My experience of CAT-2010

Well, today was the day I have been preparing for since the last 7 months. I had my first ever tryst with the CAT today and let me share my experience. I will divide this post into sections so as to better maintain the flow…

The day before C-day:

A lot of my friends had given the test already and all advised me to control my tension about the exam, but my problem was different- right from my first big exam in Class-X, I have seen people around me spend sleepless nights before the exams, having anxiety disorders and pre-exam nerves. But somehow I never seemed to get that creepy feeling of exams approaching, for me it was just another day. I sometimes wondered what was wrong with me but then, I have never assumed myself to be normal :D.. This lack of tension thing happened before my class X boards and was repeated during my Class XII board exams again (I don’t mention the engineering entrance exams, because I was never serious about them, I gave them were ‘just for fun’). I assumed this time it might be something different but no…my mind just won’t let me worry…!!!! On the day before my CAT, I woke up and as is my routine, spent the entire morning surfing the net and reading a couple of newspapers. I then appeared for a mock and got a score of 45. But the pathetic score didn’t have any effect on my spirits. I didn’t even analyze the mock and slept for more than 3 hours in the afternoon. I had decided to revise my old notes in the evening but the evening brought with it more frivolousness…I pestered my friends with my PJs till they had a headache and then they forced me to sit and study. I studied for around an hour, just revising the basic quant formulas, and they bored me to death…!!! There was no way I was going to study anymore. I felt like watching a movie and watched The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. It was a fun movie that didn’t make one think and, so, fitted my bill perfectly. I tried to sleep early, but all sort of unrelated thoughts kept coming to my mind (including whether I should buy shoes from Adidas or Nike this time when I go home… :P) and it was past 1:00 when I could finally force myself to sleep.

The C-Day experience:

I woke up with the alarm at 6:30, brushed and had a couple of biscuits before leaving for the test centre at 7:00. I reached the center at around 7:20 (had made more-than-enough allowances for travel time), and while I thought I would be the only one to have reached so early in the morning, I was surprised to see a crowd already assembled there. I hadn’t taken any notes with me to the centre since I don’t really believe in last minute gobbling so I took to observing the crowd at the place. It was a motley crowd. There was a group of college students who kept behaving like they were there for a morning walk. They kept on laughing and shouting and telling each other “Mere liye to aai-aai-emm-amdabad ne seat buk kar rakhi hai… bas aj attendance dena hai” (the spellings are not typos, but their pronunciation of IIM-A)… it was fun in the beginning but became irritating soon. Then there were these lovebirds, 2 pairs, who just couldn’t have enough of each other. One of the couples was so engrossed in its love stories that I wondered if they had mistakenly reached the place while looking for a park….there was also this guy who kept on repeating from his class notes (I am writing it verbatim) “0!=1, 1!=2, 2!=3, 3!=6….keno j 2 ghonta age dake….porao jae naa…!!!”(why do they call 2 hours early... one can’t even study!!!) he kept on repeating this line(completely as written) like a poem. Hilarious..!!!! Now, enter a guy from a NGO, Chlorophyll. He was conducting a survey on the candidates. There were just two basic questions: whether you think online CAT is more student friendly and  whether you think it will help scale up your marks. The poor fellow had to explain even these to a couple of candidates and he finally ended up filling the questions himself on their behalf….I was observing all these people till 8am when the gates were opened. Our names were checked against a list at the entrance and only the candidates were allowed to enter.

My experience in the centre:

After everyone had their names matched with the list, we were taken to the exam center. It was on the 2^nd floor of the building. We were made to stand in a queue, while the security guards frisked us and parceled our belongings. I was in for a surprise when the guard there refused to accept my driving license as genuine…!!!! I asked him “what is the issue in this? its mentioned as valid in the admit card...” His reply “I have some issues…is it original?” Awesome!!! I was made to stand aside for 5 minutes while his senior came, and in that duration I had made up my mind that if I was disallowed on any pretext despite having everything in perfect condition, I would sue the guard, the center and Prometric, surely. Well, the person in  charge came, had a look  at my license. He tore open the lamination and finally believed that I was indeed the holder of a valid driving license. After that, I was sent in to a room where I was photographed and my fingerprints were taken. Then I was moved to the examination hall. It was 8:50am then. We were logged in at around 9:30 and the invigilators told us that we could go through the tutorials. After the tutorials were over, they started our test at 10 am.

My test experience:

The first set I faced was DI, but I have always done QA first because that is my weakness and I like to get over with it as soon as possible. So I went to the review screen and reached the QA set. The first few questions weren’t tough and helped me to get in the flow. However, as I noticed, there were quite a few speedbreakers inserted in between them. Then I moved on to DI and whhooooo…..what a set…!!! It was so lengthy that I felt I could never complete it. I was into it for 30 minutes, when I noticed that I was only on the 7^th question… I tried to pick up speed then, but by the time I was done with DI, I had only 27 mins left on the timer…so much for time-mangement! I moved on to VA, which has always been my strength and was done with it when I had around 90 seconds left. I had no time to review the marked questions. All of us were made to leave the hall together after everyone’s test had ended.

After the test:

We collected our belongings and left the center. It was a 3km walk to the nearest bus stop and I began the long walk. I had hardly walked for around 5minutes, when a bike zooming past me stopped as I signalled for a lift. He was a good rider, but the way he curved his bike…!!!! OMG…!!! For a moment I had my heart in my mouth there and I just prayed to god that please let me at least see me percentiles before I die…well, I reached the bus stop hale and hearty, thanked him, boarded the next bus and back to my hostel. I slept the entire afternoon and have spent the evening typing this gigantic post in the hope that someone would read and post their comments (read: praise my writing skills).

PS: the last line was just a joke, but please do post your feedback( you can criticize me if you want). That’s what keeps me going. And since you have taken the trouble of reading this, please post your comment here itself, instead of any forum.

The journey on the train

It’s been a long time since my last post, and I had been delaying this further since the last 10 days, because this time I wanted my article to have that something extra. I had been on the lookout for some inspiration and it was presented at a very unlikely time- during my railway journey in a general compartment.

Going from hostel to home, I seldom travel during the day, but this was different from the beginning, I missed the train late evening on the last day and as a result I had to take this morning train. I was traveling for the first time by this train and the scene was no different from any other. On any journey in the Indian Railways, esp. in the daytime, two things are surely visible in plenty- hawkers and the beggars. One might miss the ticket checker but there is no way one can miss these businesses-on-the-move. These are people who spend half their life traveling and are no doubt great sources of numerous anecdotes, but people never realize that these people themselves have a life too. As I boarded the train and somehow managed to clamber on to a seat and the cries of “jhalmuriiii!!!” and “Britannia cake-biscuit” struck their chord. Time wheeled by among all those myriad voices, and then the face behind one of them touched the core. It was a woman- middle-aged, about 35, she was selling incense sticks in different scents, but there was one difference: she was blind...!

The scene was amazing. I thought this might be a one off incident till I noticed another person, this time selling toffees- his right hand was just a stub, perhaps amputated in some accident and he was selling a bucket load of wares, with the heavy steel bucket ( it must have been around 5-10 Kg at least) hanging by the stub of the hand. In our country, where begging is an industry and people- young and old, disabled or just pretenders make hundreds of rupees a day, just by arousing the sympathy of the common man who feels the urge for a good deed in the course of his monotonous routine. Paying a few alms makes us feel good about ourselves and there are many who indulge in this pleasure routinely. There are people hale and hearty who take to begging as a business because the only investment it needs is the sacrifice of one’s self-respect and it’s highly profitable too- just look once at the beggar sitting in front of the mandir or the one moving around on the railway platform and you will know what I mean. This is the general expected scenario and these two exceptions awed me. They were disabled, but the fire was there- while they could have chosen the easy way out and still made a decent living, perhaps better than what they earn now, they had the courage to fight. In this world devoid of role models, here were 2 real heroes- but we, the people, don’t care a thought… maybe because they don’t fit our definition of a hero- someone with six-pack abs and a great looking girlfriend, who is the undisputed despot in his group. We have the Jawaan Diwas to celebrate the courageous soldiers who protect us 24X7 and the Shahid Diwas (Martyrs’ Day) to salute the courageous who sacrificed their lives for our safety. We celebrate without fail the birth anniversaries of anyone and everyone who has done whatever little for our cause but in this crowd, we forget the biggest hero of them all. One who takes up a million troubles every day, day after day, throughout his life- the common man of the nation. We bear thousands of troubles just to make up for the inefficiencies of our bureaucracy, take up a million pains with an ironical smile on our face to hide their corruption and instead of celebrating our perseverance, we end up celebrating their birthdays…what an irony…!!!

People are tired of saying kuch nahi badalne wala (nothing will ever change) but it is indeed true. India can and will never change. Not even if the ruling class desires to do so and changes their manipulative motivations overnight. The only way this statement can be proven wrong is by us. We have 1/6^th of the world’s total population. Now it’s the time to ask why can’t we? And trust me, there is no reason. We should understand one thing- 110 crore people don’t change together but it is no reason for us not to change. If everyone contributes in their little way, we can start the change. Almost all of us ride bikes, if we stop breaking signals and speeding on the bike, it would not just reduce the number of road accidents or incidents of road rage but also save the money spent on bribing the traffic constables and also help reduce corruption. We are the ones who pee and spit on the roadside and then complain about the smell and hygiene. Next time you buy a chocolate or a packet of chips, take care not to litter the packet on the pavement. These are very minor adjustments and don’t cost a penny but if everyone follows them, the difference created would be starkly visible. And then we can stand up and say, “Yes, hum badlenge.”  It’s our India and we are the only ones who dare to care about it.

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