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Archive for category Paranoid Android

Introducing : The Paranoid Android

Apr 14

Posted by The Nut in Journal, Paranoid Android | 1 Comment

Ideally, I should be introducing a new member of the blog before his/her/its posts go out, but sadly, I couldn’t find the time. Anyway, you’ve already read 2 of his posts : My Top 10 Unpopular Song and One gloomy morning in DPS Vasant Kunj. I think I should give a proper intro now.

Well, the mechanical being in question is my good friend Pulkit Jaiswal. Guy’s a genius, with dual aspirations of MIT and IIT, but more importantly, he’s one of the best confidants in the world. He’s fun to hang out with, loves eating Wai-Wai from the canteen, and occasionally spilling it all over himself. Finds most of what’s taught in Math class as pointless. Occasionally gets into tech trouble, and turns to me for help.

We have a ritualistic shake-a-leg greeting, which he mentioned in his first post. Do not attempt to read anything perverted into it, it is a very basic triple tap of the heels, that’s all.

There are several reasons why he deserves the epithet of being the Paranoid Android. His brain works much faster than that of us lesser mortals, and his face rarely betrays emotion. When it does, it usually scares small children. His face couldn’t have been more impassive if he was in a coma.

For the uninitiated, the Paranoid Android is a not-so-oblique reference to Marvin the Robot from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. If you haven’t read the book yet, what are you waiting for?

All of Pulkit’s posts can now be found under the category Paranoid Android. Also, his post titles will be prefixed with either Paranoid Android or PJ. Let’s just hope he posts more than Karthick, who’s only written 3, if my memory serves me right.

One gloomy morning in DPS Vasant Kunj

Apr 11

Posted by pj in Paranoid Android | 7 Comments

By the way, I have a new member on the team – Pulkit Jaiswal a.k.a. the Paranoid Android. Hopefully, his posts will be less sporadic than Karthick’s.

One gloomy morning in DPS Vasant Kunj: Vivek Nair enters the class and does his ritualistic “shake a leg” with me. “This book really sucks,” yawned the tech nut as he pulled out a pack of Fun Flips from his bag (he hates Fun Flips) scattering it all over page 430 of Barron’s SAT Guide.  “Seriously, they’re all written by embalmed educators who were born before the invention of the HB pencil, before the SAT itself, and before Baywatch went on air,” I replied.

Over the past few months, I have been in search for a hardcore kickass manual telling confused, bored and sexually frustrated students like me how to rock the SAT. And if you’re planning to take the SAT just like Nair and me, then this would be of great help for you. Well, you can choose not to read this and halfway through the SAT have a nervous breakdown from which you never quite recover despite decades of psychiatric care, which will lead to all of your several marriages ending in bitter divorces that cost you every penny you make as a mediocre stockbroker until your life is cut short by an agonizing disease for which they find cure a week after no one comes to your funeral.  : P

Well, let’s start with the basics.

What is the SAT?

The SAT was developed in 1927 because colleges wanted an objective way of comparing students. Your SAT score can make a difference between acceptance to and rejection from a college. In March 2005, the College Board revised it into a longer, harder that requires takers to write an essay. The new SAT is 3 hours and 45 minutes long which includes:

70 minutes of critical reading+

70 minutes of math+

60 minute writing section+

25 minute experimental section (this does not count in your score)

So, what is a good score?

Each section consists of the SAT is scored on a scale 200-800. So the perfect score is 2400, and the score which you really don’t want to get is a 600. Just to make you realize how cool a 2400 is:

2400

No, seriously, what is a good score?  Well, that depends. First you have to consider what your goals are. Some of you want to get into Harvard, so you’ll want to get 2300’s. Usually colleges display the type of scores they’re looking for on their websites. For instance, Macalester College had a range of 2004-2044. But what you should remember is that these scores do not guarantee admission.

Admission officers consider many factors. I have ranked them according to their importance:

  1. High School Grades and courses
  2. Leadership qualities
  3. Extracurricular activities (which does not include flirting and playing video games :p)
  4. Athletic prowess
  5. Legacy: Yeah guys. I am serious about this one. I read about the story of Jim Wroth from Up Your Score. A sophomore at Yale, he got a 1760 on SAT. Yet, he still got into Yale! Reason: His relatives date back to the seventeenth century who had studied at Yale!

Keep following my posts in the days to come when I will try to throw some more light on the SAT. And for all those who are curious to know, my SAT is on 1st of May and The Tech Nut’s test is somewhere in June(never bothered to ask him :p)

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