Why I Teach

September 5, 2018
by Tony Xavier
comments 6
Motivation
The germ for this post sprouted in the aftermath of the death of Dr.Kalam.

In the deluge of Kalam-related information that dominated the media after his death one small bit struck a chord — his love for teaching. Of all the things he was — a teacher, a scientist, an advisor to the government, the President — it was the role of a teacher that he cherished the most.

On first meetings, people usually ask, “So what do you do?” The only reply I want to give when faced with this question is — I am a teacher. Everything else — my stint as a business owner with IMS, my current role as the Chief Learning Officer – IMS, are  around this core.
Read More

Advertisements

CAT 2018: How to manage work and prepare for the CAT

August 31, 2018
by Tony Xavier
comments 6
CAT / CAT Strat / Motivation

With the mountain called the CAT now in sight, most working professionals will be wondering how to mount another challenge to get into the old IIMs.

The biggest obstacle in front working professionals will be juggling a job and prepping for CAT at the same time. Some of you in this situation will have decided to quit your job, hopefully only after having read my post on the same and having understood the implications of quitting.
Read More

CAT 2018: How to increase your accuracy on the Verbal Ability section

August 27, 2018
by Tony Xavier
Leave a comment
CAT Strat / Verbal Strat

The Verbal Ability section of the CAT has always been one of those things that never fails gets my goat. To me it has never made any sense at all! Why do they want MBA aspirants to

  • read passages by philosophers (and sometimes poets) and then answer questions set by non-philosophers or people who fancy themselves to be philosophers
  • know at least three idioms in which the word “DONKEY” is used correctly and one in which it is incorrectly used — the one I marked as incorrect was — The Professor could talk the hind legs off a donkey — of course only a professor capable of that could make that question!
  • keep unjumbling paragraphs when there can always be more than one way of arranging sentences to form a coherent paragraph.

This is one of the big reasons why I like and respect the precisely designed Verbal Section of the GMAT and also teach a lot for the same!

But be that as it may, we have a job at hand — to clear the Verbal Cut-off consistently.

In this post, I shall outline a strategy to improve your selection, accuracy and most importantly consistency in the Verbal Section. Read More

CAT 2018: How to increase your DI-LR percentile – Part I

July 31, 2018
by Tony Xavier
Leave a comment
CAT Strat / DI-LR Strat

After the previous posts, a few of you had commented saying that you are eagerly awaiting the post on the DI-LR section. The earnestness is understandable since most of you who are facing the SimCATs will know that the DI-LR section is one that will make or break your CAT.

If it goes well, you will take that confidence into the QA section finish strong. If your performance on the DI-LR section goes south then you will start feeling the fatigue of 120 minutes of testing and will fade away in the last section. The latter was the case with most test-takers last year. Read More

CAT 2018: How to improve your QA percentile – Part III

July 18, 2018
by Tony Xavier
Leave a comment
CAT Strat / Quant Strat

In the previous two posts, we took a look at the first two building blocks to increase your score and percentile on CAT Quant — Accuracy & Question Selection. In this post, we will look at the third building block — if the first two blocks provide the impetus towards the higher score, this block is the one from where you take off towards a higher score — Speed. Read More

CAT 2018: How to improve your QA percentile – Part II

July 16, 2018
by Tony Xavier
Leave a comment
CAT Strat / Quant Strat

In the first part of this post we covered the first building block to achieve higher scores and percentiles on CAT QA — accuracy. In this post, we will take up the next one — selection.

QA is the section that gets the maximum attention of test-takers of all stripes and there is always a litany of frustrations and queries that plagues aspirants —

  • I am good at Math and like Math but my score just does not seem to go up!
  • Should one attempt the long Arithmetic questions?
  • I feel every problem is do-able!
  • I get stuck for long with one problem without realising it
  • I realise there were many problems I could have solved when I analyse the test

The answer to all of these questions lies in the way you select questions and the way you navigate between them. Read More

CAT 2018: How to improve your QA percentile – I

July 10, 2018
by Tony Xavier
comments 5
CAT Strat / Quant Strat

Unlike the other two sections, QA is a section that has a direct link to what you have done in school and college. Most of the topics that are tested on the CAT have also been a part of the school curriculum. This I feel is the biggest roadblock in front of test-takers wanting to achieve higher scores on the CAT Quant irrespective of their relationship with Quant, with high Math scores during X and XII exams not having any direct correlation with ability on the CAT QA.

Read More

CAT 2018: Setting the right targets on your way to a 99 percentile

June 13, 2018
by Tony Xavier
comments 20
CAT / CAT Strat / Motivation

A few years back, I attended the Chennai convocation function for aspirants who cleared the Company Secretary (CS) exam (a relative of mine had cleared the exam). The Chief Guest was Padmishri awardee T.N.Manoharan, who is a pre-eminent figure in the Banking and Accounting sector in the country with his book being a must-read for all CA aspirants. He was part of the government-appointed team that cleaned up the Satyam mess and paved the way for the transition to Tech Mahindra. His keynote address was leavened with wisdom and had too many punchlines for me to recount here but one of the things he said is spot on when it comes to the way we should deal with success and failure. He said… Read More

How to and not to evaluate your first SIMCAT performance

May 3, 2018
by Tony Xavier
comment 1
CAT / CAT Strat / Motivation

The response to the first SIMCAT was great and it was nice to see so many students jump into the fray from the word go. But the plunge as most of you would know is similar to jumping off a diving board for the first time — the moment of impact, the bewilderment when you are under the water and most importantly the desperate eagerness towards the end to somehow get back to the ground again. (I have never jumped off a diving board but was once caught under the waves on the beach when I was quite little, thankfully my dad managed to rescue me).

Just like you would not bother too much about the score given to your first ever dive do not think too much about the score you got. This is neither an engineering exam nor a blood test. So what is it and how should you evaluate your performance?

Read More