Done(?) with TOEFL

One hell of a experience it was, indeed - completely unprofessional ETS guys and a bizarre design of the test center and of the exam format

I don't know how much I'll score but the Reading and the writing part went OK. I'm banking on my 5.5 in AWA to get me through the writing section. What's crazy about this exam is that there is a host of candidates( read physiotherapist wanting to do her higher studies, guys wanting to do their MS in Germany because their consultant told them to take the exam!) sitting next to you and speaking loudly when you are trying to concentrate. Can't they provide individual cubicles or noise canceling headphones!

Funny thing was that when I had my listening section, guys next to me had their speaking sections. Here, you will be asked to speak on a variety of topics, and I was completely flabbergasted by the responses of a few candidates. Some spoke of the rigor of the French education and how it churns out the best doctors, while the others spoke of how harmful rays from CRT cannot take the print edition of newspaper out of circulation.

When it was my turn to speak, few other guys also spoke with me in unison. Only in Reading and writing did I have some peace of mind. Going by the experiences of a few guys, I was aware of such environment but was not prepared enough to handle the catastrophe. The exam was supposed to start at 10:00AM but it started at 12:00PM, a network error caused the test admin to restart my computer twice! By the time I was done with the test at 3:30PM, I was feeling so god damn hungry that the thoughts of hamburgers and pizzas were already doing rounds in my head.

The experience was a stark contrast to the GMAT's. But as they say there is something positive in every experience, here too I had one. I went to McDonald's with the physiotherapist and we exchanged numbers.

I'm at the mercy of ETS till they send me some good scores in 15 working days.

TOEFL - T-3 days

I did my first practice test in the OG yesterday. First 2 sections back to back and the next 2 after the gym break

For those of you who have their exams in near future, here's a run down of the exam

There are 4 sections. You can score a max of 30points in each section (TOEFL iBT is for 120points)

1) Reading - Takes about an hour to complete. Will have around 45 questions with very long passages. The GMAT strategy will not work here - you don't have to understand the passage, you just have to look at the portion where you can find the answer. So, the prudent thing to do is read the question first.

2) Listening - Takes again around 50 minutes. Will be a bit unsettling if you don't pay attention.The trick here is 'memory'. Few questions, but not all, are based on memory. So, note taking while listening is very important. Other than this, there's nothing which is worth mentioning

BREAK

3) Speaking - A Sucker of a section despite being the shortest( 20mins only). There are some 6 tasks which more or less require 60 secs of speaking after 15secs of preparation. These taks are basically a combination of (Listening, Reading, Reading+ listening)and speaking, which is your talk. In other words, you'll hear some lecture or a conversation for 1 min and you'll be asked to speak something. The craziest thing is the response time. 15 secs is not sufficient for me even to begin thinking about a topic forget about coming up with points.

Since there is no option to guage your own 'talk', the best option is to record your voice in the voice recorder which comes with Windows and compare it with the sample 'high level', 'medium level' and 'low level' responses provided in the OG. And I hear that people who have been expecting 30 have got some of the lowest of scores and people who thought they did poorly got above 25. So, the idea is to prepare for the worst and well hope for, you guessed it right!

4) Writing - If you manage to maintain your sanity by the end of 3rd hour, you'll be asked to write 2 essays of about 1/2hr each. One section is similar to the Issue topic of GMAT, while the other, in which you have to reconcile the points mentioned in a lecture and a reading passage, requires a bit of preparation.

By the time you are finished with the exam you'll not know how you did on the exam. You'll either be very happy that you 'nailed it' or be devastated that you 'screwed up'. You'll have to stay put with this feeling for 3 weeks until someone from ETS grades your responses and sends you the score report. Then you'll know whether the 'nail' did the job or the screw's threads were rough

Chief Marketing Officer - CMO?

You can find how the future heads of marketing of FMCG companies will be here. This was presented in the Kellogg Marketing competition held on 13th Nov 2009. Apparently the guy who is singing, wrote the lyrics and edited the video himself.

Thanks to Gil for posting the link. As mentioned in the comments in youtube, I seriously pity the competitors. Man, I now know why Kellogg is the number 1 school for marketing

T-5 days for my TOEFL. I better get back to studying

Ciao

Here's unplugged's brain fry for you......

Yeah, it's up for free on this blog!

I'm almost done with only my Kellogg essays and my brain is fried. I've lost the ability to judge rationally whether a sentence makes sense or not or whether a sentence is grammatically correct.

Here's how I approached the essays ( after the school/program research of course) - I wrote down the stories I wanted to convey in as many words as I could. Once all the essays were complete, I started to trim them down keeping in mind the big picture and culling out the redundancies - That is deleting whatever was mentioned in some other part of the application and that did not merit a mention once again. I went on and on like a raging bull, trying to lock my horns with anything and everything until I got somewhere close to the word limit.

The end result? - Read the title!

I don't know whether it's because I put in too much effort in thinking about the stories and how to differentiate my self or because I'm just not capable of churning out essays after essays as some other applicants do. Anyway, I'm just happy that the essays are genuine and honest, and they have turned out the way I wanted them to

I seriously apologize to the reviewers of my essays. Let's call them the 'JOF' trio for now. While sending them the email a few hours ago, in my half -brain -dead state, I accidentally wrote - 'There are somethings I want you to tell before going through the essays'...... where as I should have written ' I want to tell you ......'. Sorry guys! They're going to think 'What kind of a retard..eh?

There's one tip I have for those of you who haven't started their essays

If you are trying to get your essays reviewed by a person who doesn't know you at all( you ideally should), it makes sense for you to send even your resume. Also, it is always better to work on your resume first before starting the essays. This way, you'll have 2 benefits

1) You will know what areas or stories to concentrate on

2) You will be able to weed out the redundant points I was mentioning earlier

On to Booth now.....

Yours truly fried,

Unplugged

Peer Pressure....????

The 3rd essay from Kellogg - 'Assume you are evaluating your application from the perspective of a student member of the Kellogg Admissions Committee. Why would your peers select you to become a member of the Kellogg community'? (600 word limit)- is not going as well as I thought it would

When I go deep into the question, I fail to understand the adcom's intent of using the word 'peer'. Of course, I looked up in the dictionary only to find a few meanings which more or less mean 'an equal'.

Now, the reason why I haven't been able to complete this essay despite spending my weekend on it is that I really don't know who will be the peers of a student member of adcom.

There are 2 versions on the web as to what means 'a peer'. The blog here implies that a student member of adcom will work along with faculty who are on adcom, a handful of other student members of adcom, then there are members from pure adcom staff. In this case, the peers will be the people who are evaluating the application.

Clearadmit's analysis assumes that 'peers', in this case, are fellow class mates. The dynamics of your response will change dramatically depending on what you think is the meaning of 'peer'. In the first case, you would want to round off your candidature by touching upon your stats , your 'unique' experiences and how you would contribute. In the second case, you are better off addressing specific reasons as to why the student body would want you as its member.

What do you guys think?

Updates on essays...........

Indeed, I'm having a crazy time writing essays. I've started to completely ignore my fitness routine. It so happens sometimes that I'm glued infront of my laptop for 6 hrs without a break. This happened twice in the last week. I opened my laptop at 7.00PM and went to sleep at 12:30AM. But, you know what, I'm beginning to enjoy writing as it is turning out to be not as intimidating as it did while I worked on my career goals essay.

I've completed 3 essays from kellogg.My brother really liked my writing style and he said the story 'stuck'. But, until and unless I have them evaluated from a third party, I'm not believing him. So, I'm actively looking out for reviewers who will be kind enough to critique my essays.

'Evaluating your own file from an adcom perspective' is pending. I seriously don't seem to have any ideas on how to approach this essay.

One more thing, I found a 'readability test software' , which is a useful tool to test how readable are your essays. I found it on GMAT club and thought it might be useful. I also read that Harvard business review's scores fall between 45 and 50, reader's digest - mid 50s. My essays, which are currently over their specified word limits have fared well( the scores are close to 60!). But, I don't know how they'll look after I trim them down.

I've also booked a date for TOEFL. It's on 21Nov2009. And as per some of the debriefs on some forums, the exam is not as easy as I thought( the sheer duration of 4hrs will be draining) and not as tough as the GMAT( people say TOEFL is walk in the park). One section I'm quite vary about is the speaking section as the scores seem to be following a random pattern.

I'll have to devote atleast 1hr every day to do well on the exam

Adios,
Unplugged