In love with the mouse? Institute of Career Studies suggests a course for all you computer geeks out there:

The Department of Computer Science, (PUCSD) University of Pune, aims at providing quality education in computer science. Apart from teaching postgraduate students, the faculty is also involved in research, consultancy and development programmes.

PUCSD takes care to ensure that the basic principles of computer science are presented to the student and actively tries to point out the differences between computation as a science and software. Another characteristic academic experience for students at the institute is the almost non-existent divide between computer science theory and practice.

The PUCSD was one of the very first computer science departments to be started in an Indian university. It has a huge departmental library and a placement cell that is responsible for sending fifth semester MCA students for industrial training. The department offers MSc, MTech and MCA programmes.

Candidates who want to obtain application forms can send a request to the Head, Department of Computer Science, University of Pune, Ganeshkhind, Pune-411007, along with a demand draft worth Rs 525. You can also apply online (www.unipunepgadmissions.com). For admission-related queries call 020-22953024 or 9270515716 or e-mail support@unipunepgadmissions.

Eligibility :-

Applicants need a bachelors degree in any discipline with a minimum of 50 per cent marks while reserved candidates need only pass marks. Fifty per cent seats are reserved for Maharashtra domicile SC, ST, DT / NT, OBC and three per cent for physically handicapped candidates.

Entrance exam :-

Admission to the MCA programme is through a common entrance test conducted by the computer science department. It is held, usually in the month of March, at Aurangabad, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolhapur, Mumbai, Nashik, Pune and Varanasi.

Pattern of exam :-

The entrance test consists of three papers —maths, reasoning and English. It has objective-type questions from the Plus Two level. Reasoning includes questions on analytical and numerical reasoning as well as data interpretation. The section on English has questions on grammar and comprehension.

How to prepare:-

To crack the section on maths, you could prepare from books like Quantitative Aptitude by Abhijit Guha, Objective Question Bank (Mathematics) by R.K. Gupta and J.P. Arya and Mathematics by Tata McGraw Hill publishers.

To brush up your reasoning skills, prepare from Logical Reasoning by S. Chand and Edgar Thorpe. An Advanced Approach to Data Interpretation by R.S. Agarwal will come in handy for the data interpretation section. You could go through a good MCA guide book as well.

To ace the English section, practise comprehension from Barron’s or Princeton’s GMAT guide. For English usage, revise the fundamentals of English grammar from A.S. Hornby’s Guide to Patterns and Usage in English. To increase your vocabulary go through Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis.

Sample Test Paper:-

Reasoning

You travel towards north 4 km, then turn left and travel towards west 2 km, then again turn left and then travel 4 km. How far are you from the starting point?

a) 1 km b) 2 km

c) 3 km d) 4 km

lRACE : FATIGUE :: _________ : __________

a) Fast : hunger

b) Track : athlete

c) Ant : bug

d) Air : sleep

English

Select the option that fills the blanks most suitably (in the same order). After an absence of 30 years, I decided to visit my old school again, where I had… to find changes but not a ……… different building.

a) hoped, entirely b) imagined, very

c) known, barely d) expected, completely

Maths

At an examination in which the full marks was 500, A got 10% less than B, B 25% more than C, and C 20% less than D. If A got 360, what percentage of marks was obtained by D?

a) 50 per cent

b) 80 per cent

c) 75 per cent

d) 60 per cent.

Sources: The Telegraph (Kolkata, India)