Friday, September 26, 2008

Clove

It was my second day at TCS Trivandrum. The day assigned for ILP Pretest. I had hardly done any preparation except a few things which I had seen on the previous day evening. And I guess most of my 'colleagues' were equally well prepared.

The test was supposed to start at 9.30 and we had instructions to be present in the 'Clove' by 9 sharp. Clove is the lab where the test was held. We reached clove in time but what happened inside was not the least we had expected from the Tata Consultancy Services.

After we entered the lab, we found that some of the systems were not working for us for various reasons. And so, almost 20 students were standing without systems. Interestingly my college had a majority with 11 of them being from the same.

The problem didn't end there. When the invigilators came and told us how to log in and take the test, the database server started showing connection failure. Once, twice, thrice.. We soon became used to a new thing. We had to reload almost every page again and again to reach the servers. Yes, those twenty-something number of students were.. Sorry, colleagues, were sent to some other lab where they could find systems and finally, we were able to start the test at around 10.15 AM.

It was a test of 30 minutes duration with 19 questions. The interesting thing was that it wasn't questions that really troubled us. It was the test that did. The procedures, the systems, the hardware and the software were the troubles. Supposedly we had to finish the test before the half an hour was over once the test started. That was to be performed by clicking a button that said Submit and Finish Test, or something like that, followed by a confirmation, but when we started doing the same almost 5 minutes before the end of time, it was failures of connection that came our way once again.

I pressed the finish button with more than 3 minutes remaining and thankfully, I was able to get it done after reloading the page just once. Yay! And I got a score of 45 out of 100. A failure by TCS standards (they ask for 55% in tests after this. This one is just a pretest.) but I was pretty good by my standards and was happy that I was able to see my score. Those who lost their submissions to failed database connections were later consoled as they were told their marks could be found from the back end of the system. Though I don't know if that has really been done as most probably the students who didn't get the score that time didn't get it later also.

Now, the question on my mind is, why so? I know how good and credible are the TCS products for clients. Then why do database connections fail while employees are taking test?

I guess I can't answer that. Probably it's part of the ILP. Part of our Learning. And the answer is a TCS Top Secret which mortals like me will not be knowing easily!

5 comments:

  1. thanx for the wonderful account
    cud you tell abt the nature of questions akked in the pretest
    have agreat time

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  2. dear anonymous, I can't tell about the questions of pretest in open space as it's TCS internal. But if u contact me through mail etc, I can surely give u an idea.

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  3. hey harshit do keep us informed abt the latest happenings there
    i hav sent u a mail as u had asked
    n do hav a gud time n best of luck
    thanx again 4 ur amazing account

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  4. hi harshit...m abt to start my ilp in trvndrum...i hv mailed u my queries...do chk it...

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  5. hey harshit,i hv mailed you 1 query.plz rep asap.thx

    ReplyDelete