Life insurance policy got matured....

During my initial days of job career, I was suggested to start a life insurance policy. I was not knowing much about these policies and went with one of the options along with other colleagues.

It was a policy having a term period of 21 yrs with multiple options for premium payments. I have chosen half-yearly premium payment option and started paying the dues sincerely till the end. This got matured recently.

Being curious I have done a calculation. Idea is to know annual rate of return. I have used XIRR function on the excel sheet to get the answer. 

Refer to the table below: Consider all cash outflows represented as '"-x" and one final inflow represented as "83.84 times x". Of course, for you to calculate it, you need to substitute actual values in numbers.

  

Takeaways:

• The annual rate of return is 6%.
• Rate of return is low, not even comparable to bank FD rates for long term deposits, or a postal deposit.
• No point of comparing with investment plans like MFs
• But this was like an extra protection to my family through Life insurance cover, in case of any eventuality. Understood that it covers some protection till my age of 100 even though the policy is matured now.
• Final Take : This has to be treated separately from investment plans.

Even-Odd car formula of Delhi Government

The new initiative Even-Odd car formula of Delhi government to control traffic and

air pollution is making rounds in the news now-a-days. I just thought of simple

math behind this.

We can easily conclude that this initiative will bring down car traffic by 50%.

But how? This small write up is to bring out simple logic behind this conclusion.

The formula states that all even number registered cars are allowed to commute on

roads on even numbered days (2nd, 4th, 6th etc… of a month) and odd numbered cars

catch up on odd numbered days. Ideally, this should mean - on an odd numbered day,

all odd numbered cars commute on roads and the next day, which is eventually an

even numbered day, all even numbered cars commute on roads.

What does it mean?

If I consider any two consecutive days, “all odd” plus “all even” result in 

distribution of all cars in any two consecutive days. So it brings the day-average 

traffic to half proportion.

My interview experiences with premier Indian B-schools

I feel privileged to have experience of competing in admission processes for Executive MBA from premier Indian B-schools. Post CAT/GMAT, it starts with submitting papers on SOP, Work-ex, Reco-letters, Questionnaires etc and ends with a crucial Personal Interview. The whole process requires a lot of introspection. I feel it as a rich experience to get involved in those processes with premier Indian B-Schools like IIMs, XLRI, SP Jain’s, NMIMS, IMT etc., I would like to summarize all my experiences here:

I feel that the following are three important qualities that are tested in the admission process: ‘Clarity of thought’, ’Positive attitude’, ’Presentation skills’.

Clarity on Career & Course:

Clarity is expected on “why this course?”. Different answers for this Q are like this: For a working guy, MBA course may be useful for career progression.  It may be useful in switching to new field of work. For example, For an IT developer, it may be useful to switch over to sales & marketing of IT products/services.

Introspection on the following aspects is required:

Your strengths & weaknesses, Aligning of your career objectives with the course objectives, Your achievements, Extra-curricular activities, Hobbies etc.

A dream comes true…

My full-time MBA dream transforms in to reality now …

It’s a dream to be in top management institutes like IIMs…

It’s a fruitful year… First got admit offer from IIM Bangalore for Post graduate Programme in Public Policy Management and then for EPGP from IIM Indore. I prefer General Management to Public policy and opted for IIM Indore.

I am glad that, for the next one year, I will be put through rigorous course curriculum in the form of “Executive Post Graduate Programme” in one of the temples of management studies in India – IIM Indore. It’s rigorous in the sense that typical two year MBA syllabus is completed in a span of hardly one year. It consists of over 800 class room sessions, case studies, guest lectures by eminent professors, industrialists etc. The class room is a mix of people with diverse work-ex backgrounds. The minimum work-ex required is 5 years. It’s a rich experience to be part of such network of work-ex pool. I am very much willing and eagerly waiting to pass through this transformation phase…

My blog helped me a lot in my journey to IIM. First of all, I attempted CAT-2012 to have a firsthand experience of online format of the prestigious examination and utilize these inputs in building up my blog. My earlier stint with CAT was in 2008, the last paper based format. I felt that, CAT-2012 would give me some sort of real time exposure to analyze the toughest management entrance test of India. But it gave me a lot more. It gave me two IIM calls. CAT/GMAT score is one of several parameters for entry in to executive PG courses in IIMs. Work-ex, SOP, Interview etc., are the other parameters being looked at in the admission process.

My blog not only keeps me in touch with the skills required to crack competitive exams like CAT, but also with many other aspects. It helps to build my confidence levels. It gives me a new lease of life and a lot of happiness. It makes me very optimistic and open-minded. I feel that the time that I spend on building my blog flows with positive energy. It reflected a lot in SOP papers and interview process of my journey to IIM.

I am very much thankful to all the well wishers and followers of my blog. All your wishes and acts make me to continue the tempo…
check this post on my interview experiences with premier B-schools

Math in Tenali Ramalinga’s puzzle on elephants

          I came to know about this story through my friend. This is about a problem solved by the great Tenali Ramalinga. I always enjoy Ramalinga’s stories and this is one among those tales:

An old man had three sons. During his life time he acquired 17 elephants (Exactly do not remember whether they are elephants or horses. Let us consider elephants for example). He wrote a note which specifies how these elephants shall be distributed among his three sons after his death. The note says:

“Half of the elephants shall be given to the eldest son. Two third of the remaining shall be give to the second son.  Two third of the remaining shall be give to the third son.”  

Finally the day came and the elephants needed to be distributed among the sons according to the note. But how can it be done? How can we divide 17 elephants such that the eldest son gets half of the share?

CSAT 2013 Solved Paper (paper-II)

1. In a rare coin collection, there is one gold coin for every three non-gold coins. 10 more gold coins are added to the collection and the ratio of gold coins to non-gold coins would be 1:2. Based on the information, the total number of coins in the collection now becomes

(a)90      (b)80     (c)60      (d)50

Solution:

Initial ratio = G:N = 1:3                   ---(1)

After adding 10 gold coins, the ratio becomes (10+G):N =  1:2     ---(2)

On solving (1) & (2), we get, G=20 and N=60.

Presently, the total number of coins in the collection = (10+G)+N= 10+20+60=90

Ans: (a)

2. A gardener has 1000 plants. He wants to plant them in such a way that the number of rows and the number of columns remains the same. What is the minimum number of plants that he needs more for this purpose?

(a)90      (b)24     (c)32      (d)34

Solution:

If the number of rows and number of columns are to be equal, then the total number of trees will be in the form of x², which is nothing but a perfect square. As 1000 is not a perfect square, we need to check for a perfect square above and nearest to 1000.

It’s 1024, which is square of 32. So he needs to add 24 more trees to get 1024.

Ans: (b)

Numerator/Denominator confusion

I observed that a bit of confusion prevails while simplifying fractions. The confusion is about which number will go to numerator part and which number will go to denominator part. This post is intended to clear the confusion.

Consider a fraction in the form (a/b)/(c/d).

Let us call the variables like this:

a – Numerator-numerator

b – Numerator-denominator

c – Denominator-numerator

d – Denominator-denominator

Stuff for school kids (standard 5 to 10)

I thought of providing some stuff for students studying in the range 5^th to 10^th standard. This stuff is a combination of two sets. One is Math&Logic based and the other is Knowledge based. This stuff is a mix of some questions that are based on math fundamental concepts and remaining questions that are based on commonsensical and out-of-box thinking. These do not look like standard questions that are given in school-level exams but mostly resemble or can act as base for the math and logic aptitude sort of questions that are asked in various entrance exams. My primary intention is to inculcate in kids an interest and liking on maths. I strongly opine that math solving skills are very much needed to excel in diverse fields of studies ranging from Science, Engineering to Economics, Management studies etc.

To be frank on my part, I am starting this post with small number of questions at hand but I will try to enrich this bit bank by updating it from time to time.

A land mark on GATE exam day

        Yesterday (10^th Feb'13) GATE exam was conducted. It's an all India exam conducted by IITs annually for entry to M.Tech courses. Some PSUs also consider the GATE scores for offering jobs. In GATE, there are a total of 65 questions carrying a total of 100 marks, out of which 10 questions carrying total of 15 marks are in General Aptitude (GA). The remaining 85% of the total marks is devoted to the Engineering syllabus. From last year (GATE-2012),

GATE-2013 Solutions (General Aptitude)(EC/EE/IN)

1. A car travels 8 km in the first quarter of an hour, 6 km in the second quarter and 16 km in the third quarter. The average speed of the car in km per hour over the entire journey is

(A)30   (B)36   (C)40   (D)24

Sol:

This is a simple formula based one.

GATE-2013 Solutions (General Aptitude)(CS-IT/ME/PI)

1. A tourist covers half of his journey by train at 60 km/h, half of the remainder by bus at 30 km/h and the rest by cycle at 10 km/h. The average speed of the tourist during his entire journey is

(A)36   (B)30   (C)24   (D)18

Sol:

This is a simple formula based one.

Average speed = total distance/ total time

My experiences with CAT and learning points

Attempting exams like CAT is always a tense experience. To keep our nerves under control is the mantra here. I have attempted CAT two times, first time in 2008 and next time in 2012. First one is traditional paper-based type and next one is computer-based test. See my learning points from this experience...

Puzzle-35 (XAT-2013)

Sara has just joined Facebook. She has 5 friends. Each of her five friends has twenty five friends. It is found that at least two of Sara’s friends are connected with each other. On her birthday, Sara decides to invite her friends and the friends of her friends. How many people did she invite for her birthday party?

(A)  ≥ 105  (B) ≤ 123        (C) < 125        (D) ≥ 100 and ≤ 125 (E) ≥ 105 and ≤ 123

For solution click on 'Read more' below..

XAT-2013 Detailed Solutions (Quantitative Ability)

Along with solutions, here I would like to give 'Notes' especially on some problems where I went in a wrong way or spent a little more time than usual while actually solving in the exam. And also for some problems, I summarized crucial clues and tagged those clues under 'Points'. I thought this approach is quite useful to solve the problems and get to know about the nitty-gritties.

Indian Economy, a CR point

I was reading through a write-up on Indian Economy-2012. I wanted to relate one point from here to the critical reasoning stuff.

The following are the facts found in a recent survey:

Fact-1: Indian economy may be broadly divided in to three sectors- Industry, Agriculture and Services. The contributions of these sectors to the GDP are as follows:

Agriculture-15%, Industry-28%, Services-57%

Fact-2: For over a considerable period, there is exodus observed in a significant extent. People are moving from rural to urban areas. Most of the people who are moving out of rural areas are not finding agriculture as a lucrative sector and trying to find jobs in industries in urban areas.

XAT-2013 :My Experience

D'day - 6th Jan'2013

Centre: St.Patricks High School, Sebastian Road, Sec'bad

Parts:

Two parts.

Part-I: 140 min. VA,DM and QA sections

Part-II: 40 min. General Awareness and Essay. Surprise this time is introduction of GA section here.

Part-I:

A total of 91 Q's. All are multiple choice Q's having 5 options each.

This part is divided like this:

Sec-A: Verbal Ability

Total Q's: 30

Sec-B: Decision Making

Total Q's: 25

Sec-C: Quantitative Ability

Total Q's: 36

-ve Marking:

It's a surprise this time. It's a straight forward formula. One fourth for each wrong Q.

Differential Marking:

It's again a surprise this time.No differential marking. All Q's carry equal marks.

XAT-2013 Answer key

Quantitative Ability:
                                               click here for detailed solutions

Q1)Prof. Mandal walks....

(A)  100 minutes  (B) 120 minutes        (C) 140 minutes        (D) 150 minutes (E)None of the above

Answer: D

Q2)At the centre of a city’s municipal park ....

(A)  62500π           (B) 125000π   (C) 250000π   (D) 500000π (E)Cannot be answered from the given data

Answer: A

Q3)Mr.Mehra is planning for higher education ....

(A)  5% and 7.5% respectively    (B) 8% and 12% respectively          

(C) 10% and 15% respectively   (D) 15% and 22.5% respectively

(E) 20% and 30% respectively

Answer: E

Q4)Albela, Bob and Chulbul ....

(A)  24        (B) 25 (C) 26 (D) 27  (E) 28

Answer: A

Q5)The taxis plying in Wasseypur....

(A)17         (B) 18 (C) 19 (D) 20  (E) 21

Answer: C

Q6)Consider the expression (a²+a+1)....

(A)3           (B) 1    (C) 10 (D) 100           (E) 243

Answer: E

Q7) The mean of six positive integers....

(A)26         (B) 28 (C) 30 (D) 32  (E) 34

Answer: D

Q8) Ramesh bought a total of 6 fruits....

(A)25%      (B) 33.3%        (C) 60%           (D) 66.6%       (E) None of the above

Answer: E

Q9) p and q are positive numbers....

(A)√9         (B) (9)^1/6          (C) (9)^1/9          (D) (9)^1/8         (E) (9)^1/3  

Answer: D

Q10)A number is interesting if....

(A)0.1        (B) 0.11           (C) 0.16           (D) 0.22          (E) None of the above  

Answer: A

Q11)Consider the expression: (xxx)_b = x³....

(A)5           (B) 6    (C) 7    (D) 8    (E) None of the above

Answer: E

Q12)The figure below show the graph of a function f(x)....

(A)5           (B) 6    (C) 7    (D) 8    (E) None of the above

Answer: C

Q13)How many whole numbers between 100 and 800 contain the digit 2?

(A)200      (B) 214            (C) 220            (D) 240           (E) 248

Answer: B

Q14)Ram,Shyam and hari..

   (A)8           (B) 7                (C) 6    (D) 5    (E) 4

Answer: A

Q15)Consider a function f(x) = x⁴+x³+x²+x+1, where x is a ...

(A)1           (B) 4                (C) 5    (D) a monomial in x  (E) a polynomial in x

Answer: C

Q16)Six playing cards are lying ...

(A) ≥ 0.25 and < 0.5      (B) ≥ 0.5 and < 0.75    (C) ≥ 0.75 and < 1.0     (D) ≥ 1.0 and < 1.25  
(E) ≥ 1.25 

Answer: C

Q17)Please read the following sentences carefully ...

(A)All the statements are correct         (B) Only statement II is correct

 (C) Only statement III is correct           (D) Both statements I and II are correct

(E) Both statements I and III are correct

Answer: C

Q18)In the country of Four ...

(A)26.64   (B) 27.32        (C) 28.30        (D) 30  (E) 36

Answer: C

Q19)Which is the fastest train between HHH and NNN?

(A)1111    (B) 2222         (C) 4444         (D) 7777         (E) 9999

Answer: D

Q20) Which is the fastest train between AAA and NNN?

(A)8800    (B) 8888         (C) 6666         (D) 4444         (E) 3333

Answer: A

Q21) If you have to travel from AAA...

(A)1111 and 8800           (B) 1111 and 9900    (C) 8888 and 7777

(D) 8888 and 8800          (E) 8888 and 9900

Answer: E

My observation: It appears that 8800 is not stopping at HHH

Q22) Considering away matches only, which of the following team is the second ranking team?

(A)AS         (B) CH             (C) WG            (D) SW            (E) WB

Answer: D

Q23) Arun has to go the country....?

(A)T1 and T2        (B) T1,T2 and T5        (C) T1,T4 and T5        (D) T1,T2 and T4

 (E) T1,T3 and T4

Answer: B

Q24) However, Arun’s manager....?

(A)T1, T2 and T3  (B) T1,T2 and T5        (C) T1,T2 and T4        (D) T1,T3 and T4

 (E) T1,T4 and T5

Answer: B

Q25) in a square PQRS, A and B are...?

(A)6           (B) 8    (C) 10  (D) 12  (E) 14

Answer: C

Q26) p,q and r are three non-negative...?

(A)   ≥ 40 and < 50           (B) ≥ 50 and < 60      (C) ≥ 60 and < 70      (D) ≥ 70 and < 80 (E) ≥ 80 and < 90

Answer: D

Q27) The central park...?

(A)      10 meters    (B) 12.5 meters         (C) 14 meters (D) 15 meters (E) 16 meters

Answer: A

Q28) What is the ratio of current account balance in 2010 to the current account balance in 2005?

(A)      0.35  (B) 4.56           (C) 5.01           (D) 2.57 (E) 5.30

Answer: E

Q29) Read the statements given below:

1.      Exports were more than imports in 2006

2.      Imports were more than exports in 2009

3.      Exports increased at faster rate than imports during the period 2005 to 2010

Which of the above statements is necessarily true?

(A)      1 and 2         (B) 1,2, and 3 (C) 3 only        (D) 2 only (E) 1 only

Answer: C

Q30) What was the approximate number of unemployed persons in 2006?

(A)100 million     (B) 102 million           (C) 98 million

(D) 105 million    (E) 104 million

Answer: A

Q31) Sara has just joined Facebook...?

(A)      ≥ 105            (B) ≤ 123        (C) < 125        (D) ≥ 100 and ≤ 125 (E) ≥ 105 and ≤ 123

Answer: E
                        

Q32) 70% of the students who joined XLRI last year play football,..?

(A)   5%      (B) 10%           (C) 15%           (D) 20% (E) None of the above

Answer: B
                      click here for detailed solutions

More Questions are in line.....