Taking the GMAT: Easier said than done
My university deserves credit for teaching me one great skill: passing an exam by studying just a couple of hours before the paper. However, two years after graduation, as I studied for another important exam I found that I did not have the same focus or zeal that I had in college. Unfortunately, the exam I was studying for was the GMAT. . The low down GMAT is not your run-of-the-mill exam. It cannot be attempted successfully by ratto-fying (or rote learning). If you have a good memory, you might be able to do well in one or two sections of the exam, ...
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Ahmed Shahzad: Rising in the ranks
Ahead of the cricket World Cup this month, the timely arrival of Ahmad Shahzad into the Pakistan cricket team has made me very hopeful . The teenager’s century inspired Pakistan to a 41-run win over New Zealand and wrapped up the six-match series with a game to spare. The Lahore-born opener who attended Cathedral High School began his cricketing journey at the age of seven and has never looked back, representing Pakistan at the under-13, under-16 and under-19 level. He is a true example of someone who has risen in the ranks based solely on merit, and is fast becoming the solution to ...
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Pakistan’s imperfect cricket team
Not taking anything away from Pakistan’s victory, the fact that the win in the Hamilton Test came under slightly fortuitous circumstances (some freak dismissals and the condition of the pitch), cannot be and, perhaps more importantly, should not be ignored. To keep up the good work that was undeniably done by an at-last-united looking Pakistan team, and to ensure a series win, the management and the players need to take care of some issues very quickly, before the second test at the Basin Reserve, Wellington, starts on Saturday. The favourable pitch The first and foremost factor that went in favour of Pakistan ...
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PCB haunted by the ghost of captaincy past
Once again, the Pakistan Cricket Board faces an issue that has haunted it for years – captaincy. Since the 2007 World Cup, the team has changed six captains for all formats of the game and now, at such a crucial time, with the World Cup just 40 days away, the PCB management is stuck once more. After four years of preparation teams across the world are ready to perform – but the question of who will be captain remains the bane of our team’s existence. The PCB has not announced the captain for the current One Day Internationals series against New ...
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Have you contracted the 2400-degree SAT fever?
“I abhor your loquaciousness” “Excuse me?” “Also, your use of rhetoric is highly un-lucid.” “You sound like your English General teacher.” “Shut up! I’m trying to… OK, test me again. What does tenacious mean?” Welcome to SAT fever, the kind hundreds of students across Karachi contract when preparing for the globally administered Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), an inescapable English and Mathematics trial by fire for anyone who wants to apply to American colleges and universities. If you haven’t registered yet, go crawl back under your rock. Your much-anticipated winter break now comes pre-packaged in a three-inch thick Princeton Review SAT preparatory book, guaranteed to get ...
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A glance back into the annals of Test cricket would reveal that Test teams or at least those of a dominant variety always had potent bowling attacks. The fearsome West Indies sides of the 70s and 80s and the all-conquering Australians of a few years ago had bowlers whose names induced fear in the hearts of batsmen all over the world. It is widely known and accepted in cricketing circles that if you do not have a line-up that is capable of bowling out the opposition twice over the course of five days then you most probably would not have ...
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Cricket championship league: A promising idea
Finally, after years of juggling the idea, the ICC was able to conceive a league-style test championship which will evaluate performances over a four year period and culminate in a top four playoff. The first match is scheduled in The Ashes summer 2013, at Lord’s. The rankings for the league shall run separately from established ICC test rankings. At a glance, this is a terrific idea - inches close to perfection. Yet, it’s not without its cons! A test championship is meaningful only when every team plays the rest of the the teams the same number of times, both home and away, ...
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The cost of grades
By the end of my first semester in university, I became aware that my approach towards education is becoming what the university wants it to be – grades oriented and competitive, wanting to be better than the others, but not because learning is the aim. Without my realising it, the concept of education had changed in my mind. Now it was just a matter of mere numbers (marks) and letters (grades). Relative grading in educational institutions teaches students one simple rule: your grade depends on how others have done in your class. So if the rest of the class has done average, and you are a just a little above ...
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Where is Mazhar Majeed?
On Sunday August 29, we were introduced to Mazhar Majeed, thanks to the oh so credible British tabloid, News of the World, as they cooked up and ‘revealed’ the story of the Pakistan cricket team’s involvement in spot fixing. Almost a month after allegations that turned Pakistan cricket upside down, Majeed, the main man or the middle man, is nowhere to be found. A realtor, a sponsorship agent some of Pakistan team members, owner of a football club and an alleged bookmaker as well. Impressive credentials, are they not? Yet, made a fool of. After an undercover reporter from a British tabloid allegedly spoiled Majeed’s bid to make millions on the last Pakistan versus ...
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‘I am not your man’
I have never supported Shahid Afridi. Is it because I never bought into the whole boom boom mania? Yes, partly. Actually, for me it was more to do with the waste of his talent then the lack of it. Let’s face it, we all know he has never lacked talent or flamboyance for that matter, but the way he has gone about things in his career in the past are well to say the least, a bit daft. He’s been thrilling all of us since he arrived in the Pakistan team but the hope to ever see him blossom into something ...
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