Diwali the festival of light

Today is Diwali, the festival of light as many people know it. For most of the Indians it is an auspicious and important day of the year. For me it started as any other day.

I woke up with struggle to convince myself as to why I should wake up early today and go to work. It was rather intense and in the end, sad. I called my family in India and spoke with them briefly and exchanged Diwali greetings. From there my day went downright gloomy and sad.

For those of you who don’t know enough about me, I am in a small town in Wisconsin, US. Diwali was always a fun occasion for me and my friends. Sweets, firecrackers, vacation, friends, family, new clothes, and beautiful lamps all over, that is what Diwali was for me.

Now I was looking outside my window. Sky was gray and air was cold. Every step towards office was an ordeal. Work was pretty uninspiring and mediocre at it’s best. I spoke merely two sentences in first 4 hours of work. I kept telling myself that just ride it over, next Diwali would be different. Then I realised that last five Diwalis have been similar. Why would next one would be any different and that made me even more sad. I went to the local school where I volunteer at lunch time. Came back to work without any desire to do anything.

It dawned upon me in the evening that Diwali can be many different things but at it’s best it is about bringing light. I realised that I needed to shrug off this selfish feeling and stop feeling sorry for myself. I asked myself “What have I done to bring light today”. It may sound cliche but how many of actually do it everyday let alone on Diwali day.

Answer to this question brought me peace. I worked with students this afternoon and made some positive impact. I did bring light unknowingly. I lit a lamp but I just didn’t realise it. It also sent me in a tailspin of thoughts about how am I going to do this everyday now. Diwali should be everyday, that is an ultimate Indian wish, at least mine. This brought light in my life as well.

It is 6PM in the evening on Diwali day now. It has been a good Diwali day a meaningful one, peaceful one.

You said and I listened

So readers I listened to some of you asked me to retake the GMAT, and I did take it again. So what I scored is 700(Q48 V38). Am I happy?? Yes… I am happy to be done with my GMAT. Am I satisfied? No..I was expecting my verbal score around 42+ but I am definitely done with my GMAT at this point. I have a decent Q-V score breakdown. I feel I should have scored this on my second attempt because I didn’t do anything drastically different on this attempt. That is beside the point now.

I took my GMAT on 18^th August. It was planned at 8.00AM and it was in a town 2 hour drive from where I live. Luckily my girlfriend’s parents live very close by so we both decided to pay them a visit. The day before the test I did not study at all. I drove to my girlfriend’s parents’ place. I helped my girlfriend and her mom with some work in their farm and horse stable. Visited the test center and then watched the Lord of The Ring – The Fellowship of The Ring for the first time in my life. Next morning woke up around 6AM and ate decent breakfast (Toast and English Breakfast Tea) drove to the test center.

I was very calm right before the test. I know the feeling going through my mind was “oh I just want to get done and come to a conclusion of this tedious process.  Oh after the test I am going to my friend’s wedding..Nice!!! I am pretty sure my friend is going to bike to his wedding and he has out favourite burrito place have cater the food.. hah..I just want to get done with this test. “

I am not kidding, those were the exact thoughts I had going through my head. I started with AWA and IR section, I think I did pretty well there. Took the break, had some cold-coffee I brought and half the granola bar. Started my quant section. I knew that I might struggle with timing on quant so I was constantly keeping tab on my time. I remember I use the notepad grid to answer two of the geom questions and one number line question. It took me 50sec max to answer those questions.

So my advice, use the grid on the notepad they give you as much as you can. It not only helps you to get to answer faster but you can be very sure of answer if you have done the scaling right.  For example one of the questions was about two lines. GMAT had given me slope of one line and x intercept. Other line was perpendicular to the first line. I just went through multiple scenarios and found out the answer(slope of the second line). I rechecked the answer after the test with equation and I was right. It took me probably 40 seconds to find that answer with the help of the grid.

I took the break after quant and ate rest of the food I brought with me, had some water, used the restroom and back to tackle the verbal section.  I started off pretty well. I noticed that lot of SC questions were focused on meaning. I couldn’t find grammatical errors easily; they were more focused on the word choice and active and passive voice.

By the time I was at q # 15, I was exhausted. Here the real struggle began. I believe this is the reason I did not score as well as I hoped to. I was struggling to keep my focus. I was reading SC questions with CR mind set. Taking notes and looking for conclusion and premise in SC questions. I caught myself taking notes about assumptions in SC question. That is when I became more aware and try to focus more.

I finished my verbal section with this kind of mixed feelings and went through the standard questionnaire and clicked on report the score. I saw 700. My first thought was “dang it, it could have been just 20 point higher if I would have gotten two more questions right in verbal or quant”. I was falling for the famous trap of “not enough GMAT score” and I told myself don’t waste your time analysing this too much just accept it and this is a good score indeed.  So most probably I am not going to retake it unless I find a very compelling reason to do so.

So major take away

• Use the grid and graphic method in quant section if you are pressed for time

• Verbal section: practice on your concentration and stamina. Whenever you practice, do it with multiple questions type in one session. That will train your mind to alternate through different thinking required during the test.

So what is next?? Essays.. the fun part.

Yours Truely

ChilliBox

Overheard on CNN: Debate between Ravitch, Rhee - Teacher: 'Just let me teach.'

Reblogged from Schools of Thought:

Editors note: A recent Schools of Thought reader made this comment: "Equal air time for Ravitch – all this can and should be debated fairly – the blog space is welcome but insufficient." Diane Ravitch is scheduled to appear on CNN Newsroom Weekend with Randi Kaye this Saturday, August 18.

By John Martin, CNN

(CNN) - Education historian and professor Diane Ravitch took issue with…

Read more… 1,764 more words

Very candid discussion on education

One more misreable score

So I took my 3rd attempt at GMAT this morning and I scored 610 (Q41 V34). I am still trying to figure out what went wrong. From 740 in GMAT Prep to 610. I am little shell shocked of course. Not sure what my next step would be. Should I think about other career alternatives and just forget about GMAT and MBA or give it one final shot and put it to rest forever. Will have to decide in next few days.

Final Practice Test 740

 I took my last practice test right after office today. I was little tired so I had a coffee and started my test. When I saw the final score I was pretty happy. I scored 740 (Q48, V44). There were around 6 repeat questions in quant section. Oddly enough I got 2 of those wrong again. I am really happy about my verbal section progress, from 37 in verbal to 44. The reason for happiness is that there were only 4 repeat questions and I got all these questions right the first time. So if this is any indicator of my real performance then I am very excited to take the test. Anyway it is pretty late in this part of the world so that’s it for now.

Some More Improvement

I attempted one more practice test this morning. This was a reset of GMAT Prep I. I scored 720 (Q49 V38). I saw around 6 repeat questions in Quant section and 4 in verbal section. My verbal section questions were the ones I got right on my previous attempts except one CR questions. So I still have some room for improvement in verbal. In the spirit of that I am practicing SC and CR for next two days. I am hoping to raise my verbal score to 42, and if I swing that my with my quant score unchanged I might be able to score 750, which is not a bad place to be.

Alright that’s it for today.

Some Good News

I took a practice test this morning. It is exactly a week before my real test so that was a good simulation, and I scored 710 (Q48 V38). That is little reassuring. The most assuring thing was my math score. I made some good amount of mistakes in Sentence Correction. I haven’t practice SC for quite some time now. It is time that I put some time in sentence correction practice. The good news is CR and RC are better and I didn’t feel stumped by any of those questions.

So next on the plan is to take one more practice test tomorrow morning, a reset GMAT Prep. I was going to practice a MGMAT CAT. I felt that GMAT Prep’s CR and RC questions were little different in nature compare to MGMAT CAT’s.

Anyway the good news is I am at a comfortable level of score.