The First MGPT was a blessing in disguise for me..........

Oh, it's true...... I had no idea of clearing the first MGPT at all....... I was no preparation... in fact... I had solved not a single question out of the previous year's MGPT papers.... neither did I have any idea of the kind of questions that might come.......

O' ...... ! Please don't take it other wise. I didn't do that deliberately.. The situations that came up one by one; left me with no options....... You might know.. at first there was a big - big issue out of nothing...... simply a silly complaint against me killed more than two complete days and nights from my routine....... And even after that I remained so affected that I virtually lost interest in doing any study at all......

Still, I coaxed myself and tried to devote myself to studies...... I was still not over with the implementation 'graph' .... I was still very much unconfident on this chapter..... hence, instead of solving the previous year's MGPT questions, I simply relied on enhancing my understanding of the implementation of graphs....... and dropped the hope of clearing the first MGPT at all.... Might be I could work next time for the second MGPT.....

I was frustrated and was having mild headache for several days. I tried to relax myself by watching a movie 'Johny Gaddar', and glimpses of several others. It was very surprising for myself to spend time like that because I had been preparing before every MGPA. I was worried on my inside as to how could I face others by not clearing the MGPT....... But nothing could have been done now.......

The next morning...... as usual I woke up by quarter past nine...... I went for a fresh-up and could manage to get to the test-hall by the right time.....

I was not hoping any good.... I got the paper.... it had two questions.... as was already known to all...... the first question was so long..... to read; it was three pages long.... it took me more than half an hour to read and understand the question itself.........

It was to design an algorithm for a router which has three activities in the listed order:
1) REJECT
2) ACCEPT
3) FORWARD

The question required me to accept IP-ranges for each of these and predict the router action for more inputted IP addresses. The ranges could be defined as each of the octets of each input IP having one of the following forms:
1) integer i.e; single fixed octet
2) start-end i.e; fixed octet range from start to end octets both inclusive
3) * i.e; any possible octet

I knew it could have taken much more time than available..... I decided to have a look on the second question.... it was less than a page long......
It required me to find length of the shortest possible path between given start and end vertices of a given graph......

I felt I could possibly deal with this question in the prescribed time limit i.e; 90 minutes..... I still wished that I could solve the first one also.... but I decided to try that if I could have some time left after being over with the second on........... By the time 90 minutes were over I found that could only develop code for the second question and review it several times...... I felt better for having at least done some work at all...... I was still not sure whether it would have worked in the PARIKSHAK environment.....
We were then asked to go to the lab..... I started typing my code and it took more than half an hour...... I compiled the program and submitted.... still fearing about the X's..... and lo..... the very first result came up as an X............ my heart sank back....but then there appeared a Y to my delight.... Now I was sure that my logic was correct.... and the program was working fine..... there must had been some very small error..... I inserted commands in the program to display the hop-count each time..... and this time a created the input file.... Now the program was printing the hops exactly as expected..... but the minimum path length was being printed as -1..... Then it striked in my mind that instead of printing the minimum path length I was actually printing the hop length. I corrected it, removed the assertions..... and submitted............

Then came the first Y......., I murmured.... what's the next... it was another Y...... then the third Y...... it was so heart-throbbing...... then the fourth Y...... now I was sure the fifth must be Y..... and yes...... it was a Y again..... Wow...............!It was so exciting a moment..... as if I had won the World Cup..... I can't explain that experience...... It was simply exhilarating....

I called upon Anubhav Sir.... and submitted my work.... Sir asked me to try the other question also.... I did..... but it took long..... and before I could start typing in my code, the time was already over.....

Well........, that was the MGPT experience.....

In all.... there were six successes this time....... three from the current batch.... and three form previous batches.....