PI Preparation Questions

Mentioned below is the list of probable PI questions that cover the scope of any MBA interview as far as hygiene factors are concerned. The list is based on personal experience and preparation so please use your best judgement.

Hygiene Set
1. Introduce yourself
2. Why MBA
3. Why this institute
4. Mission in life
5. Strengths/Weakness(can be referred to as your developmental areas)
6. Interest/Hobbies
7. Incident that influenced the most in life
8. Why should I take you
9. Why should I reject you
10. Which specialization and why(and a related question to the field to test your interest)
11. Greatest success/failure
12. What does success mean to you
13. If selected what unique do you bring to the campus?
14. When was the last time you lied?
15. Your view on any of the current GK scenario


Addendum questions : Work-ex

16. Tell us about your work
17. Tell us about a situation where your leadership/teamwork skills came into play
18. Tell us about a critical situation and the way you handled it

Addendum questions : HR applications

19. Situational questions to test your task and/or people orientation


Spend time on getting to know yourself better, talk to people around you and weave a story that gives a true(if not the "best" representation) of yourself. Leave the rest on the panel to decide if you would be a good fit for the organization.

Cheers and all the best!

Anubhav Sehgal 
NMIMS Mumbai, MBA(Marketing) 2015-17 Batch

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MBA-CAT-XAT Preparation Facebook Events

Hola!

Ad-hoc post again. Derived out of revisiting memories before I take another event today for XAT Number System.
Event Link : https://www.facebook.com/events/1528102904180601/

These are the links to previous public events on facebook. Some others are restricted as they were created for specific facebook groups. Check them out for a quick review/practice of the topic.

Number System Basics 1: Factors
https://www.facebook.com/events/765327033547390/

Number System Practice Gym 1
https://www.facebook.com/events/636602586451450/

Sentence Correction Practice Gym 1
https://www.facebook.com/events/1534583576795350/

Permutations and Combinations
https://www.facebook.com/events/390681477777307/

Critical Reasoning
https://www.facebook.com/events/869859036404876/

Vocab Session
https://www.facebook.com/events/284119501712439/

Number System 1
https://www.facebook.com/events/641085785996519/

Remainders Evaluation Test Discussion
https://www.facebook.com/events/639919766109628/

Small Quant Session
https://www.facebook.com/events/876785575697342/


Cheers!
Spread the word on Lagom and facebook if you like the content!
Until next time..

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CAT 2015 : New pattern insights

It's been quite a while since my last post and this as well comes in an ad-hoc manner. No time to waste, something useful to offer, maybe. Let's get on with this right away.
CAT-mania is back again with IIM announcing the new pattern details for MBA aspirants this morning. Let me list down the highlights and elucidate what it could mean for the aspirant(it would be subject to opinion, judgment and suggestions, so please free to ignore or accept at your discretion).

Highlights : 
1. Duration : 180 minutes ; Changing up from last year's 170 minutes allocation.

Might just be some OCD problem for the deliberators to have 60-60-60 minutes for the later mentioned pattern change to 3 sections. Don't worry about this!

2. 3 sections : Quantitative Ability(34 Questions); Verbal Ability(34 Questions); LRDI(32 Questions)

Umm..really what's the change?
Last year had two sections : QA-DI(50 Questions) and VA-LR(50 Questions) with invariably a 34-16 question distribution across slots. Teaching you the associative law of addition maybe.

Okay. You might be wondering what's the point of reading this one if there's no change.So let's get to the noticeable changes now which could be significant in tweaking your exam strategies to suit the need.

3. Some questions may not be multiple-choice questions(MCQs) and answer would be required to be typed directly into a text box.

Change : ETG(Elimination To Glory) technique might not come handy in some questions.

Strategy : Do work on concepts from ground zero and not superficially or with just short-cuts. Concept clarity will help you eliminate this pit-fall. QA section will be sorted through these minute considerations and for the DI section, well, the formulators offer you the solution in their next change.

4. Use of basic on-screen calculator is allowed! (First time ever. God bless their souls)

Change : You have calculators to do your calculations(Misdirection!)


Strategy : Don't take this as a cue for not doing calculations while preparation. You will be highly misdirected in that approach. Just fine tune your calculation and approximation methods to use calculator wherever manual calculation is subject to rounding off things and similar areas. I ll try to come up with an article to describe where you could use it in another ad-hoc article someday if possible. Till then use your own discretion.
5. 60 minutes for each section with no section switching allowed.

Change : Change is not in the section-switching scheme but in the scheme of things of your overall strategy for score maximization

Strategy : You cannot be thinking of dominating LR to cover up for VA(vice-versa) or DI for QA(vice-versa). A test of your managerial abilities in the screening phase. Reaching optimum levels in each and maximizing the score in your strength area would be key to success.


Additional Tip : Use a round-robin form of preparation initially for varied topics in each section and then work towards focused strengthening of 2 sub-topics in each section to help you an easy sail in the stormy weather.


Leave comments for any queries, worries or questions you may have. Like and share the post to relieve the jitters flowing around that come with pattern change each time.
Rules of game have changed, but the game hasn't. All the best!

Cheers!
AS

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Base System : Laying down the foundation

It's been a while but we are back with a new article today that takes up basic principles of base system and discovers its applications in various kinds of problems. This should set you up for other variants in this domain and a special new variant is present in our Number System E-book if you have bought a copy of that. Let's get started then..

General principle
The number of digits used in a particular system of writing numbers is known as the base. Our well known decimal system (or base 10) has 10 digits (0 to 9).

In general, a base-n system uses digits 0 to (n – 1). Like our count in decimal system runs in cycles of 10, another base n runs in cycles of n and moves to the next significant digit to the left when its digits get exhausted for the count.

Some basic principles
1) A number in base system n, say abc, is written as c + b*n + a*n^2. This would be familiar to writing a number, say 145, in decimal system as 5 + 4*10 + 1*100. Same principle applies for a general base n.
2) A base system N uses digits 0 to (N – 1) only for its representation.
3) A number is base N is divisible by N-1, when the sum of digits in base N is divisible by N-1
4) When digits of a number N1 in base N are rearranged to form a number N2, then N2-N1 is always divisible by N-1.
5) If a number in base N has even number of digits and that number is a palindrome, then the number is divisible by N+1


Example problems
Q1 A number 2342a121 is in base 8 and it is divisible by 7. Find the value of a.
Using principle 3,
(2 + 3 + 4 + 2 + a + 1 + 2 + 1) is divisible by 7.
(15 + a) is divisible by 7
a= 6

Q2 The value of (222) in base ‘x’ when converted to base 10 is ‘P’. The value of (222) in base ‘y’ when
converted to base 10 is Q. If (P – Q) in base 10 = 28, then what is the value of (Q – x) in base 10?
Use principle 1,
P = 2 + 2x + 2x^2
Q = 2 + 2y + 2y^2
(P – Q) = 28
2(x^2 – y^2) + 2(x – y) = 28
(x – y)(x + y + 1) = 14 = 1*14 = 2*7
[Note: Second bracket is always greater than the first hence we need not check for reverse combinations of 14*1 and 7*2.]
(x – y) = 1 and (x + y + 1) = 14
(x – y) = 1 and (x + y) = 13
x = (13 + 1)/2 = 7, y = (13 – 1)/2 = 6
Q = 2 + 2(6) + 2(36) = 86
(Q – x) = 79

(x – y) = 2 and (x + y + 1) = 7
(x – y) = 2 and (x + y) = 6
x = (6 + 2)/2 = 4, y = (6 – 2)/2 = 2
Not possible as if base y is 2 then it cannot have a number 222 existing in it since a base n uses only digits 0 to (n – 1).

Hence our answer will be distinct and equal to 79. If more than one valid values appear, you get your answer as cannot be determined.

Q3) Find the 1000th term of the sequence : 1,3,4,7,8,9,10,11,13,14,... in which there is no number which contain digit 2,5 or 6.

Standard Approach
_ : 6 numbers ; _ _ : 6*7 = 42 numbers ; _ _ _ : 6*7*7 = 294 numbers
342 numbers added till 999
1 _ _ _ : 7*7*7 = 343 added = 685 numbers till now. Remaining 1000 - 685 = 315
3 0 _ _ : 49 added
3 1 _ _ : 49 added
3 3 _ _ : 49 added
3 4 _ _ , 3 7 _ _ , 3 8 _ _ = 49*3 = 147
Total 294 more. Remaining 21
3 9 0 _ : 7
3 9 1 _ : 7
3 9 3 _ : 7
3939

Smart Approach[Using base system]
Analogous mapping of digits of this new system where 2,5,6 are absent unlike the known base 7 where 7,8,9 are not there. Remember base system is just a count. You can always map it to different digits and count differently. Only problem people face here is because we are too used to counting from 1 to 9 and further.
Mapping the available digits to the normal count, we have,


0 -> 0
1 -> 1
2 -> 3
3 -> 4
4 -> 7
5 -> 8
6 -> 9

1000th term of our series will thus be 1000[Read as one zero zero zero] in base 7 = 2626
Mapping it back to original digits <-> 3939.
[1000 = 2*343 + 6*49 + 2*7 + 6*1. Hence 1000 = 2626 in base 7.]


This brings us to the end of the helicopter view of the base system domain in number system. Someday if we find time we will take some more special application problems to enhance our knowledge or you could get started with them on your own using this as a foundation.
Until next time,


Cheers
AS

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Number System Ebook

I will be launching soon the e-book on number systems for which pre-registrations have already begun.
The e-book will contain :
+ All prevalent concepts covered with explanation and examples wherever required
+ Special individual concepts that frequent in MBA Examinations
+ Practice exercise with solutions to extend your learning into application of basic concepts
+ 30 days promised support through email for any doubts that you may have for the content of the e-book cleared directly by the author to the best of his knowledge.
Price : Rs 200
Let us know if you are interested by filling this form with your valid information.
Expected release : End of April or first week of May.

You may do your registrations on the following link if interested :
Registration Link : Click here


Cheers
AS

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