1000 Hits and Growing

Hey,
This is to inform you that officially I have crossed 1000 hits in my website and its growing teremedously. Another happy news is tat google has added my blog in their indexing. Also the Ads tat I am advertising at the top of screen has given me One dollar in money so far fr the click there. So lots of good news I suppose and hope fr lots more frm u. Once again thanks fr all ur support and do await lots more articles frm yours truly Lomi

The Topics fr future posts

Hey as a self advertisment and to keep u guys intersted, am posting topics of the posts tat I wish to write in future. This is in no necessary order and it is possible tat I will not be able to write many of them due to time constraint. Anyway these are the titles:

1) Does Islam Oppress Women?
2) A Tribute to my parents
3) Islam degrades marriage by allowing Polygamy!
4) Injustice in Indias popular MBA Forum
5) Are Brahmins Dalits of today? - asks Indian media
6) When will dalits get their rights?
7) Indian cricket team selection
8) Ganguly-Chappell Saga
9) Why Dravid eludes Indian media
10) Sachin - a poster boy frever.
11) Indian Olympic Squad - 1 medal every games
12) Paes/Bhupathi - Father of Indian Tennis
13) Indias chances in Cricket WC 2007
14) Football WC 2007
15) Islam Divorce law - The most crudest




16) Mohd Kaif - will media ever support him?
17) Irfan Pathan - A rise from Shambles
18) Sehwag - The most Daring
19) Dhoni - The latest sensation
20) Palestine - The most rude state
21) Hockey - Is it our national sport?
22) 15% not even one National Party - What are Muslims doing?
23) kashmir - Whose state is it anyway?
24) Freedom of Speech - How far can u go?
25) Muhammad Ali - What made him accept Islam

Do write ur comments on titles and ur level of excitement in reading abt these topics. I will love knowing ur opinion.

Thanks fr all ur support

Hey its been 11 days since I created this blog and I have got over 500 hits. I am happy and want ur continued support. Also dont forget to look at the comments section fr more info. Also if possible leave a comment as annonymous if u dont have blog. Leaving ur name at bottom wud help.

I want to make it clear tat all the posts are my own vies and in a free democratic country u are free to voice them. You are welcome to criticize, comment or praise my blogs. I dont mind any level or any amount of criticism as long a sits constructive and not vituperative. I have nothing against any community or ppl. I have something against some govts policies and some media bashing but I suppose am free to have them.

I wud look forward to ur continued support.

Adios.

CAT viewed as cricket game

This is the article that i wrote when I was preparing fr the mother of all exams called CAT. Abt roughly Nov 2004.

Cricket : Game :: Cat : Test

Yups this is a perfect analogy. mmmm now this start a some creative post from me. plzz respond about how u like it??

First up few comparisons between cricket terms to *CAT test. they are:

Balls bowled: questions thrown at you.
Bowlers used: The various areas u are tested (QA, VA/VR, DI etc)
Type of ball: type of question (tricky, easy,medium)
Fielders : Trapping you into wrong area or lets say wrong choice in cat.
Runs : Correct answers acheived by you.
Wickets : Negative marking
Overs : The each spell of concentration (may be equivalent to single page in the cat paper)
Spinners : English section
Pacers : Maths Section
Off spinner : VA /VR
Leg spinner : RC
Right arm Fast : Pure difficult qa question
Swing Bowler : LR
Right arm medium fast : DI

The situation here is. You are chasing ofcourse. so u only bat and u don bowl. The biggest catch in this game is there is no

set target. target is decided after you play the game. The balls here are 150(i.e 150 questions). that is 25 overs. (approx 25 pages). Now this sets up the game.

Venue : Ofcourse the mecca of cricket(ur test centre ofcourse)
Time : 10:30 am to 1:00 PM
Game starts at 11:00 am (a two hour game.)

25 overs will be bowled.(i.e 150 balls or rather say questions) theres one differnce here the bowler wont wait fr the batsman. the ball just keep coming. no telling that people are moving near the sidescreen(i.e ofcourse distractions in ur test).



Remember you play right handed always.(i.e you mark with your right hand (now how u decipher right is upto you.))
Now i will come to teh 5 bowlers in this test

1)Shoaib Akhthar ( a pure menancing fats bowler. now if u are following my post carefully. u shd have guessed akthar : QA questions)
2)Irfan Pathan (a King of swing andis ou LR questions)
3)Muralitharan (the wily fox is our VA/VR questions)
4)Shane Warne (the crafty spinner is RC questions)
5)Mcgrath (this guy is Steady and so he put his spell of DI questions on us)

Each of them can have any amount of overs. you donno the no of overs fr each or say no of balls. You don know which 2 bowlers will be combined to form one section or how many will be clubbed. This all sets fr something which is way ahead of world
challenge going to be organized by ICC next year. Now You dont represent any team. You dont have any specific wickets. You are the only batsman. There will be negative runs for every wicket you lose. Now the extent of that is unknown. Dont think easy balls means easy runs. one miscued shot and the fielders are there to catch every shot of urs.
coz here is the list of fielders in the team:

1) Ricky Ponting
2) Mohd Kaif
3) Dion Ebrahim
4) Yuvraj Singh
5) chandana

now the keeper is ofcourse Mr Gilchrist who can take any catch u think u can just edge past him fr 4 runs. (i.e ofcourse

guessing answers)

Now this is wat i make up come one guys tell me wat ya think abt it. I think is awesome. Now hows that fr creativity.



Let me be honest here, am not too creative actually speaking but somehow came up with this idea and have crafted out this in one nite. Juz feel i have to thank rediff.com fr giving me a great platform fr trying something new. And also wanna add that am having a shot at this cricket game. (now u can say what i mean here is ofcourse test)

MS in US

This is the article i wrote when i was studying in my prefinal yr of Btech and preparing fr GRE. Roughly arnd March 2004.

MS in US

So you want to do MS in US? Well then I hope that this article will be very useful to you. I actually want to bring about every procedure that has to be followed for getting into any top graduate school for doing masters in US. Well the fact that I myself haven’t been exposed to all this means that you cant just follow me as I might very well make few mistakes.

Why???? :

Well now this is the obvious question in everyone’s mind. Let me give my reasons:

1. Dream to pursue higher studies in the country where the latest technologies are developed or readily available. (man….how advanced are they?)


2. Higher standards of studies in US universities. (wonder when will I be sitting in those lecture halls)


3. The studies/courses are practical oriented and not just "learning by rote" studies followed in some universities in India. (if that was the case I wouldn’t be cutting classes)


4. Faculties in the USA are PhDs. They know their stuffs.(uhhhhh… hopefully not insulting)


5. To pursue higher research, USA provides the facilities for this to be possible. (One day I will find something…..)


6. To get the STAMP of education in USA. (hey man am a graduate from US)


7. To get a good high paying job.(The salary slip that I will envy)


8. To just get to the US by some means. (man….I wanna be there).

Where????

Ok wanna do masters in US but then there are so many schools there and which is the right one, where should I study? This is what we might be thinking now. Well at the end of this article is the NRC ranking for aerospace Engineering in 1991-1992 is given. That gives almost a rough idea of the top 32 universities in aerospace in US. Ok with this question of rankings also come another very important question which one can I afford? This is a tough one to answer but as a thumb rule we can say that public (state run) universities are cheaper than private ones. We will deal in detail about costs little later. Also climate plays an important role so after deciding the schools, it is a better idea to visit the college’s website and know in detail about other details of the college. The internet is the most powerful weapon for unlocking all the details about the college’s and of course this article was mostly framed from the information in the net.

How????

Ok now the previous two questions were dealt with little ease but this one needs quite a lengthy answer. Well since I wouldn’t like to waste much of space wasting explaining, I rather have given the lists of things to do starting from April month of your pre-final year:

April - June (of your 3rd year):

Decide on your field(s) in which you wish to apply.

Write a draft statement of purpose/personal statement.

Visit Internet to find university links and learn more about them.

Start browsing Web sites to graduate programs and college catalogs.

Schedule the required standardized tests.

July-September:

Take standardized tests. GRE and TOEFL.

Report your scores sensibly. You will be saving $ 96.

Meet with faculty members that you know to discuss your personal statement and learn about possible programs.

Request Application Forms from graduate schools.

Start writing to faculty members of Prospective graduate schools.

Begin to develop your personal timeline for the application process.

October – November:

Based on your GRE scores determine the schools to which you plan to apply.

Finish your timeline based on each institution's deadline and financial aid deadlines.

Complete your personal statement, adjusting it to meet each application's specific needs.

Order transcripts from all post-secondary institutions (If fall term grades are expected, then check with staff in the registrar's office to see if a transcript including fall term grades can be sent in time to meet the deadlines of programs to which you are applying).

Complete application forms (First, do a draft on a photocopy of the form).

Approach your faculty members for Recommendation letters. Give your faculty all the information that they will need to write recommendations for you for each of your application schools.

December/January:

Prepare your applications. Get your bank drafts. Report your GRE/TOEFL scores if you haven't done so earlier.

Mail applications. Even if deadlines are later, it is good to get the applications in early.

February – April:

Wait for your admissions.

Keep track of your application forms .Check your online status regularly.

If you do not get financial aid, then decide according to the situation.

If you have obtained more than one admission, try to make up your mind about which program you will join.

Reject other offers politely.

June – August:

Contact your program coordinator to get more information.

Write to your guide and learn more about his/her latest research interests.

Block your tickets early. (Shop around for a good offer!)

Shopping! Prepare to leave.

GRE/TOEFL:

These are the two exams you will have to write if you have to go to any graduate school in US. First preparing for TOEFL isn’t that tough and I will recommend you to take GRE first and take TOEFL later. The idea behind this strategy is that preparing the verbal section of GRE will itself equip to almost tackle TOEFL. The TOEFL also tests some things different from GRE like listening skills and grammar skills. Now let’s see how we deal with preparation for GRE.

Preparation for GRE:

First I will suggest few materials for preparations, they are as follows:

1. Barrons' Guide for the GRE - For Verbal prep only. Please buy the present edition.


2. CDs for computer based testing ( I would suggest Kaplan, Powerprep and Princeton Review)


3. Question papers, Verbal & Analytical exercises by Kaplan, Princeton, Peterson’s etc


4. Norman Lewis: How to build a better vocabulary & Rosenblum - These books can be used to strengthen your verbal skills.

Now since I hope that you can work out the schedule by yourself, I am not giving much detail about how to go about your preparations. But I can tell you that at least six months of continued preparations is required for cracking the GRE. First you can start by reading a vocabulary building book like the Norman Lewis one and then slowly go about going through the word lists of Barron’s. Well it’s a hectic work going through those unheard words but then its worth that hard work. Then finally one thing which is also widely accepted in GRE is that only way to improve your scores drastically is to improve your vocabulary.

Structure of GRE:

Going through any of the books on GRE will tell you more details regarding it like the system of scoring. First I can tell you that its not a paper based test and computer adaptive test (CAT). I can tell you simply that it adapts accordingly i.e. gives you the next question depending upon how you answered the previous questions. GRE has three sections: Verbal, Quantitative and Analytical writing sections. Quantitative section is easiest of the three for us and all it requires is not to be over confident, that’s all. Verbal section is the toughest and requires all the hard work that I prescribed you earlier. Writing section is something for which you cant do much as it is inborn talent in you. The only thing you can avoid is spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes etc Though GRE actually test you on your analyzing skills. The scores for each sections are : Verbal = 800, Quantitative = 800. Writing = 6 point scale. That doesn’t mean that writing isn’t important. All three sections scores are equally distributed. For engineering students quantitative is the most important section. Going through any of the books will give more details regarding these sections.

Conclusion:

I think that is good enough exposure for a novice at education in US. I haven’t dealt about the costs, financial aids, SOPS, recommendation letters, GRE in details etc since I suppose this being a general essay I need not be that exhaustive. Then I would like to conclude hoping that every reader of this article benefited something out of this. If anyone wants me to write another article on other particular topics of “MS in US” then it will be my pleasure to do the same.