The IIMs and other leading MBA schools are readying themselves for the next round of their admissions exercise with the major MBA entrance exams getting over recently. To arm you better for the GD round, the last hurdle to be crossed for your dream MBA course, MBAUniverse.com has launched its special series of topic-specific articles. In this series the objective is to provide you exclusive content on relevant topics for GD that have high probability of becoming the key topics at leading MBA institutes for the 2010 MBA admissions.
The articles in this series have been written by Mr. Sidharth Balakrishna exclusively for MBAUniverse.com. Mr. Balakrishna has been involved in MBA coaching for over five years. He has also written the best-selling book ‘An Introduction to CAT: Tips from an IIM Alumnus’, published by Pearson Education.
Dealing with Abstract Topics
Today we bring to you the special article from Mr. Balakrishna on how to tackle Abstract Topics during the GD round. Mr. Balakrishna says, “The topics of Group Discussions can be as straight as ‘Public Activism is the only way to get justice’ or as abstract as ‘Deep blue is not blue enough’. The abstract topics can leave you flabbergasted but you cannot afford to remain quiet during the GD of a top MBA School.”
Let’s hear it from Mr. Balakrishna on how to tackle the abstract topic of ‘RED’:
‘Red’
In an abstract topic like this the focus is on creativity and imagination rather than analysis. Think about the following questions: What are the multiple interpretations that you could give to this topic? In how many ways can you look at it? What all comes to your mind when given such a topic?
It might be useful to start in a punchy way. For example, you could start with a quote. Here an appropriate quote may be from Shakespeare, who once said, “What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Similarly, here one could ask, “What’s in a colour?”
Now let’s move on to what all could be discussed. I have found that it can be very useful to use a mnemonic here. Think of the word ‘PESTLE’. This stands for:
P- Political
E- Economic
S- Social
T- Technological
L- Legal
E- Environmental
What this basically means is that you could look at any topic from this angle. For example, for the given topic ‘Red’, you could use the following ideas:
-- Think of the ‘Reds’ i.e. the Communists. One could speak about the Communist philosophy for a few minutes. What are the pros and cons of this?
-- Red symbolizes danger. A red flag means that you need to be careful.
-- For many it means violence, bloodshed etc.
-- The colour red in a traffic light tells you to stop. Here you could link it with life-the need to occasionally pause, take stock of where you are headed and then move on.
-- You could link the colour to any number of companies that use this colour in their branding. Most famously, Coke uses this colour extensively (as opposed to its main rival, Pepsi that uses the colour blue. Thus if you are given a topic such as ‘Red vs. Blue’, you could easily turn this into ‘Coke vs. Pepsi’!
-- You could even talk about sports. Some famous teams use this colour for their football jerseys etc
Thus there are any number of ideas and interpretations that you could bring in to an abstract topic.
Remember that you shouldn’t get hung up on just one idea or interpretation and talk about only that. Try and move on to a different interpretation after a three to four minute discussion about a particular interpretation.
If you plan to conclude such as GD, you could do so in a simple way, stating something such as: “There are many possible interpretations or connotations of a colour; what matters is what you make of it and how you view things”.
For further queries, you can email Mr. Balakrishna at: bsiddharth_2001@yahoo.co.in
You can read the previous topic-based articles from Mr. Balakrishna here:
‘Will India or China be the next super power?’
http://www.mbauniverse.com/mbaexam/mbaexamfullstory.php?id=2831
‘Division of larger states into Smaller Ones’
http://www.mbauniverse.com/campusinner.php?id=2844
Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more on GD & PI!
