Riz’s Rotman Blog

Related to this earlier post, I recently listened to a lecture by John Ralston Saul on Big Ideas. It’s a good listen, despite his obvious dislike of management schools. I don’t necessarily agree with everything he is saying in his lecture but I think the overall ideas have merit:

• The good of society is not best viewed through an economic lens.
• Economic theories are just theories and models, not truths and realities so question them.
• A lot of trade today is “bad trade” since there is no real wealth creation. (listen to the lecture to understand this one)
• Society has the power, if it demands it, to force leaders to actually lead and make real decisions. Most currently manage within an unproven model with unproven assumptions. This model declares the inevitability of certain outcomes so they just manage the approach to the outcomes. Remember the quote from the earlier post: …if leadership is reduced to management, well then, problems are not to be solve. They are to be managed. In fact, the are no longer problems.

Speaking of leadership, there’s a related article on Slashdot about India and free broadband access.

P.S. Exams are done. Two papers left!

This tip isn’t really for people who have been accepted to Rotman but more for people interested in b-school. I recently got a question from someone asking for GMAT tips. The best I can come up with is an overview of what I did to prepare for the GMAT. Remember, these are just my experiences… your mileage may vary.

I purchased two books: The Princeton Review and Kaplan study guides. I found that the lessons in the Princeton Review (PR) book were superior to the Kaplan book. I used the PR lessons to learn all the tricks etc. of the GMAT. When I felt comfortable with the material in the book I booked my GMAT test date.

For the 3 days before the test I structured my day as closely as I could the actual test day. I got up at 6 AM, got dressed, had brekfast, relaxed for a bit (driving time), and started to do a practice test at 9:30. I took breaks at the same time as I would during the actual test and simulated the test environment to the best of my ability. I used the Kaplan CD tests to practice—they are more difficult than the actual GMAT test. In the afternoon I would review my test results and try to understand where I made mistakes.

The day of the test was uneventful, I got their early and wrote the test. At the end of the test the computer provides you the opportunity to not have your test marked. I thought about not having my test marked because I found it really easy. In my experience, if I find a test very easy, I probably screwed up. I finally decided to have my test marked because I just really wanted to know how well (or badly) I did. I’m glad I got it marked because I got a great mark which helped me get into Rotman.

One tip I can provided is that you should pay more attention to earlier questions in a section rather than the later ones. From what I understand, the computer uses a form of binary search to give you a mark. That basically means that it is easier to move to a higher or lower score with the earlier questions than it is with the later questions.

There are plenty of other GMAT tips online so read all you can. Good luck.