Placement Papers - CTS

Dear Friends

Atlast (though it was 2nd company here) I got thru Cognizant. I am sending my intv. experience...July 11, 2006

Cognizant came to our campus NIT, Durgapur for campus recruitment. There was only two round written & intv(techni & hr combined). Aptitude was in this format:
 Verbal non verbal 25 qns 20 mnts
 Analytical    25 qns 30 mnts
Questins like figure matching(mental ability) 20 questions 20 mnts
Questions were not esy not hard, I answred (11+21+8). There was no sectional cut off.

194 students cleard written of abt 250 students, & finally selected 96 students( 5 m.tech, 6 mca, rests b.tech)
though I was sure, not to cross the written(bcoz verbal sec. was not done confidently & lower cutoff for the 3rd sec. though there was no sec. cut off) but I did.
 
Written test was arranged by merit track & there waz one qustn set.

Verbal
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there was two passages one of them was about air pollution by sashi tharoor from sashitharoor.com
some qstns of rearranging sentences.
Finding the correct/incorrect sentences(5-6 qstns)

Analytical
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colored cube problem
data interpretation problem where $ represents 1 & * represnts 0.
Venn diag. problem
 
Mental Ability
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5-6 logic qstns like
1. no X\'s r Y\'s; no Y\'s r Z\'s ; choose the conclusion from following
  i. no X\'s r Z\'s  ii. All X\'s r Z\'s iii. ..
some figure matching questions(10 qstns)..

Interview
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I: walked thru the intv room.
Intvr: gestured to sit down
I: good afternoon sir.
Intv: good afternun. sit down.
I: thnk u sir.
Intv: where r u from?
I: i am from Barrackpore
intv: then why r u at durgapur?
i: for my m.tech study.
intv: o, u r m. tech! then in the mean time he looked into my filled up book in prescribed format.
[ the book was filled up roughly not so seriously, bcoz we had to fill up the same with in few mnts before the written exam.
Just like this way:
  Strength: commitment
  Weakness: easily believed other person
Hobbies: Playing crickt, traveling, listening to music, viewing movies
The qualities u have to be a successful IT professional:
  Attitude
  Motivation
  Having fixed goal
  After viewing the book the intvr. said ok & didn\'t ask any question frm them (thnk GOD)]
 
intv: then tell a litl bit abut ur family, parrents, ur hobbies etc.
i: i just told simply abt my family, & hobbies included "playing cricket, listening to music, hmmmmm & sir keeping track abt current mobile or cellur growth of india"
intv: hmm, what is the present cellur growth?
i: (i was not sure abt the cellelur growth so i told no of subscriber) presently it\'s abt 8(?) crore subscribers sir.
intv: hmm, then what is ur fevrit subjt?
i: I said "can I say C?"
intv: C progrmg ok, what next ?
i: data structr, OS
intvr: hmm, how can I allocate memory in C
i: using malloc fn
intvr: then what is calloc?
I: ansrd. Highlightning the no. of parameter & memory initializn
Intvr: thn what about malloc
I: memory is un initialized, & contains garbage value.
Intvr: what is linkd list?
I: ansrd
Intvr: what is doubly linked list?
I answrd
Intvr: what is doubly circular linked list?
I ansrd.
Intvr: do u know OS.
I: yes sir. ( I was getting afraid at this time bcoz I thot he will enter into semaphore & deadlock for which at that moment I was not well prepared, but he did not so. Thanks GOD)
Intvr: what is thrashing?
I: I answerd usig virtual memory concept, abt this answr I was not so fluent but ansrd such a way that he fills I know the answer, told confidently & putting my eyes onto his eyes.
Intvr: what is virtual memory?
I: I answred like prev. question.
Intvr: I am quite pleased with ur answer, now if u hv any qustns u can ask?
I: I was surprisd bcoz this question is asked at last & my intv was just started. So I askd "will I ask any question?"
Intvr: yes.
I: sir, if I get joined into ur company then what kind of responsibility or work I hav to do?
Intver: first 3 months trng will be there, after that..(what he replyed I didn\'t listen, bcoz just after that he gestured to leave)
I: thank u sir.
Intvr: hmm.
 
It was a just a journey of only 8 to 10 mnts. Intrvwrs were cool & they were come to take students. But the levels were varied from panel to panel, some panels were tough. one panel asked my friend "why r u doing m.tech, for not getting job in b.tech?", which companies u attened at that time?, why tcs rejected u?, why satyam rejected u? etc. etc. and that frnd could not cross the intv. Though I was also not selected initially, but got my name at last from the bunch of b.tech students(it was a grt mistake!).