Launcing my own website!

Dear All,
Taking my blogging to the next level, i am going to launch a new website of my own. The brief & some exciting features of this wesite are as follows:
On this website you will get as usual the CAT & GMAT contents as they are here on this blog, verity of categories to choose from such as CAT & GMAT, Technology, Finance & Economy, Healthcare, Media, SAP-ERP, Philosophy, Travel & Holiday. I am pleased to anounce that many experts from respective industries are joing me and already have started contributing in the form of articles for letting this website to move upfront.
My esteemed authors includes people from variety of domain experties such as For Media category i have people from STAR TV , For Technology people from various IT MNCs are contributing, I also have few doctors who are joinging with me for Healthcare category, Finance & Economy section are looked after by people from well known MBA colleges.
This site will aslo include our very own concept of FORUMs, which is the best collaborative tool now as days.
So people, whatch out for offical launch of our very own website...

Regards,
Ameya

AIMCAT 0918 Results Out !!

AIMCAT 0918 results are out now, first of all soory for posting after so many days as had benn busy in projects. Well, this AIMCAT was a real opprtunity to test where you preparations are heading. Questions were easy, YES easy !! even though it wont appear easy at first hand.
In the QA section, there were minimum 8 question those one could have solved if one's concentration during the test was highest. The cut off for this section is at 21 marks (5 questions). Few question i want to discuss out here.
I dont remember the question number so please pardon me for that.
There was a question i think question 49, was the easiest of all..IF you are able to draw the figure properly, Bang !! 4 marks and figure was not that tough to draw. The clue in this question was the use of "Alternate segment theorem". With the use of this answer was there in your hands in less than 2 minutes. I missed this one because of oversight. This i have been telling to my self to read each and every question and i even decide that i will not let any question go out of my eye sight but some how this keeps happen. Lets see, i am trying to improve on this.

Secondly, there was a question 28, that talks about number of people are games that they play. simple writing down the equation in terms of veriables a,b,c,d.... would have fetched you 4 marks straight away. No skills were required to solve this one. I solved this one wrong !!

Now there was a question number 34 i think, please cross chekc the question number.
It talks about a+b+c+d = 13 and we were asked to find minimum value of sum of cubes of a,b,c,d given that all are positive integers.
Man, this was the question for which i am breaking my head that i never tried to solve it.
Now tell me what will be the minimum value of sum of a,b,c,d if a+b+c+d = 13???
Obviously when a=b=c=d = 13/4 isn't it??
But as all are integers, we can take this value for a,b,c,d, now lets take nearest integer value of this fraction and this comes out as 3 !!
Now try to consider value of variables as 3, but a+b+c+d = 3+3+3+3 => 12 !! so we need to increase one of the value by 1 so the sum becomes 3+3+3+4 = 13 !!
Now use these values and determine the sum of cubes of these values and this come out as 145 !!
4 marks more. I think we are at 12 marks by now..

Now this i remember clearly, question number 32, that asked you to clculate the ratio of sides and ration of other sides was given as 4:3
I am not saying this was poor question but belive me if you are good at similarity of triangles, you would have fetched 4 marks for sure...

Now comes again one of the most simple question, 43..
It talks about dishonest sugur marchant and his gain on trading, He manages to get 20% more sugure initially that means if he is intended to get 100 Kg of sugure, he manages 120 Kg. And suppose the price of sugure is 1 Rs so he initially invested 100Rs. Now 30% of sugur actually delivered is added to get original quantity i.e. 30% of 120 => 36 which gets you to 156, and it was stated that he charges 10% of initial claiming his transportation cost so 10% of 100 => 10 so adding this we get 156 + 10 = 166 so total gain is 66% !! More 4 marks..

Now i wanna discuss the question number 47, was most easy and was solvable in not more than 1 min. It talks about points that lie on and between the trinagle with co-ordinate (0,0) (0,5)(5,0).
It ask you to find number of integer points on this figure.
Even if you draw the figure and mark points manually, it will land you to 10 Points, Try it. Draw the figure and have a look your self.
By now we are up to 20 marks i.e. 1 mark short of cutoff and %tile near to 93-94 !!

Well, there are some more questions but i wont discuss them out here. These were the question one could have managed to solve in less than 15 min at max and cut off was clear. I missed this althoguh claiming i was not fresh enough to write the test but i understand CAT wont let me give any excuse and i have to crack it any how...
Hope i wont repeate these silly mistakes in the coming AIMCAT !! All the best and congrats for the people who scored well on this test.

Regards,
Ameya

AIMCAT 10919 results out !!

Finally AIMCAT 919 results are out and availabler on TIME's website. My score was slightly lesser compared to what i had calculated. I ended up in scoring 93.84%ile on DI with 90.91 % accuracy which is the only point for my being elated. Then Verbal was on 96.2%ile wiht poor 70% accuracy but still i am happy that i have cleared the cut offs. Then comes the Monster QA section, it is proving my calling it a nemesis. Well, QA was poor 70%tile so i missed the bus here because of QA again. Overall i scored 93.34 %ile.
People can assess their performance now as AIMCATs are really getting into the business now. But as i said earlier, after analyzing QA section , i came to know my mistakes. There were 3 questions which one could have solved in 10 mins. Only thing required was keen observation. Well, i am keen observe it in upcoming AIMCATs as the next AIMCAT is scheduled on 22nd June.
People can access their scores from the following link, or you can post your TIME Id, if it is in top 5000 students i will post the score and percentile here itself.
http://www.time4education.com

Hope it helps.
Regards,
Ameya

AIMCAT 0919 DI Section analysis.

If anybody has analysed AIMCAT 919 properly then it could be observed that DI was a scoring section. I understand there were questions that were tough, but if you look closely then in the first 5 questions of DI section, 1st, 2nd and the last one were easy and anyone could have managed to solve them will 100% accuracy in less than 5 mins, no calculation was involved.Then question 10th was just based on observation. Then if you consider the questions from 11-15, 11th,12th and 13th were doable but needed trial and error approach. Then look ofr questions from 16th - 20th out of these high calculation based question, 16th was easiest and had just concept of percentages. and if you are avg. at observing percentages then you could have solved 18th also.I am not saying that i have solved all of these qestions, but few of them. I have scored mere 29 in DI but after this analysis i came to know that had i alloted 5-8 mins more to DI i would have scored more than 40 !!
Well, this was the analysis that i did for myself. I will suggest each one of you to follow the same approach for analysing AIMCATs.
I will post the QA analysis after sometime. Mean while hope these contents helps.

Regards,
Ameya

A satisfactory performance - AIMCAT 100919

Haaaa, this was my reaction when i calculated my AIMCAT 100919 score. After the worst, pathetic performance in AIMCAT 100920, a good (Compared to my earlier scores only) socers was needed to boost me up in the preparations. Here is my shot at AIMCAT 100919

I have managed to score 29 Marks in the first section i.e. DI-LR. The section was tough as per the guidelines of TIME. But i never flet so. Because i knew tto clear the cutoff all i need are two sets with at least 95% accuracy. Thats where i hit the bull's eye and got whoppping 100% accuracy in those two sets i choose to solve.
Secondly, i scored 33 in VA, which i belived my strength, but AIMCAT 920 had created dark clouds over my strength. but not this time..I was able to get back on the track. The transition form AIMCAT 920 to AIMCAT 919 involved getting all wrong in RCs in earlier AIMCAT to getting all rights in recent AIMCAT. After the first AIMCAT i had committed to myself to solve at least two RCs everyday, And it paid up guy it paid up !! I got all RCs correct.
One thing i really want to tell, i was getting almost every question wrong in parajumbles but this time i really restrained myself from touching them at first hand. I made sure that i am clearing the cutoff and also scoring nicely then only i went to PJs, but as many people says do not attempt the question unless you are 100% sure, somehow i was not able to control my self from marking these question but this time i did and result is good for me. Indeed i learnt through mistakes.
Third, QA, always termed as my nemesis, but was able to get some sitters this time and solving TIME Practice test bookelts indeed helped me a lot. At least i cleared a cut off which means a lot for me as i was getting less score in QA.
There was a question in QA, question number 85,
The number of integral values K can take , where 2<= K <= 30, such that (K-1)(K-2)...3.2.1 is not divisible by K
--> Ideally one should not get more than 25 seconds to solve this, how ????
Here it is the concept that TIME material taught me.
(K-1)(K-2)...3.2.1, can u call this sequence as K! ?? yes we can
There is a theorem, named williom's theorem, that says (n-1)! +1 is always divisible by n only when n is a PRIME NUMBER. you can apply this concept here.
As you observe there are 10 prime numbers between 2 and 30, now dont make haste to mark the solution as 10 !! , yes solution is not 10, there is one more number 4 which is a composite number that is not divisible by itself if taken a factorial.
So in all there are 11 numbers or 11 values.
If you knew this 20 seconds and 3 marks !! deal isn't that bad ha..
So this makes my over all score = 80
Missed Overall cut off by 4 marks, not baad yaar..
Well, although my score is satisfactory but CAT is all about consistency !! and i will surely raise the bar in next AIMCATs..

So all the best to all fellow aspirants..
Regards,
Ameya

AIMCAT 100919 Analysis

AIMCAT100919 Analysis

“Strike Two!” is what most of the students who gave a shot at AIMCAT0919 would nervously be telling themselves. Since, after having taken a rather amateurish, warm up swing at AIMCAT0920 a few weeks ago, without managing any spectacular performance as such, this AIMCAT would only have made one feel seriously under-prepared. Fortunately, however, the rules in CAT prep are not as strict as in baseball and one is not asked to leave the pitch after just three strikes. But on another note, being in the game and not giving up is definitely the more difficult part in CAT prep. So brace yourself and keep up your spirits, for it’s a long journey still.

AIMCAT0919 was a 30-questions-per-section paper, with four answer choices per question. The paper was actually a hybrid of CAT2005 and the latest CAT paper, i.e., in terms of the number of questions and number of choices this paper was similar to CAT2005 but it had no sub sections.

With one choice per question less, when compared to the previous AIMCAT, the Verbal section should have been a lot simpler. Quantitative more or less just as difficult as in AIMCAT0920, but Logic and Data Interpretation was of a much higher level of difficulty. Irrespective of how good or how worse you feel your performance may have been, remember that the final benchmark is your rank (or percentile) and whether you have managed to cross the cut-offs or not. So hold your horses till the dust settles and the results are out. Meanwhile spend some quality time analysing the paper, question by question, and figure out how you could have done better.

Let us now take a brief look at each section of the AIMCAT:

Section I – Logic & Data Interpretation:

Different data representations, convoluted descriptions of the data and the very tricky phrasing of the questions would have left most students teary eyed at their prospects in this section. Most of the sets appeared very difficult and incomprehensible and even those proficient in DI might have been wondering if they would achieve the cut-off score in this section. The set on the ‘gem-trader’ was very difficult to understand and interpret and hence should not have been attempted. The set on ‘Students and their Grades’ involved a lot of calculations, had many possibilities and students attempting them would have made quite a few errors. The set on ‘Prime numbers’ was the easiest of the lot and would have afforded decent scoring options for those whose forte is ‘trial and error’. The set on ‘XYZ Limited’ was easy for those comfortable with percentages. The set of questions on the pie charts were quite tricky and should have been left out. The DS questions were quite doable and students would have looked at them to salvage the section.

An average student in Logic & Data Interpretation could have managed a score of around 14+ marks and any score from 18 to 28 marks can be considered to be good. Any score from 29 to 42 would be very good and 42+, excellent.

The cut-off score in this section is expected to be around 18 marks.


Section II – Verbal:
This was, broadly speaking, a paper of moderate difficulty. Students may have found the RC passages on philosophy and ethics readable this time, having been exposed to these areas in the last AIMCAT, and (hopefully) with some similar reading thereafter. The passage on geopolitics would have been of interest to most, and therefore relatively easy to deal with. As in the previous AIMCAT, the RC questions were in the ‘moderate’ and ‘difficult’ categories and were of a variety of types, including interpretation and inference questions. As before, the para-jumbles required careful reading and recognition of idea flow, and were difficult. Some of the grammar and usage questions were also difficult, with errors that could easily escape attention. The vocab-based questions, usually the most ‘popular’ of VA questions (if such a term exists), appeared in the form of FIBs and were of moderate difficulty, except for one. The best summary questions tested the students on recognition of key ideas and idea flow and, for a student comfortable with reading, were do-able.

An average student in Verbal could have managed a score of around 18+ marks and any score from 28 to 40 marks can be considered to be good. Any score from 41 to 48 would be very good and 48+, excellent.

The cut-off score in this section is expected to be around 28 marks.

Section III – Quantitative:
The Quant section of AIMCAT0919 was considerably simpler compared to the Quant section of the previous AIMCAT. The section comprised of a good mix of questions from all topics with no particular topic/s being given significant weightage as such. This was very unlike the usual situation where topics like Numbers, Geometry or Permutations and Combinations often appeared carrying significant weightage. In fact, a common sense based reasoning approach is usually what is expected from a CAT examinee, wherein the basics of any topic are useful only to the extent of formulating the question and the solution mostly depends on one’s ability to analyse the situation using common sense, improvise on the basics and apply them – even under seemingly unfamiliar circumstances. Most of the questions were of a medium level of difficulty and several could be classified as difficult. There were, however, very few questions that were either very easy or very difficult. Some of the questions that should definitely have been attempted were Q. Nos. 61, 65, 66, 71, 76, 79, 84, 85, 87 and 88. Most of the other questions that were of a medium level of difficulty could also have been attempted.

An average student in Quantitative could have managed a score of around 18+ marks and any score from 24 to 35 marks can be considered to be good. Any score from 36 to 50 would be very good and 50+, excellent.

The cut-off score in this section is expected to be around 24 marks.

The overall cut-off for at least 1 IIM call would be in the range of 84-88 marks and any score in excess of 100 should fetch 3 or more IIM calls.

In the next post i will write about every of thid AIMCAT and some fundas.

Regards
Ameya

Logarithms

First of all sorry for posting my new post after so many days.
Today we will discuss some concepts on Logs or more properly known as Logarithims. Although many books (I do not want to write their names) says that logs are not of more importance when an exam like CAT is concerned. If you look towards the concepts involved in the topic and efforts reqired to put are less compared to other topics like Time, work and speed or say most time consuming Number systems. As i observe, when you flip through previos papers, you can surely say there will on an average 1-2 questions on Logs. But why should one spend one's time just for 2 question?? Are you asking this to yourself? I think every question is a diffrentiater of you from the entire mass.
It took 1 and a hlaf day for me to study logs. When i say 1 and half day that means the time i get after my working hours, which merely comes as 2-3 hrs at max a day. So you can gauge that it will take hardly a day for a non working person to study logs.
Well, enough of writing other things, lets get into the business right away !

When you say log, the first equation should come in front of one's eyes is : a^x = N
Which means that, X is a logarithim of N to the base a, so our equation becomes : x = log(a)N
PS : Plz note bracketed term here is the base of a log, so equation above should read as log N to the base a

Well, there are no as such more theory to discuss out here but i will put forth some key points that i feel are extremely important.

1) Log(a)b = log(c) b/ log (c) a
This means when ever you have given a problem like solve log(2)225 + log (4) 200, when
log(2) = 0.3217
Then your problem reduces as follows :
log(2)225 + log(2) 200 / log (2) 4
Now you can work on the problem as base for both of the terms are same. You can divide
log(2) 200 by log(2)4 whic hgives you log(2)50.

2) Second most important formula is : log(a)b = 1/log(b) a
This is also called as base change formula.

3) When you have equation like log(10) X = 2.abcd, then possible values for X are :
10 ^ (2+1) - 10 ^ 2
To generalize, N ^ (a+1) - N ^a
where,
N = base
a = integer part of a log or characteristic of a log, which is 2 in case of above example. (The decimal part is called as mantissa)

4) log(a) b = log(c) d
If, a= =c then b = = d
If, b = = d then a = = c

5) Log of any term to the same base is always 1, that means
log(a)a = 1

For now, these concepts are enough. I will discuss more concepts in second part of this blog.
Cheers..

Regards,
Ameya