Meaning of Finance

In a globalized world, finance has become a dominating lexicon. The world revolve around the word “finance”. This word is splashed in Newspapers and roars through Television news. The budget brought by the government is a huge talking point and a major concern for the public . The opposition never stops criticizing the government on budget. And the media loves to spins it. Globalization makes the meaning of Finance all very important. The world economy is driven by finance.

But, if we trace the origin of finance, there is evidence to prove that it is as old as human life on earth. The word finance was originally a French word. In the 18th century, it was adapted by English speaking communities to mean “the management of money.” Since then, it has found a permanent place in the English dictionary. Today, finance is not merely a word else has emerged into an academic discipline of greater significance. Finance is now organized as a branch of Economics.

Finance is defined in numerous ways by different groups of people.

1. In General sense,

"Finance is the management of money and other valuables, which can be easily converted into cash."

2. According to Experts,

"Finance is a simple task of providing the necessary funds (money) required by the business of entities like companies, firms, individuals and others on the terms that are most favorable to achieve their economic objectives."

3. According to Entrepreneurs,

"Finance is concerned with cash. It is so, since, every business transaction involves cash directly or indirectly."

4. According to Academicians,

"Finance is the procurement (to get, obtain) of funds and effective (properly planned) utilization of funds. It also deals with profits that adequately compensate for the cost and risks borne by the business."

At present, we cannot imagine a world without Finance. In other words, Finance is the soul of our economic activities. To perform any economic activity, we need certain resources, which are to be pooled in terms of money (in the form of currency notes, other valuables, etc.). Finance is a prerequisite for obtaining physical resources which are needed to perform productive activities and carrying business operations such as sales, pay compensations, reserve for contingencies (unascertained liabilities) and so on.

Hence, Finance has now become an indivisible part of our day-to-day lives. The meaning of finance is extremely significant. It is discussed and debated by man-on-the-street, experts, academicians, journalists, business leaders, and politicians. Finance is ruling us.

Multiple GMAT Scores

About 18 percent of all GMAT test takers sit for the exam more than once, which creates the admissions challenge of deciding how and if to use multiple sets of scores (multiple GMAT Scores). Should you consider only the most current scores? Should the highest scores be used? Should scores from different test administrations be averaged? Or, should you combine the highest scores across subtests? There isn’t a simple mathematical answer to this question, as “the answer depends on your philosophy,” says Lawrence M. Rudner, vice president of research and development and chief psychometrician at GMAC. This note presents information about test takers who retake the GMAT and have multiple GMAT Scores and different approaches you can use to guide your decision.

Who retakes the GMAT exam?

The 18 percent of the GMAT test taking population who retake the exam are a special, self-selected group. Examinees who perform as they expected, or better than they expected, have no motivation to retake the four hour exam. We can logically infer that those that retake the GMAT are not happy with their original scores and are confident they can do better says Lawrence M. Rudner. Graduate Management News, Oct. 2011 and GMAC Research Report, May 2011 indicates that those who retake the test are less likely to have finished their first exam and are more likely to have GMAT scores that are not aligned with their undergraduate GPAs.

On average, the self-selected examinees who retake the GMAT obtain only a modest increase in Total score – about 31 points. These gains are consistent with the gains found for the SAT1 and the LSAT2,3. In contrast, the average gain for a random sample of test takers is expected to be zero with a standard deviation of 28 points. While the gain is modest, another way to look at the data is that slightly more than 50 percent of the repeat test takers have gains that are more than chance fluctuations. The extra gain is not surprising. Those that retest are not a random sample and there is a reason they are sitting for the exam again. Not everyone gains when they retake the exam. In fact, almost 25 percent of test takers have lower second scores.

Competing philosophies

Because no test is perfectly reliable, scores for an individual taking a test multiple times will fluctuate around the person’s true score. Thus, one can argue that the average of scores is a better estimate of the test taker’s true ability than any single set of scores. However, this assumes that the test taker is equally well prepared and equally attentive across testing sessions.

As human beings, students are not always consistent. Whether a test is intended to measure typical or optimal student performance, changes in things such as the test taker’s attitude, health, and sleep may affect the quality of their efforts and thus their test taking consistency. Test takers often make careless errors, misinterpret or forget test instructions, inadvertently omit test sections, or misread test items. It is for that reason GMAC encourages all test takers to become familiar with the exam and offers a variety of affordable and free test preparation material. Nevertheless, many test takers sit for the GMAT with minimal practice the first time and many are penalized because they did not properly pace themselves. Approximately 25 percent of test repeaters did not finish either the quantitative or verbal sections the first time and their gains on retesting were higher.

Lowest score philosophy

How should one respond to careless mistakes or lack of preparation? On one hand, schools want students that pay attention to details and properly prepare for class. If an applicant is not going to prepare for the GMAT, how can you expect them to fully participate in their education? Therefore, one could argue that just the lowest scores should be considered.

Highest score philosophy

On the other hand, if a person has a second higher score, we can assume they prepared better and their new score better reflects their ability. Isn’t their true ability a major part of evaluating fit? If one thinks a test taker should not be penalized for poor performance when they have shown a higher capability, then consideration of the highest scores is the logical choice.

Set of scores philosophy

If one is going to examine the highest scores, then which set of scores should be examined—the best scores from one sitting or a combination of best scores from different test administrations? An argument to use the best set of scores from one sitting is that it places everyone on a level playing field. The scores represent the best the test taker is able to do, given the allocated test time. Unlike the combination approach, no one has an advantage by virtue of concentrating their preparation on one subtest or another.

Combined scores philosophy

An argument for the use of combined scores is that it gives the test taker the benefit of every doubt. Each subtest measures an independent set of skills. The best score on each independent skill is a reflection of the test taker’s highest capability. A counter argument is that the test taker may have “gamed” the system by concentrating their efforts on one subtest the first time and then the other for the second. However, that should not matter. There is a point of diminishing returns for test preparation and again, the tests are independent.

Power of Words

 The wonderful line by P.B. Shelley, "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world" offers the poets and writers a powerful and impactful position. Generally, we regard poets as people living in a world of their own, an idyllic world. Not only this, many a great critics have often compared an artist or a poet with the mighty Creator since they also create a beautiful and serene world through their thoughtful pieces of work.

Reading between the lines, the works of our poets and writers, one may easily infer that the world they reflect actually is the one they want to substitute our real world with. Not only do they dream of a utopian society but also reveal the hypocrisies prevalent in our real world. Thus, offers the society a new way, a new thought to bring about the change. How do they do it? Which magical wand do they use to convey their messages to society. Of course, it is the power of words. From Geoffrey Chaucer to W.B Yeats, the poets have experimented with their language and many literary genres in order to make their stands more appealing to the common masses.

Poets: Language They Should Prefer

John Keats, Lord Tennyson, Lord Byron, Pablo Neruda, Charles Baudelaire, W.B. Yeats &  William Wordsworth are some names we generally hear from literary scholars or professors; but why is it so? The answer is- They didn’t write or compose for just a handful of readers but for each and every person who is a part of society. And for that matter, they preferred to write in the language of “everyman.”

William Wordsworth, indeed the favorite of everyone, devoted his Preface to Lyrical Ballads  to the kind of language a poet should use in order to relate even with a layman. He argues that a poetry should be composed in the language of common speech, not in lofty and ornamented diction that is generally termed as “poetic.”  We should not forget that the first aim of a poetry is to give pleasure to its readers and listeners through it’s beautifully expressed emotions wrapped in a language common to all. The poetry of love and hatred, violence and peace, justice and injustice are some such core topics of the humanity that are needed to be discussed including all the sects of the society.

There were times like the period of Renaissance when the poets and writers were more interested in displaying the vastness of their knowledge through their use of words, metaphors, similes, etc. To express their power of words they used to write using too powerful words to be grasped by a simple mind. Since at that period of time, education had its access only to a handful of people, poetry were generally composed in the praise of kings & queens and their kingdoms.

But as the time changed, things changed the focus of the poets shifted to the condition of the common man. They started taking interest in the drawing room of a common man rather than the courtroom of a king. Highly intellectual words were replaced with vernacular one.

The Effective Affect of Words

 

William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience, is according to me, one of the best examples one can have as the best mixture of apt words and emotions. Through this collection, he views the same situations with the two different lenses- first of innocence and the other of experience. However, not only does his poetry reveals the injustices prevalent in the society but maintains the ray of optimism to change the condition. His poetry reveals the horror behind colonialism & racism, criticizes child labour and hypocrisy of the religious institutions.

W.B. Yeats, a poet who harshly condemns all sorts of protests that turn into bloodshed, take toll on many lives. He doesn’t even hesitate to criticize the love of his life Maud Gonne for leading such protests. He does it all in a very subtle yet direct manner. His poetry like The Second Coming, informs us of the horror and abnormality that comes up with the wars and hatred and describes it all as anticipating the end of the whole world.

If the aim of a language is to communicate, then only a simple language can justify this aim. The aim of the “unacknowledged legislators of the world” is not to point out at the oddity of our lives but to force the readers to look for a solution to remove this oddity. And they succeed in doing this only through their power of words. With this power of articulating one’s views appropriately in their inspirational poems, the poets are capable of bringing about a positive change not just in the society but also in the thought of a common man.

Trip to France

As soon as my pals landed on the airport, they were singing "Aficionado" by Bb Brunes. Yes, last New Year celebration had been real fun for these young crazy bunch of people. They had planned an exotic trip for eight days to France. The place has awesome travel reviews. I have explored France only in movies, internet, travel magazines and always fantasized about the fantabulous place. Alas! I was not able to manage things for this heavenly trip. But guess what? This winter I’m paying a visit to France with my cousins. Whoaa!

France is the hub of old wine, intoxicating cheese and gallic humor and of-course best of baguettes. Yummz!!! French people have a sexy accent and sounds like someone is speaking with a mouth full of candies. As soon as my friends reached France, they judged that almost all the people spoke french. They only knew English and Hindi. This made them pretty uncomfortable until one of them had an idea of downloading the language app called Lingodiction on the iPhone. It is difficult to carry laptop at every place, it requires turning off and shutdown, which during a fun journey is quite monotonous. Lingodiction is a smart language-trainer app that allows the travelers, businessmen and language enthusiasts to learn new languages with utmost ease and efficiency.

Now things had become very easy on their end and downloading this app was like a boon in the world of strangers. The sample package of this wonderful app is absolutely free. The entire package is available at $0.99 only. They did not require translator's help. Lingodiction was providing them with the best of platforms. But this was not the end, they needed someone to guide them. They did not want to hire a guide either. They were thinking how to resolve the problem lest they saw an advertisement board of RouteIt, the travel advisor . RouteIt is a perfect blend of social and travel app, that connects the user to virtual trips right from the mobile and tablet screens. This app can be downloaded just at $0.99, though the sample package is again free of cost.

Now they had almost everything in their hands. Enjoyment was at the par. They could track routes of various places in their open gypsy. They had knowledge about the location of famous shopping centres, resorts, beaches, hotels, spa centres and even hospitals. One of my friends even fell ill due to the change of weather. My friends could easily trace the nearest hospital. Within few hours he recovered. The fun portion had rejuvenated. There was laughter and it seemed they had entire France cheering with them. Lingodiction and RouteIt had made this trip really memorable. Since this New Year it's my turn to travel, I have already downloaded the two amazing apps for smarter travel. What about you?

How I Learnt French..

Lemme juz narrate you a bit of my childhood. It was my favorite summer season and my last working day before summer vacation. I was in Kindergarten. “Where are we going for the summer vacations? What will be our plans???” Some exciting questions that were popping-up in my mind, when I was on the way back home from school. I stayed with my family in France, my father was posted there in one of the government concerns that manufactured carpets in the year 1986. As soon as I reached home, I saw my mom sitting on the sofa with all our luggage packed.

Fascinated by the new language that I have been learning in school for a while, there were some common sentences that I had definitely managed learning. Since my maid was also French, how I learnt French was not a difficult task for me, I interacted a lot with her. I asked my mom,” Qu'est-ce qui s'est passé à vous?”, which means what happened. She said that we were shifting to India because of Summer 1992 riots in England. We basically belong to India. As French was an all new exciting language for me, so was Hindi.

But soon I grasped the new language and forgot the one I had learnt as a toddler. Days passed, so did the months and years. I had completely forgotten how to speak French. But do you know, one can never forget how to write any language that you have once learnt, throughout your life. Inspite of our settling down in India, I had always dreamt of going to France, listening to the tales and lovely time, my parents had spent in abroad. What wine, what high-fashion, and what art? How I learnt French? My mother always missed France. 

And finally I had made it. ISA offers the Carlos Castaneda Memorial Scholarship. This scholarship was awarded to me based on the academic achievement. To be eligible for it, the students must have some knowledge of the foreign language with good ranking. By the grace of God, I had both. My little knowledge about French had minted me a great opportunity. As soon as I reached Bellegarde - Vouvray Aerodrome airport, I came across several advertisement boards with French written all over them.

I tried putting up the alphabets together. It did work. From words I learnt phrases and from phrases, I made sentences. In a few days, I was almost through with the basics of French language. To add on to this, a brand new app has come up on iOS, that teaches you alphabets of the world. Phonetic is also a wonderful feature of this app. With the app and my little knowledge almost as a toddler, I had really made my dream come true and also got back the time my parents had longed for. How I learnt French so easily was sometimes even surprising for me. Today they were coming to spend entire week with me and cherish the memories.

Career Benefits of Learning Languages

After completing my school studies, most of my friends were enjoying the status of being idle for a long span of two months. This two month duration was the so-called ‘haunting time’ before the results were to come out. If the results were to say ‘Passed’, my College Life was to get started in a few months time. I decided to take the positive flight and started researching about the respective career options; all depending upon my areas of interests.

There were about 3-4 career options rooting in my mind. Some were forced while some lied under my arena of favorites. The forced ones gradually belong to your parents/relatives wishes assuming the successful candidates in mind and eventually end up dreaming about their own child doing the same. Funny that!

I ‘finally’ had to choose my road between Hotel Management and Foreign Language. Since I always had my first love for the latter, a final decision was made with respect to Foreign Language.  

Earlier people had a perception that ‘it was better sticking to one than to get bothered with two (languages). Further, more absurd views suggested that Bilingual people might have dual personalities. But these myths started taking a new shape altogether. As a result, the need for understanding Foreign Languages started rising day by day. Hence, many renowned universities across the globe are offering such courses today. College students, Job seekers, World travelers, all are well aware of the obvious advantages of learning new languages.

To be able to communicate in another language is definitely an add-on to your CV (Curriculum Vitae). Let’s take a tour at the innumerable career benefits of learning language.

• ‘International Social Relations’, has recently become a popular subject. People see it as a mass weapon to grab hold of. Studying the subject lets you know about the relation between different nations. This way, you can better relate to the people of the country, understand better the facts and documents.

• Travelling always remains an enriching experience, isn’t it? You come into contact with people of different social cultures, traditions and languages. And language is an integral part of any business. Say, learning french in France would develop attachment with the country and so its people.
  
  
  

• Knowledge of an extra language helps one to expand his/her Social Circle as well. Foreign Language adds an extra asset to your personality while you extend your family ties and social network.
  

• If you are planning to Study Abroad, it would be easier for you to mingle with students of different nationalities speaking different languages. As in some countries, knowledge of their language is compulsory as well.

“To have another language is to possess a second soul.” –Charles The Great. Learning a language might seem like a tough task but it is worth the effort. It opens up your mind to accept new ideas, make you more aware helping you to communicate in a much better way.