APTITUDE

This is the first and most important step in climbing the success ladder. What’s aptitude? It’s ones ability to…, to…, leave it, I am not getting the definition. But let me tell you, aptitude is nothing but the combination of your basics, brain power, knowledge, commonsense, speed, accuracy, intelligent guessing, anticipation, decision-making and above all the positive approach. Aptitude test is like a 100 metre sprint with the lane width of just 6 inches. Overall, aptitude is your logic. Sometimes it is difficult and sometimes easy (Kabhi Kashi Kabhie Rome).
Some have aptitude by birth (they are natural puzzle solvers). They can easily catch up how to solve numericals and analytical problems. They need to identify themselves and polish their approach. Others have to work like dogs.
It took interest in puzzles when I was in 8th standard. That made me learn maths basics well. Maths Olympiad training and exam made me go for puzzles with mathematical approach. My craze for puzzles continued to PU and till B.E. In 1st semester I became the member of mathemagic magazine, which publishes varieties of puzzles from literature to numericals to chess puzzles etc. I seriously involved in solving them and sending answers to the editor. It was only in the second year that I heard that there is a company Infosys that asks only puzzles to recruit its employees. My happiness knew no bounds [patient keliddu mosaru anna, doctor heliddoo mosaru anna].
I wrote the aptitude test for over 15 companies and I don’t know the disappointment of not getting short-listed after the written test. Frankly speaking I never prepared for aptitude tests. That’s why I was seen playing cricket throughout my engineering. So I request you, not to look at me and decide that written tests are nothing. I had a friend who had 78% of aggregate and was good at everything but couldn’t clear written test for 15 companies. At last he cleared somehow and further path was easy for him to sail through. Let me tell you how you could improve your aptitude.
First & second year students can go for puzzles. Buy puzzle books like Shakuntala Devi, George Summers, Narula etc. and try to solve them. If you don’t get the answer, then see carefully the way the puzzle has been solved in the book. If you solve some 200 and odd puzzles then you imbibe the approach to solve any puzzle. This improves your analytical ability. Then you can switch over to numerals. Many companies ask verbal questions, for that you need not mug up the dictionary or thesaurus. You can read different books, novels, and magazines and learn words steadily.
For final year student going for puzzles is optional. It’s better to go for quantitative aptitude book. Agarwal is the best one. Read the solved problems and once you understand them, solve the unsolved ones. For verbal, comprehension and analytical questions you can go for Barron’s GRE or any other good book.
This preparation for aptitude is must for any engineer appearing the written test for almost any company.
The two things that make you succeed in the interview are preparation and confidence.
Preparation + Confidence = Success ---------------------- (1)
After good preparation confidence comes automatically which makes you perform well. So confidence ~ Preparation
So from--- (1)
Preparation + Preparation = Success
 Preparation = Success
2
This implies that if you prepare well, you are already half succeeded.
This was the mistake that I repeated several times. I didn’t prepare well for the interview,( esp. technical skills ) and thought that somehow by luck I might get into but by the time I realized that there is nothing called luck, I had carried my file nearly a deca-times.
After preparation how to smash written test will be dealt later.
Those who intend to copy in the written test should be careful, as some companies ask you to explain how you arrived at the answer, especially puzzles.