It's 3 in the morning and I'm blogging instead of sleeping. I’ve been trying to sleep for the past 3 hours in vain. Had quite a taxing day today. Took up the CAT, was sulking till the evening....thanks to my performance. In the evening I attended a wedding reception, got to meet a lot of old colleagues and generally had a blast. But the after-taste of the test is stronger than of the chow I had at the reception.
CAT is a self inflicted torture I subject myself to every year. I've been taking it for so long now, that I can be called a veteran. What started as an honest attempt to get into a B-School, has turned into an obsession of sorts. Including today's test, I've taken 6 CATs so far and except once I've scored in the 92 - 96 percentile range. It may not be good enough to put me into the IIMs but more than enough to get me into decent colleges....which I never apply to. I want to get into the best or not get into it at all. But none of these attempts have been serious so far. Results without any efforts cannot be good. Right?
The irony is when I started taking tests, my scores were pretty decent and could have gotten better with a little bit of efforts. But my folks were in pretty bad, financially and I was in no position to ask for money for a PG degree. I had to work atleast to take my burden off them. I’ve never had regrets about that. Now I can afford to bear my education expenses or atleast take a loan but am not able to scrape up a decent score. The funnier part is this time I did not even want to take the test. Since I was out of the country when the forms were being sold a friend of mine picked it up for me without asking and I had to take it. It’s almost as if I take the test for the kicks. And I’m not alone!
Judging by the behavior of the candidates sitting around me in the test centre, I had a feeling that nobody was really serious. During the test when I started attempting those questions, I could almost hear my brains creaking in an effort to work. Many people were actually giggling to themselves during the test. Mid-way I happened to glance at my neighbour’s OMR sheet and got a heart attack. Her paper was riddled with dots compared to mine which had very few. On the way out I asked her how it was and she casually says “I’ve solved about 25 questions and answered about 80”. That explained all the dots on her paper.
As of now I can only pray that the others have done worse than I have. If the girl who sat next to me is any indication of the general performance, then I don’t have to worry too much. But I should stop relying on other’s bad performance and bank more on my own performance.
With time running out on me, maybe it's time to throw in the towel and call it quits. But quitting on something is not in my nature. I donno what to do. I feel really fkd up!
Not all that cheerful today!
CAT is a self inflicted torture I subject myself to every year. I've been taking it for so long now, that I can be called a veteran. What started as an honest attempt to get into a B-School, has turned into an obsession of sorts. Including today's test, I've taken 6 CATs so far and except once I've scored in the 92 - 96 percentile range. It may not be good enough to put me into the IIMs but more than enough to get me into decent colleges....which I never apply to. I want to get into the best or not get into it at all. But none of these attempts have been serious so far. Results without any efforts cannot be good. Right?
The irony is when I started taking tests, my scores were pretty decent and could have gotten better with a little bit of efforts. But my folks were in pretty bad, financially and I was in no position to ask for money for a PG degree. I had to work atleast to take my burden off them. I’ve never had regrets about that. Now I can afford to bear my education expenses or atleast take a loan but am not able to scrape up a decent score. The funnier part is this time I did not even want to take the test. Since I was out of the country when the forms were being sold a friend of mine picked it up for me without asking and I had to take it. It’s almost as if I take the test for the kicks. And I’m not alone!
Judging by the behavior of the candidates sitting around me in the test centre, I had a feeling that nobody was really serious. During the test when I started attempting those questions, I could almost hear my brains creaking in an effort to work. Many people were actually giggling to themselves during the test. Mid-way I happened to glance at my neighbour’s OMR sheet and got a heart attack. Her paper was riddled with dots compared to mine which had very few. On the way out I asked her how it was and she casually says “I’ve solved about 25 questions and answered about 80”. That explained all the dots on her paper.
As of now I can only pray that the others have done worse than I have. If the girl who sat next to me is any indication of the general performance, then I don’t have to worry too much. But I should stop relying on other’s bad performance and bank more on my own performance.
With time running out on me, maybe it's time to throw in the towel and call it quits. But quitting on something is not in my nature. I donno what to do. I feel really fkd up!
Not all that cheerful today!
2 comments:
Really interesting, I had a similar situation when I wrote my first CAT, and dint have a lot of resources at my disposal,
But hey its a good score, and FMS and MDI are some of the best colleges in the country, u can surely get in there.
Another amusing incident was my friend took the CAT yeserday. His neighbour was already in the IIM and was taking CAT to beat his own best of 99.3!!!
I could so much relate to this line of yours
'I want to get into the best or not get into it at all'
Sometimes its best to move on in life (and its certainly not quitting). But if you are serious about it, give it your best shot. At least that way, even if the end result is not favourable - you will never have any regrets
And regarding your running out on time concern, let me share with you a nice saying of chinese origin that I read (and blogged about) sometime back. It said 'The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next best time is NOW!'
Its never too late for most things in life :-)
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