Shaishav Singh

the name Shaishav Singh is of Indian origin, with "Shaishav" meaning "childhood" or "youth" in Sanskrit, symbolizing innocence and early life, while "Singh" is a widely recognized surname or middle name among various Indian communities, particularly among Sikhs and Rajputs, meaning "lion" in Sanskrit and denoting strength and valor. Together, the name Shaishav Singh reflects a positive blend of youthful vitality and courageous spirit, making it a meaningful choice for a child.

The name Shaishav Singh carries cultural and linguistic significance in India. "Shaishav" derives from Sanskrit, representing a phase of life filled with potential and innocence, often associated with creativity and growth. This aspect might inspire qualities like curiosity and exploration in a child's character. On the other hand, "Singh" has historical roots, especially in Sikhism, where it was adopted by Guru Gobind Singh to promote equality and courage among men. In various Indian cultures, "Singh" symbolizes bravery and leadership. Therefore, Shaishav Singh can be seen as a name that embodies youthful exuberance paired with qualities of strength, nobility, and integrity, making it a popular choice among families who value these attributes. Additionally, names like Shaishav Singh also reflect the rich tapestry of Indian heritage, emphasizing the importance of identity and legacy.

Back to Blogging ( but not here!)

It is so amazing to look back and see some of the content you wrote years back and thats what I love about blogging. It is like your thoughts that have become immortal.

Gmat was definitely my thing back in the days and I absolutely loved writing about it. 

However I am now trying to focus on my health specifically nutrition and hence started a blog about that. 

You can read more at Keto Diet India. Here to a new beginning!

Shai

VERBAL I -How to score well in critical reasoning.

I found critical reasoning as one of the easier part of the verbal ability section. My hit rate was about 80% which was truly OK compared to my hit rate in sentence correction and reading comprehension part. It becomes an important part of the VA section since I feel it is easy to score in critical reasoning than either in SC or RC. There will be approximately 11 critical reasoning(CR) question  that will come in your verbal ability section. CR is basically designed to test how clear a thinker your are. The passages in the critical reasoning are shorter, generally having 20-100 words. There are some set types of questions that are asked in it. We will talk about that in detail later. First let us see what things to look out for in the critical reasoning question.
Every critical reasoning question has three important things in it :

1) Premises - These are mainly facts or evidences that the author gives us to prove his conclusion.
2) Conclusion - What the author wants us to accept.
3) Assumptions - This is really important. They wont be present in the statement, you have to closely observe                                        to find out what the author is assuming to present his conclusion.

A typical critical writing statement is like "premise, premise, premise...conclusion".  But all these premises might not be sufficient to conclude what the author is concluding, you would need some assumptions as well.

For example.

In the past 10 years, advertising revenues for the magazine True Investor have fallen by 30%. The magazine has failed to attract new subscribers and newsstand sales are down to an all time low. Thus, sweeping editorial changes will be necessary if the magazine is to survive. [Source - princeton review]

If we read the statement closely and try to find out the premises they will be

1) In the past 10 years, advertising revenues for the magazine True Investor have fallen by 30%.
2) The magazine has failed to attract new subscribers and newsstand sales are down to an all time low. 

And the conclusion that the author provides is

Sweeping editorial changes will be necessary if the magazine is to survive.

Now you have to ask yourself whether the premises enough to get to the conclusion?? In this case they aren't.

The author is assuming that only editorial reasons are responsible for the low sales and less advertising revenues. But there might be some other reasons as well. For example nothing is mentioned about the price of the magazine and how it has fluctuated etc. You might get an option which talks about the price of the magazine and you might feel that the low sales were because of high price!

Therefore, for any critical reasoning questions look for assumptions very closely.

I believe one's common sense would be enough to find out the premises and conclusion in the statement but then too you can look out for some key words that signal a conclusion or a premise.

Words signalling conclusion in the statement can be

So, hence, therefore, thats why, this, implying, indicating etc..

Similarly you can look out for words signalling premises.

Because, since, as, given, as mentioned..etc.

Tips to do well in the critical reasoning part of the verbal section:

1) Understand the statement very clearly - This is really important. Read and re read the statement before jumping to the answer options. Unless you have a clear idea on what the statement means chances are you will mark the wrong option.

2) Paraphrase the statement in your own words - An extension of the first point. It helps in getting a logical picture in your head and also removing all the wordiness of the question. If you are a non native English speaker you can think about it in your own language in your head. It helped me a lot :)

3) Understand what the question is asking for and don't get confused - If the question asks for an option that weakens the argument then approach in the same way, crossing the options that strengthens the statement or those which have no impact. It seems pretty obvious but it helps to pay close attention, especially for questions that ask for "which one of the options do not strengthen/weaken the conclusion"

4) Play close attention to Premises, Assumptions and Conclusion - Try to find out these three parts of the question. Once you have dissected the question in that way it will be easier to find out the right option.


That much as of now. Common types of question in critical reasoning to be added later.

C yao!

Analytical Writing Assesment

In this post I would be discussing about the AWA section of the GMAT. I myself got screwed in this particular section so disclaimer is always there. But I did some research on it and I will be sharing few things about it.

AWA stands for "analytical writing assessment" and it is the first section in the exam. It consists of two essays to be completed in 30 mins each. The first one is 'Analysis of an Issue' and the second one is 'Analysis of an Argument'.

Analytical Writing Assessment Score:-

The AWA score is an average of the score you will get in your 'analysis of an issue' essay and 'analysis of an argument' essay.

Scores for the AWA range from 0 to 6 in half-point intervals.

Your score of AWA have no effect on your verbal and QA score.

How AWA Is Scored

Each of your essays will be scored by two reviewers. The first score would be given by a college student or a university faculty member. The other score would be given by a software! This software is trained to identify the basic structural elements of the English language. GMAC claims the software has more than 50 structural and linguistic features, including organization of ideas, syntactic variety, and topical analysis. Also it compares your essay with many others that it has already read and judged. The thing with the software scoring is that it does not matter if you put an interesting point of view in your essay, the software would just ignore it. In fact it might penalize you for not writing the most common points!

If the two ratings differ by more than one point, one more evaluation is done by an expert reader to determine the final score.

The human reader judges your essay in the following areas. 

• the overall quality of your ideas about the issue and argument presented
• your overall ability to organize, develop, and express those ideas
• the relevant supporting reasons and examples you used
• your ability to control the elements of standard written English

They are also trained to be fair to test takers who do not have English as their native language.

Tips to score well in AWA:-

1) Write as much as possible - ETS did some research on the essays that scored highest and found that their was one thing common in all of them. It was length.

2) Create a template -  A template is something like a pre determined structure you will be following. It helps you to already organize your points before starting. Princeton has some really good material on this. I would reccommend you read it once to know how it works.

3) Be specific while putting your view point - If you say something like " I really like the concept", it wont fetch you good points. Instead of saying this its better to provide reasons as in why you like this concept.

4) Edit Edit and Edit - Keep editing, in fact keep 3 mins at the end to finally recise and then submit your essays.

Hope you follow these and kill the AWA section. All the best!

7 tips to do well in GMAT

After I gave my GMAT a lot of friends came to me to asked how I scored so much. I think everyone has his own unique style of studying and something that might work for me might not work for you but still here are few things that might help you. Have a look and see if they might work for you.

Here are the 7 tips to score high in GMAT.


1) Do and Redo the OG - As I have mentioned in my previous posts, doing OG again and again( in a period of time) will help you to get tuned to the questions that are asked. Also you will be doing the questions that have already come in GMAT so you would have a fair amount of idea of how exactly you need to approach the questions.

2) Don't expect a pen and paper for rough work - Some people believe that they would get a pen/pencil and a paper. In fact even I wasn't aware of that. You actually get a marker and a square checkered sheet having 5 leaflets. So be aware of that and don't panic when there is some deviation with the settings in which you gave your mock CATs.

3) Maintain an error log which can help you trace your errors. - This is really helpful. You continuously practice questions and commit errors. Unless you maintain it somewhere and keep referring it on time to time chances are you will repeat those same mistakes. So whenever you find a good concept or commit an error, enter it in your error log. In this way  in a month or so you would have a notebook which will have lots of key concepts, referring that will help you improve your accuracy over time.

4) Give mocks as if you are giving the real test - Don't skip AWA. The thing is GMAT is a long gruelling exam. During the end you will find it hard to concentrate. So boost your stamina by giving as many CATs as you can in the same setting. Don't smoke in between(unless you can in the exam center as well), Don't take breaks more than the allotted time. In this way you will be preparing yourself to face the same thing as in the real GMAT.

5) Don't try to score a 800 - When I was at my last leg of the preparation I really wanted to break all the barriers and at least try to score a 800. It backfired. The reason why it backfired was because when you try to score a 800 you want to do every question right. There is a good chance that that wont happen and you would get stuck in a couple of questions. When it happens you lose the hope, you start thinking that you have already lost the battle where in reality you might be hovering around 750 mark! So don't try that. Try to solve every question but when you are not able to take an educated guess and move on.

6) Focus on your weakness but don't ignore your strengths. - I made this mistake. I worked 90% of my time on verbal and not much on QA. I did get a 50 in QA but if I would have given some extra time I think I would have got a 51 and might got a 760 overall. At least work on some key things. For example if your QA is strong there would be some areas like probability statistics etc you might be weak in. Work on them and improve in those areas as well.

7) Have some breaks in between - I mean chill out. Don't let GMAT get to your nerves. My GMAT was one 16th July. The previous weekend I had one of the best weekends with friends. It helped in releasing the tension a lot which ultimately helped me score well :)

I might add some more when I remember some more :)

How I scored 740 in GMAT

In this blog I will discuss in detail about what I did to get a 740 in GMAT. If you are new to GMAT you might want to read So What is GMAT? and come back here. 


Why GMAT?!


I had always wanted to do my MBA. In fact I researched a lot of B schools right from my third year of engineering. After working a couple of year I thought its time to take the plunge!




How many months I took?


I took almost 3 months for my preparation. But honestly it depends on your aptitude. I know some friends who got a 760 with 1.5 months of preparation. In my case I had an advantage of coming from an engineering background hence maths was easy for me. I had to mainly work on verbal which I did for most of the time. I averaged almost 1.5 hours of daily preparation. So that makes it 135 hours in total.


What books I read?


Official guide for GMAT or OG


I cant help but praise this book. It should be your bible for those months you are preparing. Not just because it has questions that have appeared on GMAT in the past but doing and redoing OG will train your ear to get hold of where to look for the answer which will ultimately help you increase both your speed and your accuracy.


Princeton Review guide for GMAT


Good book, especially for Verbal. They have divided the questions in 3 bins. Bin 1 is the easiest and Bin 3 is the toughest. It helps you in tracking your level and work on that level to move to next one. Princeton Review also has the best material for AWA. If you are starting your preparation I would suggest start from this book. It will help you get used to the types of problem asked in GMAT. Though I feel the difficulty level of this book is a little easier than that   of OG and Kaplan.


Kaplan Workbook.


An excellent resource for both QA and Verbal. They have some really difficult problems that you should expect in your GMAT if you want to cross 700 mark. They also have the best material on Reading Comprehension( something they call a "Road Map", I found it really helpful! ). 


Kaplan800


If you are eying a 720-800 this book can be of help. But you should go for this at the last stage of your preparation. You wouldn't want to get demoralize starting your preparation with the toughest quesitons to find out that you are not doing that well as you expected. 




CATs


Once you register at www.mba.com you have access to two free GMAT CATs. You cant afford to miss them! They are prepared by GMAC guys( ones who control the exam) so naturally they are closest to the actual GMAT questions. 


You also have access to one free Manhattan GMAT CAT which you can get here.


Two more from princeton review here and kaplan here.


Generally these are the most trusted tests which most of the test takers follow. I followed them as well.


How I studied:-


1st Month


I started my preparation first by briefing myself with the test, which took almost a week. After that I registered at mba.com and downloaded the GMATPREP tests. I took the first test and got a 640 with 49 in QA and 20s something in Verbal. I did so to get to know my level, my strengths and my weaknesses. Since I was targeting 720+ I decided to take 3 months and scheduled a date accordingly. I then started with OG. I worked mostly on Verbal since I was pretty much comfortable in QA. I would do 20 questions at one go and then found out my hit rate. For the questions I did right I would still look at the explanations and learn some key things from them. For the questions I did wrong I would look for the explanation and write my own notes on the error I have committed. Something I called error log. Error log is very helpful in a way because you learn a new concept with each error. For QA I use to practice OG by doing 50 questions in one go. I generally got 42+ correct. I found OG maths pretty easy but the questions that came in my actual GMAT were pretty difficult than that were present in the book. At the end of first month I gave Manhattan GMAT test and scored a 690. I improved in Verbal but still my accuracy was around 60-70%. 


2nd Month 


After the end of the first month I noted that I am lagging mainly in SC and a bit in CR and RC. So I took the plunge to Princeton Review and started reading its theory. The theory in Princeton Review was very helpful and helped me understand the 7-8 types of common errors found in SC. This helped me improve my accuracy in SC a lot. I also started practicing Kaplan which helped me improve my RC. 


3rd Month


Third month was mainly giving tests. Here I would like to advice one thing. You get a CD ROM with the Kaplan book in which you have some 8 CATs available. These tests are very difficult and they don't match with the actual GMAT test. I found them discouraging and stopped giving them, however you might wanna give it a try and see if it works for you. I redid OG once again to give final touches to my preparation. In the last 20 days I gave the 2 GMATPREP tests and got 720 and 700. My QA was 50 both the times. But i still found it hard to cross 37 in Verbal. However I thought I have done enough preparation to get a 720 in real GMAT.


The G Day!


I reached the examination center half an hour before. There was a guard outside the room who checked my appointment printout and then let me in. Inside there was a facilitator who verified my documents. She also took my photo on the web cam, scans of my right and left palm and checked my passport. Then she gave me a locker key and asked me to put in everything inside the locker before going to the test room. I waited for 15 mins after which she asked me to go inside. At that time my heart was pounding and I was just saying to myself that there are people who are praying for me right now and I have worked hard for it so it cant possibly go wrong. 


Just outside the test room there was a guy who was monitoring the cubicles. He gave me a marker and scratch sheet for rough work and escorted me to a cubicle. He entered a password and the instructions page flashed in front of me.


I clicked on Next after skimming through the instructions and saw the Analysis of Argument essay. I entered my response rather quickly as I wanted to have some extra time before QA. I did the same thing for Analysis of Argument and was able to finish the AWA section before time. After which I took almost a 7 min break :).


I came back with all the determination to kill the QA section. But it was a shaky start for me. I got my initial questions from Probability and Statistics which I wasn't very comfortable at. Things seem much smoother after the first seven questions. At the end I thought I did enough to bag a 50 scale score. With this thought in mind I took the last break. I knew that now the whole thing depended on how I will fare in Verbal section.


When I started my verbal section I was extremely cautious and that sucked a lot of time for me. After the first five questions I paced myself to get on schedule. I got few difficult questions on the sentence correction in the middle.After concentrating for so many hours I found it hard to concentrate in the last 30 mins of the Verbal section. My third passage was extremely difficult( heck! it was on probability) but I knew I was doing well to get such a complex passage. Finally the last few questions I concentrated as much as I can and finished the verbal section. I couldn't wait to see my score hence I flipped the last pages in a frenzy and at the end it displayed 740 with 50 in QA and 40 in verbal. I was extremely overjoyed and couldn't stop smiling. I raised my hand signalling I have finished the test. The invigilator saw my score and smiled back at me. I was so relieved that all the hard work has payed off! I went straight outside and had a nice cup of tea. The first call went to my Dad and the next to my girlfriend. She was equally exited for hearing the score and asked me to thank her for praying for me. :)


In the next post I would be taking up few tips to increase your GMAT score.

How is GMAT scoring done?

This is a much hyped topic. In fact GMAC, the body that governs this exam hasn’t ever disclose the algorithm used to score the exam. So obviously there are many speculations on the topic. But there are few things that we do know.

GMAT is a computer adaptive test or CAT. This means that the difficulty level of the next question that pops up in your screen depends on whether you marked the previous one right or wrong. If you mark the previous question right then the next question will be harder and if you mark the previous question wrong then the next question will be easier than the one before. The very first question is of average difficulty level. As you proceed with the test the algorithm decides whats your aptitude level and keeps scoring you on that, giving a final score at the end on the basis of how you performed in all the questions.

Illustration:-

GMAT740 gets this question as the first question of the QA section.

1) James takes 1 hour to travel from his school to his college and 2 hours while returning back. What is the average speed of James considering that the distance between his school and college is 15 kms.

a) 10km/hr
b) 7.5km/hr
c) 5 km/hr
d) 7km/hr

Lets assume that the difficulty of this question can be mapped to a 600 score.

Now if I answer this question correct which is option ‘a’ then the next question would be more difficult, lets say of a 620 score level. On the other hand if I answer the question wrong the next question will be easier, lets say of a 580 level.

So if you keep on marking the questions correct your subsequent questions will be more difficult but your score would also increase.

A myth about scoring pattern:-

People have a notion that the first 10-12 questions are more important then the later ones. And that test takers should focus more on the first 10 questions then the last ones. This is completely false. There is nothing like the first few questions are more important. The penalty of marking a question anywhere in the section wrong is the same(though it depends on how you had performed in the previous ones). Ideally one should not try to spend more time in the first few questions just for the sake of getting them right. It might lead to you to miss/guess on some questions in the last. The more you guess the more your score would decrease.

Ok this much for how GMAT scoring is done. For computer geeks who want to taste some more of it search for- Response Theory, the algorithmic theory on which the GMAT is based.

PS: GMAT also throws some experimental questions at you. These wont be counted in calculating your score. They are just there to check what should be the difficulty level of that question.