Author: Tony Xavier

How to prepare for WAT-GD-PI – II

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In the previous post, we discussed how to start your prep for WATs and GDs. In this post, we will tackle the big fish — The B-School Personal Interview. The Indian b-school interview is maybe the most random of all interview processes that you will ever face in your life. Going by student testimonials and transcripts over the last few years, barring IIM-B, none of the schools seems to have a fixed yardstick for asking questions. If panels have one thing in common it seems to be their mistrust of candidates and the claims they make. Most panels start with the premise that the only thing the candidate wants is to make more money, and hence, it might be useless to start asking them The Big 5 Standard Questions — Tell us something about yourself Describe your work experience Why do you want to do an MBA What are your long-term and short-term goals List your strengths and weaknesses They would instead test out your mettle by grilling you on the things you mention in …

How to prepare for WAT-GD-PI – I

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Now that the XAT is over, the time to dive fully into WAT-GD-PI prep has come. But how does one go about it? It all seems like a vast sea with no beginning and no end. A single post covering all three — WAT, GD & PI — will be unwieldy, to say the least, so I will do a series of posts that will help you kick-start your prep for the second stage.

A timing strategy for the XAT

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  I have always preferred a test without sectional time limits since it tests a crucial quality required for management — optimizing resources to achieve maximum return on investment. In this case, the resources are your own skills, and the investment is your time.  So, how does one go about using the 170 minutes on the XAT?

Bell the CAT — The Book

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The CAT Writer blog is now a book — Bell the CAT: Your Bell the CAT: Your Friend, Philosopher and Guide for CAT Preparation! For close to a decade, aspirants have been reading this blog every year for guidance beyond just Quant, Verbal, and DI-LR. How different is it from the blog? It has a few extra articles at the beginning and the end to make it more rounded. But the main advantage of the book is that the content is organised in the order it is supposed to be read so that your CAT and MBA campaign is set up to succeed and that you can easily find the content you want to go over. The Table of Contents below will give you all the details. We will be giving away three signed copies through a small quiz. https://tinyurl.com/Bell-the-CAT-Quiz We will choose the best answers to the same and communicate the same to the winners.

How to crack XAT Decision Making – Part I

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One of the most tedious and inscrutable sections that you will find across all management entrance tests, Decision Making has been the nemesis of many a XAT aspirant. A lot of factors contribute towards DM possibly being the biggest stumbling block on the XAT. But none is bigger than the fact the amount of time any test-taker would have spent preparing for DM when compared to any other section is minuscule. This coupled with the dislike and unease most aspirants have towards reading, and the extremely subjective nature of questions ensures that DM ends up becoming the deal-breaker as far as the XAT is concerned.

What after a horrible CAT?

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Be it the day of the CAT or be it when the final admit results come out it is not easy to be a mentor — on one hand you are happy for students who crack the exam and get admitted and on the other hand you feel sad for those who have a bad test day or fail to convert. The toughest thing was always to meet a student who was happy, knowing that the one waiting outside was sad. So with the years, one develops a certain equanimity since one cannot be so happy that one is not able to empathize with the ones who are having a hard time and one also cannot get so bogged down by sadness that one cannot partake in the joy of the successful. In some cases students just disappear, somehow they take it very personally, that they have failed, they have failed even after reading all the blogs and attending all the sessions, they feel almost as if they have let me down. And I am …

Getting ready for CAT D-day

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You have about a few days left and some of you might still be awaiting answers to some questions such as whether should you listen to what happened in the earlier slots, what should you do if you know you might not get sleep Saturday night, etc. Last year I made an audio clip (initially shot as a video) that answered all of these queries, queries that deal specifically with the three days leading up to the test, and all the pending questions. As on every Friday before the CAT-day, we are doing a stress buster session — Anything But CAT. We will host five rooms where we will discuss specific non-CAT topics of interest: Cricket & Tennis, Football and other sports, Harry Potter & Fantasy Books, Music Room, Quizzing. All IMS students will receive a link for the same.