Crack SNAP Better With SIBMB
Meet Praveen Singh Rajput, a first year MBA student at SIBM Bengaluru. He hails from a village called Parvezpur near Allahabad and had little opportunity to study English before his graduation. Nevertheless, he made the best out of his opportunities and completed his Bachelors of Arts in Political Science from The University of Allahabad. He also went on to become one of the most influential student leaders of his University. Praveen is also one of the youngest writers for Penguin India. He aspires to pursue Marketing as his specialisation in his second year of MBA.
“Don’t give up. You are closer than you think.”
Did your educational background help you during test prep? Did it help you in subsequent rounds (GE-PI-WAT)?
During my under-graduation, I aspired to become an IAS officer, and due to this, I have always had an upper hand in the General Awareness section. Believe me when I say that everyone is a master of at least one section. The only thing that is required is to make that section stronger and to leverage that as an edge over the other weaker sections.
What was your strong/weak section and what was your overall test taking strategy?
Having studied in Hindi medium all my school life, preparation for the verbal section was tough for me. I had to put in extra effort so that I could compete with those who had been studying in English medium schools. Logical Reasoning has always been my personal favourite, and I find it very interesting. I had to brush up my Quantitative skills as I wasn’t in touch with subjects dealing with numbers during the three years of my under-graduation.
What was your strategy for individual sections (Quant/Verbal/Data Interpretation/General Awareness/Reading Comprehension)?
The best thing about SNAP is that there are no sectional cut-offs. So, I focused mainly on time management, speed and accuracy to first get my strong section in place, and then move over to other difficult sections. Since general awareness and logical reasoning were my strengths, I started with them to get the initial traction.
Since it’s a paper-pencil test, does it affect the test-taking in any way? Any specific strategy for the same?
A paper and pen exam was easier as I am more comfortable with this kind of test design. In any competitive exam, you are required to solve all the questions but I feel that revisiting a question is a tad bit easier in pen and paper format as compared to the online format.
What do you think you did right during test prep? What was it that you did right on Test Day?
"Effort is important, but knowing where to make an effort makes all the difference."
So, during the peak days of my exam preparation, I did smart work rather than hard work. I only focused on my strong areas and made sure I did them with 100% accuracy.
Preparing for the GD-PI-WAT round is a crucial factor to secure a seat in a good B-School like SIBM-Bengaluru. I was well versed with all the latest happenings around the globe, and through mock GD-PI(s), I polished myself further. I was pretty confident about the GD round as I was well prepared for it.
What was your strategy for the D-Day and what do you think you executed the Best on the D- Day?
I never study one day before any competitive exam. These exams require thorough concentration and on-the-spot thinking. So it’s better to keep your mind free. I went through the paper twice. In my first attempt, I solved all the questions I was comfortable with and was 100 percent sure about. Then, keeping in mind the time constraint, I went through the paper the second time, to solve the unattempted questions.
How did you prepare for the group discussion? What was the topic and how did you tackle the GD round?
On the D-Day, my group was shown a scene from a movie called ‘The Namesake’. The group was expected to discuss the issue shown in the scene. This was followed by a written ability test on the summary of one’s opinion on the same topic.
What resources you used to refer while preparing for the essay writing? (Please mention the topic)
According to me, newspapers are the supreme preparation materials for tackling group discussions, general knowledge questions as well as essays. Reading editorial sections of the newspapers subconsciously trained me in sentence formation and I soon got accustomed to that style of writing.
How was the interview experience like? What was your preparation strategy and how did the interview turn out to be?
The golden rule for performing well in any interview is to be confident. Since I had a very good resume which had equal focus on academics and extra-curricular, my entire interview at SIBMB was focused on the ‘Tell me about yourself’ question. Overall, it was a good interview and I am happy that I could perform to the best of my abilities.