viveksurya

How did you apply for Commonwealth scholarship?

Hi, Was waiting to debrief my experience. Appeared for GMAT on 26th Jan (yes Republic Day). Could not get time earlier as was busy applying for couple of colleges. JOURNEY: Actually, my first attempt in October was a disaster..or in a way didnt go as per my expectations. I could score only 670 (49,31) earlier. I was clear that this score was not enough to get me admitted to any of the score which I was aiming for. I decided to go for another attempt. Many times, it was very difficult and may have to regret for my decision. I am working with IBM as Team Lead and last few months have been a real hell for me as we have been busy with implementation of a project with very high stakes of IBM and our client. With 14-16 hrs of work daily, 3 calls daily with clients and work stretching over the weekend, I was hardly getting any time to refocus on preparations. Time was flying and so were the deadlines. After getting few good scores in prep-tests, I booked GMAT on 24th (yes just 2 days before) and appeared for it on 26th. Candidly, I was getting impatient as 1st deadlines for most of the schools had crossed and delaying the dates further would my hopes of joining B-school this year further into the darkness. So, I gave myself 2 options - YES or NO. I chose YES whatever be the score..."Just Do It". For those who are familiar with Bangalore, there are 2 test centers in Bangalore. The one in city (Pearson centre) had no dates within next 3-4 days..so had to go for other center which was 30 km from my home. On exam's day, I drove 30km to center...was a bit exhausted... but was determined to nail it down this time. All was well till Quant. I am pretty good in Quant and expectedly it went fine. It was untill Verbal section that the system adjacent to me went to sleep and the candidate started to panic. The scene went for 5 min till the staff was able to resolve it. I will not be honest..if I say it didnt affect me. Unfortunately, that time I was going across RC passage and one can understand that if you have not gone through the passage well enough first time...it will appear a labyrinth from which you will struggle to come out. Anyways, somehow I completed my test...and was just praying to see a '7' at hundredth place. The score was 710. 710 (51Q, 33V) Preparation: After first attempt, could not look into any material till November and my preparation actually picked up around mid of December. Quant: Was always confident about Quant. Honestly didnt practice much. Trusted that whatever I did for first attempt was enough. Verbal: Always struggled here. SC was strongest among the three. Had to really work on CR and RC. Went through PowerScore's Critical Reasoning Bible and was really helpful. For SC, read Manhattan GMAT SC book. Apart from this, I gave only practice tests and completed OG 10 (Verbal) - twice, OG 11 (verbal) - once and OG 12 (verbal) - thrice. So that was it. Here are my practice tests' scores: GMAT Prep-1 50Q 29V 660 Princeton-1 49Q 33V 660 GMAT Prep-2 50Q 32V 690 Knewton 48Q 29V 660 Platinum GMAT 50Q 33V 690 Princeton-2 50Q 29V 640 Princeton-3 51Q 30V 650 Princeton-4 48Q 32V 650 Manhattan 50Q 41V 740 GMAT Prep-1 50Q 38V 730 GMAT Prep-2 50Q 37V 720 GMAT 51Q 33V 710 TIP: Giving many tests did help me a lot and I realised that. Besides, forums especially urch is excellent where you can get loads of materials and tips. Whenever down in confidence, go through few articles in GMAT experience...and believe me just after reading couple of articles under "Just finished GMAT" section, you will be pumped...with high adrenalin..determined to nail down GMAT. It worked for me. NOW WHAT: I am applying for : NUS, Singapore Cambridge -Judge Business School Imperial Business School Warwick Business School Cass - City I am looking for 1 year full-time MBA (strictly NO to 2 yr course beacuse of personal reasons) PLEASE SUGGEST: I am working as Team Lead in IBM and will have around 7 yrs of experience till June. My academics are fine 10th -85%, 12th - 76% and BE with 73%. Have fair recognitions/awards in sports and also during professional career. What are my chances for above 5 schools? Should I apply for any other school to be on safer side? Which one? What are my chances of getting scholarship? What are the ways of getting finances? Should I get loans considering Admission fees as well as 1 years cost of living? How much the annual cost of living in UK/Singapore comes down to? My last few questions will appear silly for few but I am novice at these aspects. PLEASE do suggest. Appreciate your opinions/views. Thanks and regards, Vivek

Imo c

(x/x+y)(10) +(y/x+y)(20) = k can be written as (x+y/x+y)(10) + (y/x+y)(10) = k => 10 + (y/x+y)(10) = K Since x,y,k are positive numbers x k > 15 (because when x=y , k =15) k cant be 30, since y/x+y will always be less than 1. So only left option is D. Ans D

Final value (sum) of all coins = $9 = 900 cents Original value = 900/2 = 450 cents So the sum of the values of quarters , nickels & dimes should be 450. After some try&error, one arrives at (375 + 60 + 15 for quarters, nickels & dimes respectively). So, NO. of quarters = 375/25 = 15 No. of nickels = 60/10 = 6 No. of dimes = 15/5 = 3 When u doubles this number = 30*25 + 12*10 + 6*5 = 750 + 120 + 30 = 900 Thus, ans is D

IMO is A. B) & C) redundant "it" D) & E) redundant "surface"

IMO is B. A) Wrong idiom usage - as much ...than - should be .... as much as C)&D) the vanquished's - wrong usage E) changes meaning

IMO is D. Here we need to use "she" & "I" since the words are the subject of the sentence not the objects. We dont say "It is me." (though may sound right but is actually wrong). The correct usage is "It is I."

IMO A 2:3 (considering parallelism) - C,D & E eliminated. Between A & B , the correct tense of second part of sentence should be in Simple Present. Thus , A is best answer

IMO C 2:3 split - A & B eliminated as the modifier is for "the last Competitor" D - "the pole with her ski-tip" - It was the "her ski-tip" rather the tip of her SKI. E - "Trying to keep her balance on the icy surface,he last competitor somersaulted..." Obviously..she wont somersault in order to keep balance..rather would catch the pole. Best answer - C.

Hi All, Well, all I can say is it was not my day. I had been tragetting 700 mark which I failed to touch. My distribution was Q 49 V 31. Quant was always my strength and had never scored less than 50 in any of the practice tests. I noticed that today in the actual GMAT most of the questions were very wordy say..4-5 lines of questions with 6-7 data. So I realised that I had to read the entire question and link the data and then proceed for getting the solution which was obviously time-consuming. This led me to do what I never did before in Quant section - made guess for 2 questions. Coming to Verbal...it was always my Achillee's heels. I mostly scored in 30s (~35) in the practice tests. I was aiming for European B-schools mostly in UK such as Said, Warwick, Imperial,HEC(Paris), etc. I am looking for 1 year full time MBA. I am a software professional with 6.5 yrs of experience. I understand that being an Indian and that too engineer by profession makes the competition tougher for me. Please suggest which all B-schools should I look for OR worth giving a try? (European/Asian B-schools)- preferrable in top 50 ..I know my score does not stand as advantage. Or should I go for a second attempt ? (with the present office load 1st attempt itself was a nightmare for me ) Appreciate your suggestions..!! Thanks and regards, Vivek

Agree... answer is D.

IMO is D.

Given 1) a-b = 2m (even) 2) a/b = 2n (even) From statement 2), it is evident that a is an even number. a-b can be even only when b is also even. Thus, a & b both are even numbers. Coming back to statement 2), a is 4x i.e multiple of 4 (because a & b both are even and a when divided by b gives an even quotient) A. a/2 => 4x/2 = 2x must be even B. b/2 => 2y/2 = y may or may not be odd depending on value of y. C. (a+b)/2 => (4x + 2y)/2 = 2x +y may or may not be odd depending on value of y. D. (a+2)/2 => (4x + 2)/2 = 2x + 1 must be odd E. (b+2)/2 => (2y + 2)/2 = y + 1 may or may not be odd depending on value of y. So answer is D. Thanks and regards, Vivek

Total no. of ways of selecting 1 Prez, 1 sec & 1 Tres = 10*9*8 = 720 No. of ways of selecting P,S & T such that no woman is selected = 6*5*4 = 120 Therefore, No. of ways of selecting P,S &T such that atleast 1 woman is there = 720 - 120 = 600 Thanks and regards, Vivek

I am not sure whether the equation is: 1) 9^7+9^7+9^7 = 27^(n+1) or 2) 9^7+9^7+9^7 = (27^n)+1 If it is case (1), then n= 4 is correct...No doubt abt it..!! In case (2), it is not simple equation where u can add indices and equate them getting the answer. The proper way to solve that would be using logarithms which is beyong the scope of GMAT. Yeah, we are sure that the exact value of 'n' here wont be a whole number. WIth approximation, we can say that it will around 4.8 or 4.9 ~ 5. (Since the value of 3^15 will be very large and will almost unchanged even if we subtract 1 from it. Thus, we can say that 3^15 will be almost equal to 3^3n. Therefore n = 5). GMAT02, Indices dont have associate property. I mean; A^p = A^q + A^r cant be made to p = q + r So u cant do: 3^15=3^3n+3^0 15=3n+0 Thanks and regards, Vivek

Members using both Pool & Sauna = 30% Say, Total no. of members = y Members using both Pool & Sauna = 30% of y = 0.3y Now, 40% of members who use Pool dont use Sauna. Let , No. of members using Pool = x No. of members only using Pool = 40% 0f x = 0.4x Now, No. of members using Pool = No. of members only using pool + No. of members using both x = 0.4x + 0.3y => 0.6x = 0.3y x = y/2 So, No. of members using pool = 50% of the total no. of members. Thanks and regards, Vivek

Five digit number using 0,3,5 (repeating no.s is allowed as not exclusively mentioned) _ _ _ _ _ Except ten-thousandth place, all other places can be filled by 3 digits ( as if we place 0 at ten-thousandth place, the no. will be 4 digit) So No. of 5 digit numbers that can be formed = 2* 3*3*3*3 = 162 Thanks and regards, Vivek

We have 3 charities , say, A , B & C. Each of this charity has 8 seats to fill. Each of them has 4 common people (in all 3 charities) Say person a,b,c,d are common to all Now each pair has 5 common. We already have 4 people common in all three. So to have 5 common in pair of charities, we need 1 more. So, Charity A & B = a,b,c,d and e (e only common between A & B) Charity B & C = a,b,c,d and f (f only common between B & C) Charity A & C = a,b,c,d and g (g only common between A & C) Now, Chairty A has 6 members = a,b,c,d,e,g (still 2 vacant since capacity is 8) Chairty B has 6 members = a,b,c,d,e,f (still 2 vacant since capacity is 8) Chairty C has 6 members = a,b,c,d,f,g (still 2 vacant since capacity is 8) These 2 vacancies in each charity is exclusive (not common to any other charity) Thus, Total no. of distinct persons serving one OR more charities = (a,b,c,d,e,f,g) + 2+2+2 = 7 + +2 + 2 + 2 = 13 Thanks and regards, Vivek

I think its C

no. of ways of selecting 2 cards = 8 * 7 =56 no. of ways to select non-blue cards = 6 * 5 = 30 reqd. probability = 30/56 = 15/28 ans A Thanks and regards, Vivek

Take n-1,n,n+1,n+2,n+3 A) a+b+c = n-1 +n + n+1 = 3n (may either be even OR odd depending on value of n) B) ab + c = (n-1)n + n+1 = n^2 -n +n +1 = n^2 +1 (may either be even OR odd depending on value of n) C) ab + d = (n-1)n + n+2 = n^2 + 2 (again will be even if n is even and odd if n is odd) D) ac + d = (n-1)(n+1) + n+2 = n^2 - 1 +n+2 = n^2 +n +1 = n(n+1) + 1 = (Product of 2 consecutive no.s) +1 = (Always even) + 1 = Always odd E) ac + e = (n-1)(n+1) + n+3 = n^2 -1 +n+3 = n^2 +n + 2 = n(n+1) + 2 = (Product of 2 consecutive no.s) + 2 = (Always even) +2 = Always even So E will never be odd. Thanks and regards, Vivek

the argument states that since influenza doesnt have a significant impact on children...it wont make sense to use the nasal spray on children... However, if we overlook the children which go on to infect adults with the influenza virus, then we are overlooking a significant danger...so the argument asumes that the influenza contracted by the adults has no linkage to children... Hence D Thanks and regards, Vivek

Questions are raised on measure of productivity which further raises the issue of quality of service, which implies that quality of service is a important consideration. Thus, choice D is the best answer. A is inappropriate. The author take postal workers as example. By delivery of letters, the argument treats letter delivery as the primary activity of postal workers; thus, choice B is inappropriate. choice C is irrelevant. Choice E is inappropriate, since the author does not question the relevance of the number of letters delivered but says something else might also be relevant. Thanks and regards, Vivek

Hi Pinky, Say the avg age of 50 gals now = x Sum of ages of all 50 gals = 50x now, 10 gals of avg age 16 are replaced with new gals. Say the avg age of new 10 gals = y Sum of ages of 10 gals replaced = 10 X 16 =160 Sum of ages of 10 new gals = 10y Now, New Sum of ages of 50 gals = 50x -160 + 10y New avg age of 50 gals = (50x - 160 + 10y)/50 This new avg age is 6 months more i.e (x + 0.5) So, (50x -160 + 10y )/50 = x + 0.5 solving this, we get y = 18.5 Therefore, avg age of new comers = 18.5 years Thanks and regards, Vivek