Different figures of Speech (For XAT)

METAPHOR: A figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one object or idea is applied to another, thereby suggesting a likeness or analogy between them, as

(1)”The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.” (2)”I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!”

PERSONIFICATION : A type of metaphor in which distinctive human characteristics, e.g., honesty, emotion, volition, etc., are attributed to an animal, object or idea, as

(1)”The haughty lion surveyed his realm” or (2)”My car was happy to be washed” or (3)”‘Fate frowned on his endeavors.” Personification is commonly used in allegory.

HYPERBOLE: A bold, deliberate overstatement, e.g., (1)”I’d give my right arm for a piece of pizza.” Not intended to be taken literally, it is used as a means of emphasizing the truth of a statement.

N.B: A type of hyperbole in which the exaggeration magnified so greatly that it refers to an impossibility is called an adynaton.

Oxymoron:An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines normally contradictory terms. They appear in a range of contexts, from inadvertent errors such as extremely average, to deliberate puns like same difference, to literary oxymoron that have been carefully crafted to reveal a paradox (1)The most common form of oxymoron involves an adjective-noun combination. For example,

(a)”And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.” (b)Some more examples of the more commonly seen “adjective-noun” oxymoron are shown below: Dark Sunshine, Happy Depression, Amazing Dullness, Dynamic Equilibrium.

(2)Less often seen is noun-verb combination such as the line”The silence whistles”

Non Sequitur:It is an argument in which its conclusion does not follow from its premises.In a non sequitur, the conclusion can be either true or false, but the argument is fallacious because there is a disconnection between the premise and the conclusion. All formal fallacies are special cases of non sequitur. The term has special applicability in law, having a formal legal definition. Many types of known non sequitur argument forms have been classified into many different types of logical fallacies. such as

(a)”If you buy this car, your family will be safer.” (While some cars are safer than others, it is possible to decrease instead of increase your family’s overall safety.

(b)”If you do not buy this type of pet food you are neglecting your dog.” (Premise and conclusion are once again unrelated)

(c)”I hear the rain falling outside my window; therefore, the sun is not shining.” (The conclusion is a non-sequitur because the sun can shine while it’s raining.)

Euphemism: Euphemism is a figure of speech which is used to pacify the harsh,offensive, blatant comment. As in

(1)passed away for die (2)washroom for toilet (3)lady of the evening for prostitute.

Of the following I just know the definitions (mera khud ka aaj tak kabhi sahi nahi gaya :()

CAESURA: A rhythmic break or pause in the flow of sound which is commonly introduced in about the middle of a line of verse, but may be varied for different effects. Usually placed between syllables rhythmically connected in order to aid the recital as well as to convey the meaning more clearly, it is a pause dictated by the sense of the content or by natural speech patterns, rather than by metrics. It may coincide with conventional punctuation marks, but not necessarily.

A caesura within a line is indicated in scanning by the symbol (||), as in the first line of Emily Dickinson’s, I’m Nobody! Who Are You I’m no | body! || Who are | you?

N.B: As a grammatical, rhythmic, and dramatic device, as well as an effective means of avoiding monotony, the caesura is a powerful weapon in the skilled poet’s arsenal.

ONOMATOPOEIA: Strictly speaking, the formation or use of words which imitate sounds, like whispering, clang and sizzle, but the term is generally expanded to refer to any word whose sound is suggestive of its meaning.As in Keats’ “The murmurous haunt of flies on summer.”

LITOTES:A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.e.g:

(1)”for life’s not a paragraph And death I think is no parenthesis” (2)We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all.”

ALLITERATION: Also called head rhyme or initial rhyme, the repetition of the initial sounds (usually consonants) of stressed syllables in neighboring words or at short intervals within a line or passage, usually at word beginnings, as in “wild and woolly” or the line from Shelley’s The Cloud.

ASSONANCE : The relatively close juxtaposition of the same or similar vowel sounds, but with different end consonants in a line or passage, thus a vowel rhyme, as in the words, date and fade.

SYMBOL: An image transferred by something that stands for or represents something else, like (1)flag for country, or (2)autumn for maturity.

Symbols can transfer the ideas embodied in the image without stating them, as in Robert Frost’s Acquainted With the Night, in which night is symbolic of death or depression, or Sara Teasdale’s The Long Hill, in which the climb up the hill symbolizes life and the brambles are symbolic of life’s adversities.

Irony:The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea. The most common form of irony is when the spoken words do not convey the underlying meaning.

For example, it would be ironical for you to sa He is as smart as a soap dish because if your audience did not know what a soap dish was, or how smart it was (not), they might interpret the statement as a compliment, whereas the underlying meaning you intended to convey is an insult. This example is not a very skillful use of irony, because everyone knows what a soap dish is. Irony is much more successful when subtly applied.

Antithesis:The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.

e.g: (1)”Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing.” (2)”Hillary has soldiered on, damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t, like most powerful women, expected to be tough as nails and warm as toast at the same time.”

I Love...

I love to see you smile
And I love knowing that I caused that smile
I love to see you happy
And I love knowing that I caused that happiness

I love to look into your beautiful eyes
And I love the way I fall into them
I love it when you hold my hand
And I love having the courage to grab and hold yours

I love to tease and torment you
And I love it when you tease and torment me
I love it when you touch me
And I love to touch you

I love rediscovering how beautiful you are each time I see you
And I love realizing how attractive you make me feel
I love wanting so badly to kiss you
And I love the way you want to take things slow

I love the fact that you still want to be my friend
And I love that I want to be yours
I love so many things about you
But the most important thing is:
I Love you!

My Test Taking Experience on Nov 30

Left home at about 1 PM. Reached centre at 1:30. That (JNTU) was a huge campus I must say. It took almost 10 minutes to reach at our lab...look how big...

They(invigilators) told us to sit in a class room then they started calling names of candidates in a bunch of 3-4 for photo session(lolz) and biometric test...
3 times finger prints of right hand side first finger and 3 times to that of left hand side, in total they took 6 finger prints, and one smiling pic of mine...

I spent 120 bucks to get prepared my ID affidavit and in centre invigilator didn't even throw a look at it...(I thought...abe 1 baar to dekh le...120 kharch kiye hai is par...lol)

We placed at our systems at exactly 2:12pm, now the boring time started. In that 1 hour and 18 minutes you just have to look here and there for some pretty girl...I didn't find any at a radius of atleast 6 metres...my bad luck(kidding ;))...or you can take a nap at that time, but taking nap may be harmful because you have to keep your brain active...There were 5 cameras(one of them was exactly looking at me....raskal) and one projector in 14x7 room....
I was reading the rules and regulations of prometric, one of them was "you cant talk when u r sitting before your computer panel" and funny thing is that except me and few others all were enthusiastically talking to each other...lolz

Then after about 45 minutes invigilator came and started entering the username and passwords...all was going fine till me, but when he comes to me the comp refused to accept the username and password and after me it refused to accept all guys n galz next to me...
(I was wishing mat karna accept, aur time mil jayega preps k liye...if test gets cancelled) but to my bad luck it accepts after 15-20 minutes....phew...then he gave 4 sheets of good quality paper, 1 pencil, 1 natraj eraser, 1 camlin sharpener was already there near to comp...

After that we sat for another 15-20 minutes (in this time u can move here and there in the lab or go to drink water or whatever u want to or can go to toilet)
Then Invigilator came and again entered password and username, this time it accepts in one time...then came two options START THE TEST OR TAKE TUTORIAL...
As I'll not get ant 15 minutes extra if I skip tutorial so I started tutorial...that was ditto same as uploaded in catiim.in.

After that I started the real thing CAT....

First section was Verbal, then Quant and last DI.
As all knows 20 Questions in each...I decided at home only that I'll go in this order only and look I got the paper in that order only...

Verbal-
This was a bit tricky area. Some weird language like those use by great philosophers, 3 RC's in that 3 questions each, parajumbles etc...but one thing- In RC's and in DI sets all the questions were in one page and it was written on top that MAKE SURE U ATTEMPT ALL 3 QUESTIONS(and that too in red ink), what does this mean? Do we have to attempt all 3 questions or they are just telling that there are 3 questions in the page....I asked to Invigilator he said I don't know. I said OK, attempted all 3.
I spent around 45 minutes in this section...Attempted 12-14 here.
All in all Moderate section...later in HOME I found out that I have marked 1 wrong answer...though dunno about all :(

Quant-
Haunting section for me...I got really scared when I saw first 2-3 questions coz they were difficult (acc to me). So I moved to next questions...
No use of mentioning here the sections from which the questions came coz One thing for sure the type of questions they are giving, u'll all face a new paper in all days. NOT SAME
There were 50-60% questions were straight forward...Spent around 40 minutes here...Attempted almost 12 here...

DI-
This is literally one of my favourite sections, but but but....the questions were like see graphs, pie charts and answer...thats it...no use of brain...
Some questions like of arrangement type, bar graphs, simple graphs etc., nothing special...
So I attempted 18 questions here...

In all attempted 45+ questions, could attempt 55+ but was stuck in one problem of Quant, so it took whopping 5 minutes...(while doing this questions when I had already spent 2 minutes n the answer was not coming so I thought to spent 2 minutes more to get answer...coz it better to spent 4 minutes and get answer in comparison to 2 minutes and no answer or a tukka ).

All in all that was a pleasing experience to give online CAT...
No technical glitches and all...

So thats it from me NOW...
Best of luck dear friends...
Just one advice - Keep your brain empty from such things that somebody got this many question from this section so we will also get some thing same...
As papers are easy I am sure u all will do well....
Will pray for u all...

Keep Smiling... :)

Now This is called The "DESI" Version of GMAT

CAT CAT CAT...or ONLINE CAT ONLINE CAT n ONLINE CAT...
The wait is finally over ladies and gentlemen and the curtain is removed from the DESI version of GMAT popularly known as ONLINE CAT.

What a great start this CAT gets by ensuring that it should remain INDIA's DESI online test and the servers must be crashed in the number of centres which should be SQUARE OF 3 + SMALLEST EVEN PRIME NUMBER....i.e 9+2=11...Look what is the condition of we aspirants by preparing for CAT that even we start speaking Maths...lol

Don't be like WHOAAAAAA everyone by seeing 11 servers crashed...the show is just started and u'll see more MIRACLES in the coming days...

In the Janakpuri centre of New Delhi the computers were not ready to accept the usernames and passwords of the candidates as they were all saying that Shri Subhash Chandra Bose thing that TUM MUJHE KHOON DO, ME TUMHE AZAADI DUNGA...means TUM MUJHE SPEEDY SERVER DO ME TUMHE TEST DENE KI PERMISSION DUNGA

Now what to say about the other centres....students were talking to each other about.....(what they were talking.... I think no need to mention)
Tests in the morning slot started half an hour late in most centres, Prometric and NIIT guys didn't know how to start and end the test.
One friend of mine told me that he got two and half hour for writing the test other told me that he got two hours to write the test...wow I am really Impressed that they ensured they should maintain the Image of India.

What to say about Prometric...One of the World's leading test conducting company...lolz...
Soumitra Roy, Managing Director, India, Prometric, said "CAT 2009 has certainly not been cancelled in any of the test centres. In fact, thousands of tests were successfully delivered in hundreds of test centres throughout India. To accommodate the maximum number of candidates, Prometric and IIMs delayed the start of the morning session by about half-an-hour. As a result of isolated technical issues some candidates are being rescheduled and provided a new appointment via email and SMS."

Somebody tell this Soumitra Roy thing that If u have taken crores of rupees and Responsibility of conducting Mother of all Exams then you are not suppose to give such Stupid excuses.
This is about the future of almost 2.5 lacks of Indian students and we are not in the mood of hearing any excuses...
One prometric guy told a student that we will call you tomorrow or any other day otherwise better luck NEXT YEAR....kyaaaaaaaaaaaa.....next year....
If I were there I would have definitely screwed that Great Prometrician....

All in all, my test is on 30th and hoping that Prometric and IIMs will understand the seriousness of this DEBACLE and made their the so called POWERFUL servers lil bit more powerful in coming days...

MY APOLOGIES TO ALL CANDIDATES WHO FALL PREY ON 28/11 OF CAT THING...

Fingers crossed.... :(

By the way Just one advice,
KEEP SMILING...

IIFT Debacle

No mood to say Hi, no mood to say Hello,

Even after thorough preparation of IIFT as expected was unable to clear cut off of the worst ever horrible Quant section.

This not clearing the cut off is more pinching when you know that you have cleared all other cut offs comfortably and missed the Quant one from just 1.4- 2 odd marks...
Had I have been scored 4 marks in Quant there were chances for getting call from atleast IIFT- Kolkata, if not Delhi...

But its ok, some one told me that may be something better than this is waiting for me. So, will wait for that better thing, and will try to give my best in upcoming 4-5 exams...

But one thing for sure...I WILL NEVER STUDY QUANT IN MY LIFE AFTER THESE EXAMS...NEVER...

Missing Someone...

I don't know why today I am missing some one and why just today I am missing someone every day. Some one who can hear me, listen me, understand me. With whom I can share my feelings, my experiences, everything...
But no one around here, atleast in the radius of 750kms. and diameter of 1500kms (lol)
Kidding apart...
Every day something happens to me here(in completely alien state and city) good or bad, big or small, i feel like to share those with somebody...but..unable to do anything...

Just facing each and everything alone, keeping all things in my heart. I don't know whether my lil heart is able to pick up the burden of my everyday chaos or not...

I think I should get used to it now...

Another One... which comes from lil bit senti Robin

I gave my heart to you
I set my standards high
I laid my eyes on you,
I laughed and cried with you,
I told you my hopes and dreams,
My Love and Fears.

My tears I shed all over your shoulder.
In the end,
I came to see that you were
the only guy I could ever trust.
When I see you,
my face lights up with aspiration, and happiness.
When we talk, I can feel the load unload
with soothing words from you.

I have the feeling of love in my heart.
In my mind, I say "You don't mean a thing. "
In my words, I say "You are just a friend. "
But in the deep end of my heart,
I think of only you

When I tell you my expectations of a guy,
You tell me never to fall short of what I want.
But only one thing stands in the way -
You are a friend.

Can I still love you the way that I do????

My latest Poem

Never will I understand,
Why my love, denies my hand.
What pain, what suffering have you endured?
With my help, can you be cured?

My thoughts, my dreams, you re always there,
When will you see how much I care?
Such little time I ve spent with you,
Enough to know my love is true.

The further you drift away from me,
The more I feel I ll never be free.
Perhaps I should just let you go,
Your love maybe, I should not know?

My love and friendship is always here,
And if you should ever shed a tear,
My arms are here to hold you tight,
For I will always be your light.

Myself

So lets start by knowing who the **** I am???

I am Robin Jain or you may call what my friends call me "Smiling Panda".

I am from Jabalpur, Bhopal, and Hyderabad..(good na...ya i know...lol).

Don't reach in the confuse state of mind, lemme tell you, I born in Jabalpur brought up in Bhopal for 13 years then came back to Jabalpur, did my graduation from there and now in Hyderabad preparing for fu**ing CAT.

Straight forward guy, loves each and everything, except unnecessary attitude.

Adventure sports, make people laugh, long drive with my buddies, reading books, sketching, helping mom in kitchen, writing poems, secure place when it comes to my hobbies.

My dream is to open my own Telecommunication Giant ARICOMM (Arihant Communications), and to become if not the richest, the most satisfied person on earth by whatever I did in my life.

Ya, I also wanna go for world trip with my soul mate...

Ah...lots of plans are under construction, will definitely give them concrete shape...

So for now I think this is enough...

Keep Smiling,

Robin.. :)