Junior Science Talent Search Examination (JSTSE) – A definitive guide

Oh blog, I’ve missed you.  Oh non-existent readers of my blog, I’ve missed you guys too. It’s 2013, so happy new year to everybody and yeah,  happy new ear to Vincent Van Gogh.  

I finally returned a couple of days back to find that over 9000 people have been fortunate enough to have come across this weblog, a celebratory dance ensued.

Back to normal now.

So basically, I’ve been approached by a lot of clueless ninth graders asking me what exactly the JSTSE is, and so I’ve decided that it needs it’s own little post. There are previous year (including last year’s) question papers at the end, so if you’re here for only that, feel free to scroll down.

The Junior Science Talent Search Examination, although held on a *state level, is an extremely prestigious examination as it basically proves that you were among the top 150 students in your batch in the entire state of Delhi. Also, it’s pretty good preparation for NTSE, which will only be round the corner in a few months. That didn’t make sense. Continuing.

Students from the IX standard from schools across Delhi are eligible to attempt the examination, provided that they secured above 65% in class VIII examinations. Until last to last (2011) year, the examination was conducted in two parts :

1. The written first round
2. The interview

But then last (2012)year, the Directorate of Education of Delhi decided that the interview stage is redundant because all of those who qualified the first round were almost certain to qualify the interview as well. So now, the examination consists of only one level – The written stage.

The paper (until last year (2012)) consists of 200 questions divided into two segments :

• The scholastic-aptitude-test (SAT) consisting of a 150 questions
• The General Knowledge section, consisting of 50 questions.

Last year, as a pleasantly surprising change, the general knowledge paper was entirely Multiple-Choice-Question based, and is expected to be that way the coming years as well, so that should be a relief to all those guys who wouldn’t be able to tell me what India’s Vice President’s name is.

Now, the pattern of the question paper is ever-changing, so the number of questions from each subject in the SAT section change each year, but the subjects are fixed : Physics, Chemistry, Math and Biology.
When I took the exam, there were expectations that the questions would generally range from class X to class XI syllabus, but the paper, yet again, pleasantly surprised us –  questions were a mix of challenging class IX level and class X NCERT level, with only a certain few testing higher concepts.
What I’d advise anybody attempting the exam is that make sure you cover all subjects equally, so that you can attempt each section confidently and coolly. Also make sure you’re very thorough with your class IX topics, only then should you venture onto higher classes. And your next step should be class X NCERTs.

As for the GK Section, if you think you’re in touch with the current affairs, along with the most basic knowledge of politics and the history of out great country, then you should feel confident;  if not – then I’d recommend maybe a Manorama or the like, to make sure you don’t miss out just because of the GK Section. Although you shouldn’t really need these books. But still.

As promised, previous year papers :

• JSTSE-SAT(2006-07)
• JSTSE-SAT(2008-09)
• JSTSE-SAT(2009-10)
• JSTSE-GK(2007-08)
• JSTSE-GK(2009-10)
• JSTSE-SAT(2011-12)
• JSTSE-GK(2011-12)

*Delhi isn’t a state, but writing ‘held on NCT region’ sounds, well, weird.

#The facts, figures and advice mentioned in this article come with no guarantee of being absolutely correct and relevant and in no event whatsoever shall the author be liable for any damages suffered by any person because of referring to them.
Always wanted to make up my own legal disclaimer :’)

Coding for a living – /lisa

This is probably a bit late, but I really wanted to do this and well, I am now. Apologies, for blogging months later, but I don’t want to repeat what I’ve said here, so go ahead and read the first two lines of that if you haven’t already.

Another thing before I begin, this post will contain a number of instances of the phrase ‘coming to the point’, which is my tribute to a particular Physics teacher that has just left our school – one of the best Physics teachers that you might find out there.

So, coming to the point, when I came across the Facebook invite to ‘/lisa’ , I followed the normal sequence of events I normally do when dealing with annoying Facebook event invites – if the name or description of the event contains any of the following, decline immediately :

• Incorrect Grammar
• WrITiNG LyK DiS
• Irritating symbols or emoticons

However, since none of the above were present, I decided to investigate further. Turns out Mozilla and iheartco.de were hosting a first of its kind ‘Hack Fest’ in Delhi – at the Indian Institute of Technology. The prospect seemed exciting enough – build something, so I was all for going, and convinced some friends to come along.

The Delhi Metro and the rain, however were about to play spoilsport – the Metro had their Mock Drill on the 28th, the day of the event and the rains, well, were falling, for the lack of a better word. However, since we really wanted to attend, my father dropped me and a friend there with the condition that we’ll come back by ourselves. We reached considerably early, and ventured into IIT’s mega campus looking for the venue of the event. On asking some people and looking out for signs, we finally came across this :

The registration desk. Not so cool.

Javascript, GPA and more – CBSE Class X result

So the Central Board of Secondary Education, or the CBSE for short, declared the Class X result this evening. There wasn’t a lot of hype around it this time, because class X results just don’t matter anymore, not that much anyway.

If you’re here simply for the results, please scroll down.

I’m quite certain, absolutely no one’s reading the remainder of this post, and thus I continue in peace.

Thanks to a certain person, some of the students managed to check their result earlier than others using a simple Javascript disable.
For all others, the results finally did come out at about 7 in the evening, followed by a flood of “10 GPA ” status updates on Facebook.

Now, in India, as I’ve previously stated, checking out others’ results is the norm. However, this time CBSE decided to make that a little difficult by asking for the candidate’s birth date, before displaying his/her result.

Being the snoopy smart ass that I am, I decided to obtain the entire class X result for DPS RKP and then enjoy the amazing feeling of knowing everyone’s result.

Last night, me and a certain other person had this amazing idea to make a search engine out of the results, simplifying the process.
Here is the link.
P.S : I will be doing this when the class XII results come out as well. Jitni gaaliya nikaalni hai nikaal lo.

What to do and what not do – Travelling solo with the Indian Railways

This time I’m not even going to apologize for not posting for so long – I think I made my point clear in my last post here.

So we’ve only just returned to school after a month of joblessness and from the first few days I’m getting the feeling – It’s going to be a good year.
Coming to the title of the post – travelling solo with the Indian Railways is something I’ve been writing about since I can’t even remember when; but I only got the opportunity to experience it last month when I decided to visit my cousins out in Parwanoo, a tiny little hill-town on the border of Himachal and Haryana.
So the rest of this post is a guide for all those people out there who’re wandering the internet looking for someone who might help them prepare for what’s about to come their way.
First of all, I must start by warning all my readers that what I experienced was a Shatabdi and this post will only hold good if you’re travelling by a Shatabdi of some sort. Trains of lesser standard might turn out much horrible as compared to what is described herein.
Now, let’s get straight to it.
1. Book your ticket in advance: If you’re one of those station par mil jaegi sort of people then I advise you to rethink your strategies. The earlier the better, because these days it’s tough to get any train even 2 days before travel. Finally, make sure you book your return ticket as well before leaving – why leave the hassles for later?

ACCESS 2011

Apologies. I have been extremely busy and I figure, I will continue to be so for the remainder of my life, so I’m afraid to announce that I, from now on, will be blogging occasionally.
But as it is I have no readers, so who I am apologizing to?

For those who’re just here for the archive, well here’s the Senior Quiz Final. (The SQ Final was the only part of the entire event worth making an archive).

For those who’re still here, let us begin. ACCESS is the annual IT Symposium held by Modern BK’s IT Club ‘Bits and Bytes.’ The event is highly anticipated by all because :

1. The prizes are really awesome.
2. The prizes are really awesome.

And also, since a number of events are open, as in, allow any number of teams from a single school, the participation is huge. Weeks before the actual event, people are trying to make use of their contacts in schoolso that they’re given an opportunity to go for the event.
The major events were on Saturday, 24 December 2011, and as a result, school promptly refused to provide us transport. Therefore we were faced with the one-line that teachers around school are never hesitant to repeat :

“Beta, apne aap aa jana.“

Saraswati Memorial Inter School Fest 2011 – New Era Public School

Finally, I’m back. It’s been two months, but a lot of happenings have kept me busy. LOL JK, I was wasting time most of the time and in my procrastination, finally delayed my return to the blogosphere by some time.

So going straight to the aforementioned topic, the Saraswati Memorial Inter School Fest 2011, was held today at New Era Public School, Mayapuri.   The IT Crossword was the only tech event in the entire Four Day Symposium, with the other main event being a General Awareness Quiz.

The event allowed two teams from VIII – X, and thus there were four of us who were going. Half of us had been informed about the event the previous day only, but still managed to turn up for the event.

Nevertheless, all four of us reached the transport office early in the morning. The transport department was ready with their Ambassador to transport all of us, but demanded that we have a teacher companion. After a lot of searching and delivering leave applications to the respective reps and headmistresses, we were finally able to depart for New Era, with four children stuffed in the back seat of a ‘Sarkaari Ambassador.’ (According to our very own driver bhaiya).

How To : Preview Google + without an invite

Guys, I’m finally back after quite a long interval. Well I did have some unfinished work to complete, and some urgent family business also kept me busy all this while.

Well, now that I’m back, let’s get straight to the action. I know right now, you guys are pretty excited about the title.
What’s making the news for a few days now is the new and shiny ‘Google + ’  rumored to be the next best social networking website on the internet, labeled the Facebook Killer.’

Now if you have been living under a rock for the past few days, in short, Google+ is a combination of all the killer features of all top-notch social networking sites, Facebook, Twitter and so forth.

There are quite a few features that have been previously seen but have been refined, and there are new and exciting addendum as well.

Now for the hard part, the heart-breaker. To access it, you need an invite.

Yup, my reaction was no similar to yours. Fold your tents and go back home folks, there’s no way I’m getting this invite.

But when there’s a will there’s a way.

I did manage to get hold of a way to get a preview, that is, how your profile and ‘wall’, if we may call it that, would look like in the new Google +.

Be warned, it’s only a sneak-peek – you can’t actually do anything.

Ready? Well, here goes.

1. Go to Google.

2. Type in  “Site : plus.google.com posts” into the search bar and press enter.

Your key to Google +

The Top Three Free To Play FPSs

First Person Shooters, or FPSs for short, are an extremely popular genre of games, due to their addictive plots and, well..

The fun of killing people.

So, Popular FPSs are generally expensive, and thus arises the need for free FPSs to download and play.

I began my research for this post with an article in Wikipedia on freeware FPSs and discovered quite a few games that had been unknown to me until then, which turned out quite fascinating and exhilarating.

But that wasn’t all, I wandered about like a cloud throughout the vast lands of the internet, until I finally managed to choose the top three that made my list.

3. Alliance of Valiant Arms(A.V.A)

.

Alliance of Valiant Arms, or A.V.A for short, boasts surreal and vivid rendering as it uses the Unreal Engine. One of the better looking FreeToPlay First Person Shooters, A.V.A , is yet another Massively Multiplayer Online FPS, which is one of the downsides. Apart from that, what kept me playing were its varied gameplay modes, including Escort Mode, which is the one that grabs the player and doesn’t let go.
Can be downloaded here.
Read the rest to find out the best free FPS till date.

The Complete Guide : Printing a Secured PDF

So this goes out to all of those folks out there who’ve tried to print those secured PDF files and failed innumerable times. This guide is an effort to simplify the process so that others do not have to undergo what I had to.

This is what a secured PDF looks like, where printing is not allowed. Mind you,the feature is very annoying. Very Annoying.

So what I had on my hands was an awesome tech quizzing  eBook, which unfortunately, due to it being secured at the time of creation, did not allow me to print it.

After hours of lonely wanderings through thousands of useless not so helpful articles,  I did come across something quite brilliant.

A software tool called ‘PDF Unlocker‘ was what I was looking for.

‘Panda’monium unlimited! – Kung Fu Panda 2

The general trend with movie sequels is that they disappoint.
But Kung Fu Panda 2 is far from disappointing, as it exceeds all expectations, creating a visual spectacle that can not must not be missed.

Directed with verve and nerve by Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Kung Fu Panda succeeds in delivering to the audience what it had been missing for a long time – an animation film with marvelous visual effects and action, but also a strong and tantalising storyline to back it up.