once you adapt to this kind of preparation-culture.

6) REVISION: Revise, Revise and Revise. This again underlines the importance of taking mock -tests. Use of flash cards also may work in your favor. But it is a bit cumbersome to maintain them, so I will vouch for the MOCKS. The aim is to avoid losing track of any of the sections. This applies especially to Quants preparation.

7) Mental Stability and Importance of Good Spirit :

Word Meaning ----> Didactic

Meaning:-
1) In the manner of a teacher, particularly so as to treat someone in a patronizing way.
2) designed or intended to teach
3) making moral observations

Example:-
1) The poet's works became increasingly didactic after his religious conversion
2) I didn't like the didactic manner in which he presented his ideas to the board.
Synonym: Sermonic , Preachy

Sum of all possible 4 digit numbers formed from the given numbers

Find the sum of all four digit numbers that can be formed using the digits 1,2,3,4,5, each digit appearing at most once.


There are 5P4 = 120 ways of forming 4-digit numbers with each digit appearing at most once. Consider first the one's place. In those 120 numbers, 1,2,3,4, and 5 appear exactly the same number of times, that is, each digit appears 120/5 = 24 times.

For the tens place, same thing: 1,2,3,4,and 5 appear equally the same number of times. Each digit appears 24 times. The argument for the hundreds and thousands places are the same. Thus the sum of all those distinct 120 numbers is
1,000*24*(1+2+3+4+5)+ 100*24*(1+2+3+4+5) + 10*24*(1+2+3+4+5) + 1*24*(1+2+3+4+5) = 1,111*24*(1+2+3+4+5) = 1,111*24*15 = 399,960.

http://www.algebra.com/algebra/homework/Permutations/Permutations.faq.question.389512.html


PS: Taken from the above mentioned site :

Hope it added to your knowledge pool,
Till Next Time
Take Care
-Ashish