IIM CALCUTA GD/PI EXPERIENCE QUESTIONNAIRE

PERSONAL DETAILS: Name: Suvro Sarkar Education: B.Tech (Hons.) Manufacturing Science & Engineering IIT Kharagpur Year of passing out: May 2005 CGPA: 8.24 WORK EXPERIENCE: Nil CAT PERCENTILES: Overall: 99.85 Verbal: 98.58 Quantitative: 99.27 DI/Reasoning: 99.22 GD/PI Calls: B, L, A, C, K, I Final calls: C, L GD/PI venue: IIM Calcutta GROUP DISCUSSION: Topic of the GD: Should Governors of States be nominated by politicians?. No. of participants in the GD: 9 Time Limit and any other instructions: 2 minutes to collect your thoughts, 15 minutes of speaking time. Whether asked to summarize the GD: At the end, open offer given to summarize to anyone who thought he hadnt contributed much to the GD Whether a written summary of the GD was asked: No. THE GD EXPERIENCE: (please provide at least 5 lines of description) The topic was relevant in the context of the removal of the Goa Governor and other such recent incidents. So everyone had a fair knowledge from the newspapers as to the content of the GD. However, the discussion strayed to the Indian constitution and whether it can be amended and how it can be amended. No clear solution to the politicization of the Governor post was offered at the end. At the end, when a voluntary summary was asked for, no one took the lead since it meant accepting that the persons previous contribution to the GD had not been meaningful enough. How would you rate the Chaos level in the GD (on a scale of 1-10, 1 being most peaceful 10 being most chaotic): 5/10

Any observations on mistakes you committed in the GD: I did not put across my points in the GD forcefully across. Even though I had a few good points to make, I could not direct the groups attention to those points and they largely remained unheard. This fact was brought to my notice at the time of the interview by the panelists. So make sure you break in at the right point and be loud and clear about the point you are trying to make. Any observations of what you could have done better in the GD: Avoided the mistake pointed out above. When asked to summarize voluntarily, should have had the courage to do so. Any tips for GD preparation: No need to mug up the latest figures of the Indian economy or any such thing. Just throwing pure facts will not help unless you justify why you are putting across facts and figures. Be well read on current political and economic affairs though, for which the recent newspapers and magazines should be enough. PERSONAL INTERVIEW: No of interviewers in the Panel: 2 (two professors, the alumni was absent) List of the questions asked and your responses: (Intro questions/acad based questions/work experience based/general awareness/personal questions) The introductory question was about my performance in my GD and how I thought I had performed in it. They then pointed out what were the mistakes I had committed. After that I was asked some questions on fairly arbitrary and unconnected topics. One of the questions was about the escalation in oil prices and why I thought the prices were rising. When I linked it to issues in the Gulf Region and the US war, I was asked two questions: One was my rating of President George Bush Jr. and why I would rate him thus and the second question was about the Gulf War in 1991 and what exactly had happened at that time. To the 2nd question I had no clue and I tried to make some silly joke about it happening at a time when I was just a kid, which sort of backfired as they asked me whether I should not know about history which happened before I was born. I was then asked to show my graduation marksheet and they wanted to see if I had done any electives outside my engineering discipline in eco/other mgmt areas. I had done courses on OR and Fin Man and Quality Assurance, so I was asked some basic stuff about OR. No other technical questions as such. The interview ended with some personal questions on my hobbies including what books I like to read and what is the last book I have read and what is the last book by an Indian author I have read. (If you want to know the answers, they were respectively 1984 by George Orwell and English, August by Upamanyu Chatterjee). That was all I guess. Any observations on mistakes you committed in the PI: Tried to conjure up inopportune jokes. Didnt know much about the oil prices rises but still tried to go deep into the matter and didnt come away too well with it. Couldnt remember the name of the author of English, August. Criminal Offence! Any tips for Personal Interview preparation: Concentrate on a few of your graduation subjects in which you can be confident enough to mention as your favourite subject. If you have done some mgmt courses as well, eg economics, try to recapitulate some basic fundae like demand elasticity and the like. And again, try and be aware of current world affairs. Also, be well prepared about all your hobbies. Be prepared to be taken to the depths in the areas of your interests as mentioned in the form. And finally, practice the art of displaying your ignorance on a subject in a manner which is the most befitting.