choices

Sometimes I think I want to take up courses in my higher studies so that I can write about it. And sometimes I want to take up jobs because I can write about it. :-)

Practice test #2 (PR #1)

Hi!!!
My best friend is in town so I spent the better half of my weekend with her. There was no time to study yesterday (Saturday), but I woke up at 6 am today and wrote my second practice test.
Princeton Review's CAT #1: 650 (Q-44, V-37).
Yes, I hadn't studied much as it is in the past few weeks, but I still took it, cos it's time I start taking practice tests every Sunday now.
Yes, my quant score remains the same as the last test. Though I did pace much better and finished the section comfortably. Accuracy was 84%.
Verbal was higher from earlier, which is a good sign. This time I tried to slow down (last time I went too fast), but at some point in the middle I felt like I had lost some time, so did a couple of questions quickly to make up for it. Got 2 wrong in this duration. Eventually, had more than 2 minutes remaining on the last question, an SC. Accuracy was 80%. But, I think I can do so much better in Verbal. This time, there was once again a damned RC in which I got 3/4 questions wrong! And this time I thought I got it, but I actually hadn't got it. Damn it!!! I'm beginning to think now that the RC strategy taught to me by PR may not be working out best for me. Maybe I am the sort of person who will read the passage carefully, and then get all RC questions right. Out of the 8 questions I got wrong on this section, FIVE were RC questions!!! 2 SC (one idiom), and 1 CR. This is so different from my GMATPrep test! CR was my weakness there. Hmmm...!

Anyway, I'll go through the wrong & guessed questions tomorrow. For today, I'm satisfied. I got better, and I'm confident I'm already capable of scoring much more in Verbal. I just need to fine tune my skills. Quant, however, needs a lot more practice. But I'll get there too. I'm confident. :-)

What I want from work

I've been working for 6 months now, and I've realized something. I chose to beigin my career as a reseacrh analyst, assuming I would have to write reports and make presentations after analysing data and information. I chose it because I thought I would be good at it. I am a good writer, I can pick out relevant information from a avast pool of data, I can organize it in a way that is easy to understand, and communicate it effectively in a presentation too because I've been good at public speaking too. I thought such a job would bring together my strengths and I could use it, while developing "ability to work hard" skills, and do my job well. Although I haven't had to make any presentations till now, the rest of my skills have been used A LOT. And yes, I believe I've done a good job. But, now that I think of it, although the company benefits from my already dveloped skills (that maybe got a little fine-tuned at work), how have I benefited? I know the fact that the company benefits gives me a sense of accomplishment, and I've had a platform to display my skills. But, now what? Although I don't regret making this career choice, and maybe some people may think it's good to be in a job which makes most use of your strngths, I'm not satisfied anymore. I need more.
I think I've always been attracted to things I know will be a challenge to me. For quite some time now, I thought I should do somewthing that utilizes my writing and communication skills. But now, I think I should stay away from it. Mostly because it doesn't satisfy me. Because I'm not learning anything new. well, I am to a certain extent, but not to the extent I'd want. I want to get into something which teaches me something new everyday, and where there's no fixed template to work on. being someone who loves to be organized, and thrives on fixed formats, this seems to be contrary to my nature. But, MAN! I guess I don't want that at work. It seems scary to think about getting into something that has no structure, no format, but I want that! I'd LOVE that.. And yes, I want that for the rest of my life. I know I can't choose at this age what field/ post I want to work in. But, I can choose what I want from work. And I choose uncertainty. And I choose a challenge. Something that is not in my skill set already, and something that requires me to learn something new all the freaking time. Maybe this is like a normal day of work for many of you. But it's not  for me. Atleast not in this company. I should change my company. And soon. But, I'm waiting to finish my GMAT and then try applying to some of the big consultancy firms with my high score. Hmmm...I guess I'll just have to push through these last 2months. Wish me luck.

A link to links & a big fat THANK YOU!

I've been updating my Important Links post periodically, and I didn't mention the changes because I assumed that if anyone wanted to know what was new, they'd just go to the post and find out (I change the font of new stuff to bold & italic so that it's easier to spot). However, I must make a special mention of my Important Links post today, mainly because I believe the two new links I've added might be truly awesome, so awesome that they should have an additional post about them.
1. GMATClub has launched a new GMAT Math Book Open Project, which I think is a fantastic idea. Currently, you can find DETAILED chapters on Triangles, Polygons, Probability & Combinatorics. Other topics in the book are links to Sequences & Series, Word Problems, etc. OMG!!! :-)
Edit: I've just begun going through the Triangles chapter in this, and it's unbelievable! Don't need to try looking for any another source of Math theory!!! Seriously.
2. GMATClub has also added the Question of the Day feature!
Wow, I think they should probably pay me for "advertising" this! Haha...Anyway, what I really like about sites like GMATClub is that they seem to truly want to help out students, the part about all these great *free* features being the key! That's why I like BeatTheGmat too. Just the number of helpful GMAT & MBA related articles they post daily!!! And then there's MGMAT. Although most of their stuff is paid (they're basically paid classroom tutors!), they don't behave like maniacs trying to put a price on every single piece of advice, question, or solution they provide. Go check out their forums and MBA Resources pages if you don't believe me.
I guess a big fat THANK YOU is in order for these sites and the people who contribute to them!!! :-)

PS. I should atleast get paid for the amount of effort it took to provide relevant links in this post! ;-)

A silly mistake (Quant)

From vaibhav.iit2002 on his BTG thread: 51 in QA - debrief.

"In DS, problems always think TWICE before marking C or E. Its a common GMAT problem to give an impression that you need both A and B to solve the problem while you can solve just by using A or B[both integers].
e.g. 2a + 3b = 10
21a + 23b = 67[i don't exactly remember the example]
Its very very easy to mark C as we think that we need 2 equations for 2 unknown variables. Try putting values for a and b[if feasible] in equation 2 as only a=1 and b=2 will fit."

Day 26

Did PR VB2 - timed (with 1.8 min per qs).
Accuracy overall: 70% (19/27)
Most of my CR & RC errors were because I didn't read either the passage, question, or answer options properly. One CR error was due to a subtlety I missed in the question.
2 SC idiom errors, and 1 because of a word placement that changed the meaning of the sentence.

Here's my error log entry:

PR VerbalBin2	CR	SC	RC
Percentage Correct	78%	67%	67%
Average Timing	1.22	1.17	1.55
Avg timing for correct qs	1.20	0.89	1.21
Avg timing for wrong qs	1.29	1.72	2.23
	-0.09	-0.83	-1.02

An Important Sequence & a CR link

Here's a type of Sequences question I wasn't aware of, till now.

Repeating Patterns

Many times, repeating patterns will yield a remainder question.

The first term of a sequence is  -2 and the second term is 2. Each subsequent odd term is found by adding 2 to the previous term, and each subsequent even terms is found by multiplying the previous term by -1. What is the sum of the first 669 terms?

Clearly, we are not looking to enter all 669 terms and see what the last one is. But, we can do a few and check out the pattern.
n = 1, = -2
n = 2, = 2
n = 3, = 4
n = 4, = -4
n = 5, = -2
n = 6, = 2
Since we can see that the pattern will repeat every 4 terms, we can solve for the remainder after dividing 669/4. Since 4 goes into 668 evenly, we know that the value will be equivalent to that of the first term, which = -2.

-------------------------------------------------
Also discovered a whole host of useful GMAT CR articles on BTG. Read the first two (in chronological order) and found them pretty useful. Even assumptions are of two types: sufficient and necessary! And the question type (by a subtle change in wording) can change the answer! Damn. Those 2 are definite re-read material.

Day 21 - 25

Day 21
Did questions from PR Math Bin 4 that I got wrong, and then later reviewed the stuff I didn't get with a Math whiz of a friend. :-)

Day 22
Went through BTG's Math FC's and kept aside the ones that require review.


Day 23
So, to improve on my not so great CR accuracy on GMATPrep1, I went back to PR CR section and tried reading it again. Didn't work. Got bored. So I picked up Verbal Bin 1 and solved all CR questions in it. I got all right, obviously. Cos it was Verbal Bin 1. Anyway...

Day 24
This Friday i.e. 27th December, 2009. Went through a couple of questions on GMATHacks. Thus, the barrage of new CPs on the blog.

Day 25
Did a few more questions from the same source.

I know...I'm not doing enough. But I am now.

Day 17 - 20

Day 17
IMS BRM (basic reference material) - P&C, Probability (some of it)

Day 18
IMS BRM - P&C, Probability
IMS WB (workbook) - P&C, Probability
GMATPrep1 error log - made

Day 19
IMS BRM - Time, Speed & Distance (TSD)
IMS WB - TSD
GMATPrep1 error log - analysed

GMATPrep1	PS	DS	CR	SC	RC
Percentage Correct	65%	24%	45%	71%	77%
Average Timing	2.14	1.54	1.96	1.08	1.84
Avg timing for correct qs	2.40	2.28	2.04	1.05	1.87
Avg timing for wrong qs	1.65	1.31	1.89	1.15	1.74
	0.75	0.97	0.15	-0.10	0.13

Day 20
PR Math Bin 4 (timed - 3 mins/qs)

PR MathBin4	PS	DS
Percentage Correct	67%	70%
Average Timing	2.59	2.28
Avg timing for correct qs	2.71	2.19
Avg timing for wrong qs	2.35	2.48
	0.37	-0.29

An easy calculation trick

From GMATHacks.com explanation to a Question of the Day.

= 16/125
To simplify that fraction, recognize that 125 is 1/8 of 1,000, so:
= (16/125)*(8/8)
= 128/1000
= 0.128.