While searching for a consultant for the MBA application, I occasionally saw an article about tips for writing a good essay. The detailed information and guidance within the article attracted me to view the MER webpage. When I read the positive feedback from students, I scheduled a call to understand more about MER. After the introductory zoom call with Poonam of MER, my heart told me that MER is the one that I want to take for my MBA application process.

School selection is a process of figuring out which school will help me achieve my career goal. I enjoyed the school selection process with Poonam, as our discussions clarified my logic for selecting my target programs.

The counseling session on zoom is one of the parts I enjoyed the most in the application process. It's a process of learning. We brainstormed to make each resume point short and robust. The resume-building process gave me a deep understanding of my past achievements. I took her suggestions to build each bullet with the STAR method. For essays, I still remember the confusion when I prepared my first drafts essays for Haas. I had 100 ideas but could not decide where to start and end. Our discussion provided me with directions

I appreciate the questionnaire of 25 questions that she made me fill out to brainstorm ideas before starting the application. It provided me with a lot of materials we later used in essays. Also, the questionnaire helped me find the right story that fits the essay topic (especially for Stanford), which I didn't realize before. Her guidance helped my essay flow more smoothly and led me to do self-reflection sincerely. The self-reflection she encouraged me to do also helped me a lot when I prepared 2nd round school essays. Poonam significantly helped me highlight my strengths in my resume, essay, and interview. She helped me show my best aspect to the admission committee and suggested many stories I had ignored earlier. Her editing was excellent, especially when we needed to meet the word limits.

Poonam always answered my questions and provided practical advice. Her guidance was not limited to the professional level; she also helped with emotions. I truly appreciate her encouragement and moral support after my Round 1 failure, which led to my success in Round 2.

For LoR, my recommender initially didn't follow the proper format . Poonam’s guidance and feedback were beneficial. Also, I faced a peculiar situation regarding my recommenders, as both my recommenders quit PwC in late November 2022. Poonam helped me draft an optional essay explaining why taking my LORs from them was crucial. This was indeed helpful. Poonam's response time is within 24 to 48 hours, and she was very particular about following the timelines. But I couldn’t follow it well and shared some draft essays late. So sorry for the inconvenience.

The interview was my weakness in my application process, and I wasn't well prepared for Round 1. However, the interview tips, mock interview session, and her detailed feedback on the mock interview greatly helped me prepare for 2nd school's interview. Following her advice, I practiced more, felt more confident and kept getting better in my subsequent interviews.

I am happy to say that I have been accepted into Kellogg, Anderson (with 120 K scholarship, and UC Davis (70 k scholarship). Also, I was interviewed by CBS and Haas and waitlisted by Chicago Booth. I am excited to join Anderson in Fall. I would not have been able to achieve this without Poonam's help. Thank you, Poonam. I am 100% sure I will recommend MER to my friends who want to apply for the MBA program.

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While researching for consultants in the previous application cycle, I got to know about Poonam, I saw one of her videos with one candidate whom she helped to get into Harvard. I really liked the way she discussed how they went about doing things and Poonam’s process made sense to me.

I got on a call with Poonam pretty early in March. We had a discussion, and she was able to help me with my doubts mainly about my comparatively less work experience. What struck me was that she was more concerned with clearing my doubts and getting to know my profile rather than convincing me to take her up as a consultant.

In our 2.2.5 hour long counseling session, we went in depth about my first drafts, the right stories, and the process of how she works. Poonam helped me make my resume more B-school- appropriate. Also, she gave me pointers about my accomplishments that I shared with her in the questionnaire. A majority of our time went into the initial questionnaire and Poonam made sure that I gave it the importance it needed. Surprisingly, the questionnaire not only focused on my academic/professional achievements but also my personal traits, which proved crucial in the long run as we were able to leverage such traits for a couple of essays.

Out of all the areas, I think organizing my stories in a coherent essay was the area in which poonam helped me the most. With her help, I was able to flesh out proper essays which didn’t seem like a collection of random stories put together. I can’t thank poonam enough for her editing skills. She played a very critical part in helping me meet the word limits of the essays without compromising on the stories I wanted to tell mostly. This gave me the confidence to present my stories knowing that poonam will be able to trim it down to meet the word limits.

Regarding LORs, she helped my recommenders use more concise language and overall structured the points shared by them to be more in line with our stories, highlighting my achievements.

Poonam was always available to answer any questions I had, and she did in fact quickly respond to my queries about the essays, stories and general admission process. She was absolutely fantastic with her response time. Since I started the process a bit late, we only had 1.5 months to cover 5 b-schools. But I was able to complete all of them properly with time to spare. This wouldn’t have been possible without Poonam’s help as she instantly responded to all my drafts and queries well within 24 hours.

One thing which I loved about our time together and one of the main reasons why I wanted to work with Poonam was the genuine attention she gave to my applications. It didn’t feel like I was just another client whose applications she just wanted to get over with. She was always straightforward, and she let me know when my drafts weren’t up to the mark. I have received admission offers from ISB and McDonough. Also, I was interviewed by Tuck and Foster , and waitlisted by Tepper. I will be joining McDonough in Fall. I will definitely recommend her to other applicants.

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I got in touch with Poonam early summer of 2021 when I was getting my application ready for NYU Stern. She was quick to respond and had initial conversation regarding my profile and advised I should not apply in R1 as my GMAT score was low as well as I needed more time to prepare application. That was the best decision ever. I re-took GMAT and got my dream score. After that, Poonam, with 15 days left before deadline, helped me compile 2 school application's. She went through my essays word by word, spent hours refining them and asked me questions which helped me even during the interview process. I will highly recommend using myEssayReview's services especially for people who are working full time and have very limited time to apply for MBA programs.

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I started my MBA application journey early July because I still didn’t have a decent enough GMAT score until June end. I had gotten in touch with Poonam early on and knew how important it was to start the process early. I couldn’t follow through with her warnings and timelines because I was so under confident given my GMAT.
When I finally started the process with her, I knew I was late, but she was more than willing to formulate a strategy with me and get going. She never made me feel like I was too late and there was little hope left. She was encouraging, and never suggested that I aim for or settle for anything less than my dream.

School selection: Post GMAT, this was the first step. I have always appreciated her for instilling in me the understanding of school ‘fit’. As Indians we are taught from a young age to obsess over rankings. Through her, watching her content and speaking with her, I learnt how truly important ‘fit’ is. This was showcased in my school selection list as well. Since I was so late in the process and only had a 710, I was trying to be conservative about the list, but she kept highlighting how GMAT is only ONE component. If it wasn’t for this over-emphasis, I won’t have taken my Tuck application seriously and won’t have gotten in as well.

Brainstorming: The questionnaire she shares with you at the very beginning really helps in getting your story aligned. It helps YOU more than it helps her because the stories go back so much in the past that on a day-to-day basis, we don’t even remember that some of the stuff happened with us or what we made happen! The questions are expansive and really make you think hard. Don’t consider this exercise a waste of time because this is what ultimately saves you time in different essay prompts.

Resume: The STAR method saved my life here. I sent Poonam a resume way above the word or page limit. She sat me down and explained what the Ad Com is looking for and how each point in the resume is a smaller version of the STAR method. It’s a total game changer.

Essays: I used to think I am a good writer but boy was I wrong! My style of writing was superfluous - too many words and sentences that spanned three lines. This was a disaster for b-school apps! Poonam understood that this was a weakness for the apps, and she patiently cut short my sentences into concise ones which delivered the point and sounded beautiful too. This is where her experience of writing for decades comes in. This is where her very well-earned PhD comes in. The fact that she has edited over 10K essays enables her to retain your message and communicate it in a third of the words you used. Not only that, she guides you enough so that your future iterations and fresh versions come off better than your initial drafts. She truly empowers you. You slowly realize you’re spending way lesser time on churning out drafts by the time you reach your second or third school.

I’d like to conclude by saying that while I got into 2 of the 4 schools I worked on with her, I also got waitlisted at Fuqua. I was complacent and since Tuck was a dream school, I didn’t focus on the waitlist too much and withdrew my application. I can guarantee that had I listened to her tips for the waitlist, I could’ve stood a chance at a positive outcome from that too. She gave me very valuable insights for the same and has a stellar record of converting waitlists too.

When it comes to apps, we already deal with enough stress as is. Be it taking and retaking GMAT, spending years building our profiles and then dealing with recommenders. It’s best to leave the essays to the experts as they’re a crucial part of the application! Thanks for not only your guidance but also your constant support by treating me not just as a ‘client’ but like a pupil whose future you’re so invested in!!

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I was a re-applicant and after my first year of applications, I knew that I had to strengthen my essays. Through my research and a friend’s recommendation, I researched MER. The key things that stood out were 1. Pricing for the comprehensive package and 2. The turnaround time.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t skeptical when I saw MER’s competitive pricing as compared to other MBA application consultants. But because of the recommendation and my introductory phone call with Poonam, I knew this would be the right fit. Poonam showed genuine interest in helping me with my application and offered lot of advice and feedback in the introductory call itself. Moreover, while some other consultants were being very pushy about signing up with them ASAP, Poonam gave me enough time to think about my needs and plan accordingly. This experience with Poonam assured me that MER would be the right partner.

The brainstorming session is the first step with MER, and it is very important. Even though I had been through one cycle of applications, I still had to do lot of introspection to answer all the questions in the brainstorming sheet. The questions are well structured and helped me list several life stories that I eventually used in my essays. After submitting this, I was surprised with the detailed comments and ideas she had about essays based on my school selection. Poonam read through the entire document in detail, and she even quoted few of those stories, months into the application cycle. This was reassuring to me – Poonam took to a personal level to learn about her client. Based on the school’s essays and life stories, Poonam suggested few structures that I could use. She highlighted the advantages of one structure over another, which helped me pick the right content for my essays.

My resume needed significant work. Being an engineer, my impact to the company are very technical – impact that makes the product more efficient. It was difficult for me to demonstrate some of my key accomplishments as an impact to company. In the session, Poonam helped me show the impact to the company as a result of some of those and convinced me to drop a couple by explaining why those didn’t add value to my resume from a B-school application POV.

The essays and resume strategy sessions showed me how well Poonam understand the application process and the purpose of each material in the application packet.

I appreciate Poonam’s skill of trimming down the essay to meet the word limit. I am a wordy writer, so Poonam told me to not worry if I went around 150-250 words over the limit, depending on the essay, of course! While retaining the same meaning, she would efficiently restructure sentences or cut out words in just one edit! I was impressed. Sure, there were few instances where I thought my voice didn’t show in the edit, and Poonam helped me get to where I wanted the essay to be.

Poonam was very responsive to my questions about essays, resume, applications etc. The night before one of my applications, I had a question for her. She replied within 15 minutes. Turns out she had made herself available to support all her clients during the application time
As advertised, Poonam always delivered the edits in the 24–48-hour time frame. The quick turn around kept me on a schedule and helped me be ready with my materials ahead of the deadlines. That said, Poonam was very accommodative of my hectic, start-up work-life. Sometimes, she gave me an additional day or two to send my draft of essays. But she followed up consistently to make sure that I was on track.

I have a relatively low undergrad GPA. Poonam worked with me to clearly highlight the reasons of the low GPA, how I overcame some challenges, and more importantly, the lessons I learned. I think the low GPA essay alleviated any concerns around my undergrad GPA, which I think was one of the obvious weaknesses in my application.

Poonam understands the expectations that b-schools have from interviews and provided feedback that helped make my responses more powerful. She shared some strategies around when to talk about certain key topics, and which topics to avoid. For example, coming from a niche industry, there was a point that I had pushed to a very low-probability question in the end. Poonam showed me versions of my own response that could easily fit into common questions about “Tell me about yourself” or “why MBA?”. MBA applications are all about differentiation, and these tips definitely helped me do so.

Thank you, Poonam, for working with me on my applications. You have been very patient with my timing and have accommodated by hectic work-life through the process. For where I was in the process, your services helped elevate my application.

I received admits from Haas and Tepper with scholarship and am waitlisted at Darden. I will certainly recommend MER to any prospective applicants whom I come across.

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I got Poonam’s assistance for my resume and essays for Berkeley Haas EWMBA program .

The 2.5 hour session was our first session while working with Poonam. The session was kept after I sent the first draft of essays and resume. This was the right time to get a feedback and make improvements. She was patient and went over everything slowly and steadily one by one. Her feedback was valuable in the brainstorming and coming up with the ideas for further drafts.

Resume writing for MBA was something I was most unfamiliar with. Her approval of the resume was something that was most valuable to me. During the resume building process, she suggested submitting two page resume , considering I have a lot of volunteering experience and extra-curriculars. This feedback was very valuable. She was also very helpful in removing extra details from the bullet points and making them crisp.

Poonam was very quick in understanding my strengths and was always, ready to patiently listen to anything I had to tell. She told me that it will be best to focus on the music aspect for the identity essay. This was again very helpful. She pushed me to not settling and kept me going till we got the best version.
With her feedback, we moved the story structure around multiple times to make the story more cohesive. She demonstrated good knowledge about the structure and always provided useful feedback regarding the flow of the essay. She made me very comfortable and were always open to questions. The answers were also pretty insightful. The response time was spectacular.

Most importantly, all this help I was able to get for the most cost effective price because of Poonam. I couldn't have afforded the heavily priced packages from other consultants. Glad that I approached Poonam.

Overall, Poonam was very professional. Her approval of the essays, resume gave me a lot of confidence. I am happy to say that I have been accepted into Haas EWMBA program. I would certainly recommend Poonam to prospective applicants.

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I was specifically looking out for someone to understand my career vision and guide me not only with the essays but also with college selection. MER is a dependable brand to rely on. The reviews and results available on the website and GMAT Club made MER my first choice and hence, I approached Poonam to help me out with my MBA application.

During the free Video consulting session, Poonam evaluated my profile on my work experience, participation in extra-curricular activities, and academics. I was also briefed on the current admission scenarios in various colleges which helped me choose my future colleges.
 
After registration, we had two counseling sessions on Zoom:
1. To discuss resume strategy, school selection, and turnaround time where we both agreed mutually to reply within two working days.

2. On the second call, we discussed my doubts regarding the school selection. We also discussed the essay stories and the important pointers to make my essays more effective.

Both sessions were informative and helped me make concrete decisions further. Before starting with the essays, we had a brainstorming session which made me explore my life deeply and we were able to extract relevant stories for different essays. This, I believe is one of the most powerful exercises during the complete process as it laid the foundation for story selection. Along with the story selection, we also worked together organizing even the small details in my essays to make them perfect. Poonam made sure that we reach word limits without compromising on the content.

Holding over three decades of experience in teaching and helping students out, her skills in sentence structure, grammar and punctuation made my content a professional one. Every iteration of the resume made me feel more confident as my total experience of more than eight years was classified on a single page. This was beyond my imagination. Poonam’s extraordinary review skills provided me the confidence to proudly brief myself during the interview.
Poonam guided me adequately regarding the selection of recommenders and the LOR process so I could guide my recommenders about LOR requirements.
She is a proactive person when it comes to turnaround time. Because of her professionalism, her response to my draft was bound to come within 48 hours. She met all the expectations listed on the MER website showing 100% professionalism. Her over the decade of experience in admissions consulting gave me all the valuable inputs which made me strategize and execute the plan. She answered every query with all the knowledge she has which equipped me with information and enabled me to make further decisions.

In Conclusion, my experience with Poonam has been exceptional and I feel lucky that I had the honor to work with her. She is a live example of a disciplined professional and cares about every small detail in your application.
The hard work did pay off with an admission offer from Kelley with scholarship of 55,833USD per year along with a waitlist from Tepper and McCombs. I would recommend Poonam’s amazing services to prospective students.

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When applying to my dream business schools, I had only separated, pieces of ideas that I wanted to convey into the essays, but I didn’t know how to put them together. I learned about MER services which are highly recommended by the GMATClub community, made further research about MER and Poonam, and then quickly decided that MER is the perfect solution to guide me through the critical brainstorming process. I was lucky in making the immediate decision because available spots are filled rapidly, and I was happy to be one of a few candidates collaborating with MER each application round.

Poonam paid great attention to details and laid out the next steps for us to work on. It was so easy to talk to her because she cares about my story. She also made initial evaluation of my profile and suggested which MBA programs that fit.
I’ve worked on my resume multiple times applying for jobs and other short programs such as the Global Energy Leadership at Rice, therefore I thought I was in a good spot to use the same resume version. And I also waived my right to check the LORs because I trusted that my recommenders knew me well enough to write those letters positively. Poonam helped me to understand what are needed in a one-page resume, there’re redundancy to be removed and information (usually be thought of as unnecessary) to be added. She also went beyond to advise me and offer her editing to clarify the sentences. My resume was presented in a transparent, connected, and sufficient. Thanks to her work.
Poonam gave me plenty of times to work on the questionnaire. It’s the next step after our zoom session to provide wider and deeper perspectives of my background, historically and emotionally. With her guidance and analysis, I answered the questionnaire only to realize that it’s tailored to help me understand more about myself and my beliefs. The art of applying to business schools is that knowing how to mix the significant desire of being successful (higher salary, reputation school, switching jobs, relocations etc…) in the future with the humility of who you are as a person. Therefore, it’s a valuable time spent to think, answer, refine the mindset and answer the questionnaire again and again.

She has the experience and wisdom to clearly understand my profile in a short time. She also knows exactly what characteristics business school will find interesting in a candidate and help me to spell out those enthusiastically. Organization of details was the most exciting aspect while working with her. With her review, everything I thought was perfectly structured was positioned in a stronger system. That helped me gain confidence on my resume and essay. She carefully paid attention to my background even in our first meeting before registration. So I had no doubts about her capability in sections that needed greater focus in detail. In fact, she beautifully broke the long sentences and divided them into more concise, simpler ones with carefully chosen words. I couldn’t and would never find her misses on word counting, grammar or punctuation. Editing is her genius!

Poonam not only keeps our agreed timeline work but also understands that nothing is a fixed bullet point. I have kid and a full-time job therefore I deal with changed schedule all the time, and Poonam was so flexible, responsive, and patiently to work with. And she always clarified my doubts/ questions in super short time. She committed on deadlines and promises and let me know how many days she would take to revert while she was working on multiple applications simultaneously. They are solid commitments and I never got wrong with her response time. She helped me craft my resume and essays, and gave them clear sense of purposes, conciseness, and strong voices about who am I and what I could bring to the class (in business schools). She always did repetitive reviews to guarantee there was no weak spots left in my resume and essays.
Poonam prepared me for a mock interview within two days after I apprised her of my interview invitation. It was a serious process of analyzing my performance so that I can equip myself better for the D-day. All actions and details were discussed by Poonam, and she gave tons of valuable advice that if I weren’t aware of, I would not have felt confident of having the important interview.

Application to business schools is not the same as applying for jobs but must be viewed as a learning process. And Poonam is the brilliant instructor for your learning. You will always expect your mentor to listen to your voice, understand who you are as a person, accept your failure, and encourage you to do the right thing; an instructor who is disciplined, experienced and has high value in your works. And you will find such personalities in Poonam.
I’ve learnt so much from her and enjoyed every moment of working with her. If you’re thinking about business schools, I strongly recommend you reach out to Poonam and schedule your call with her.
I am happy to say that I have received admission offer from McComb’s EMBA program, and I would like to say that this is my second MBA.

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I was looking for a consultant of Indian origin because I wanted someone who could relate to the Indian education system and help me understand the nitty-gritty of the international MBA application process, considering my Indian education background.
The second reason was that Poonam holds a Ph.D. in English with three decades of soundtrack experience with outstanding outcomes. GMAT Club helped differentiate between Indian consultants and made me select MER over other consultancy firms. Another selling point was that she did not have any other junior consultants editing the application on her behalf. The entire process was handled by one single person, which I liked about MER.

I must appreciate her candid nature, which helped me finalize my decision on selecting MER for my B-school application journey. Her strategy guides helped me map out the application process and what steps need to be taken to execute a robust application. Poonam guided me to appear for a GRE retake and apply with a better version of me which I completely agree upon.

The counseling session was an eye-opener where I learned different possibilities for improvement. Poonam was very particular about the questions, so she directed me to focus on what precisely the admissions committee is looking for in the essays, resumes, and LORs. My takeaway from the counseling session helped me develop appropriate stories with a lot of introspection and brainstorming.

Poonam is an excellent storyteller who possesses a good sense of how to showcase a story to convey appropriate meaning, answering the question asked. Poonam was relentless because she wanted to ensure the story was sound and to the point. Hence, there were instances when I had to make four drafts to develop fine-tuned stories that made my profile strong. In addition, Poonam helped me understand the concept of S.T.A.R. format, which made my life a lot easier in organizing the essays to make a good sense of the stories.

I could see the flow getting better and better in each edit that I received from Poonam. Her language skills and storytelling attitude helped me get my stories properly critiqued to get a better version of them. Poonam utilized her storytelling approach and constantly motivated me to use my story, highlighting my strengths and advising me to speak quality content in the essays instead of focusing more on quantity.
Poonam was extraordinarily cautious about grammatical mistakes or any sentence structure failure. Also, she used to comment on the exact errors in the sentence, commenting on what best could be done to improvise the sentence. Her role in trimming the essays was tremendous, as she made the essays so succinct (following the strict word limit requirements) without any loss of meaning and what I intended to showcase to the admissions committee.

I already had my resume ready, which I thought was a perfect one. However, when I saw the comments from Poonam on different aspects, it was new to me. For example, I learned how we need to display our extracurricular hobbies in the resume. Instead of making a laundry list, we need to be more specific about our hobbies. Poonam responded to my questions within 24 hours. During the three long zoom sessions, I understood that she is dedicated and diligent in ensuring that all my queries were answered correctly and did provide valuable advice. If she was unable to respond within 24 hours, she would notify the reason why the delay occurred and still try to respond as earliest as she could.

I did one mock interview session. The tips on improving my performance in the interview were precious. I figured out which area I need to focus more on, the behavioral questions where I need to use the S.T.A.R. format to get solid answers. Poonam's verbal and written feedback on my interview helped me develop a solution to the mistakes committed. The suggestions I received for the LOR were also commendable as they provided my recommender to come up with impactful stories that gel with my short-term career objectives.

My overall experience with MER was excellent. Yes, I would definitely recommend MER services to prospective applicants.

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I signed up for MER services as I was looking for support on my MBA application for Mcgill and Concordia. After thorough research, I realized MER had supported students with a lower-than-average GMAT score get into their desired business school. Given my GMAT was lower than average, I decided to go ahead with MER. Also, compared to other editing services, MER charged reasonable prices for its services.
The free consultation was helpful as it made me connect with Poonam better. Also, through this session, I understood that Poonam is very serious about her work and has strict guidelines an applicant should follow, something which I admire in mentors.

Then the long counseling session helped me understand the real ask behind each essay question and the resume. Poonam answered all my questions and helped me get the bigger picture.
Poonam supported me a lot with my stories. On my first session, I thought I had nothing to tell on a personal level, however, the more time I spent on Poonam’s feedback, the more I realized I have a lot to tell. This helped me craft top-notch essays with relevant content.
The feedback Poonam shared in her edits helped me organize my story better and draft it in a clear flow. Poonam helped me input diverse synonyms in my essays. Her ability to bring down the word count to the required word count without losing the flow and meaning was amazing.
Poonam helped me quickly move from a professional resume format to an academic resume format. She also helped me add an exceptional Extracurriculars section, something which I never thought I had enough stories for.

The LOR process was smooth and helped improve the quality of my recommendations. Throughout our engagement, Poonam answered all my queries quickly and clearly. I felt free to ask her the silliest of questions as she managed to create an open culture. Her response time was on point! It helped me not to over-stress and helped me avoid the fear of last-minute delays.

Working with Poonam was a great experience. The level of service met my expectations. The challenging process of an MBA application was made smoother and more organized with the support of Poonam. Yes! The content on the MER website describes the actual experience. I am happy to say that I have received an offer of admission from both, Mcgill and Concordia! I really appreciate your support and would like to thank you for the guidance! I will definitely recommend the service to prospective applicants.

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