GMAT Test Day

Overall I had a good test experience. I did my homework and anticipated the potentially intimidating aspects. I knew that I was going to have my fingerprint taken every time I went in and out of the room. I knew I was also going to have my picture taken. And I knew that my watch wasn't even allowed inside. I had read somewhere that once someone had a cold and was not allowed to bring napkins into the room, so she had to go all the way out of the building every time she needed to blow her nose and lost a lot of time. This was not the case - while you can't bring in your own napkins, I was offered their napkins at the centre.

However, I was still understandably more or less nervous. More than ten minutes into the first essay, I was just beginning the second paragraph and felt stuck. My heart was beating so rapidly I had to hold on to my chest, at one point it felt like I was going to flunk this thing. Then I took a couple of minutes to tell myself that I had written these essays many times, and they all worked out okay without exception, even if I felt stuck at the beginning. Basically, I managed to collect myself and focus, and finished the first essay. The second essay went fairly smoothly.

Since my biggest roadblock was always the essays, I felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders by the first break - this had been exactly what I would feel during all of my practice tests. After the essays, I proceeded through the exam normally as I would any other practice. Yes, I wanted to take extra time to make sure that my answers were correct, but I also knew that I probably didn't have time to double check everything, and that with my extensive practice the past 3 weeks, I was very rarely making stupid mistakes anymore. I think the most important thing is to practice as if you're taking the real test, and go to the real thing as if you're just doing a practice.

I felt that the questions on the test were on par with GMATPrep, regarding content and difficulty. No odd or weird things that I sometimes encountered in Kaplan/Princeton Review. I finished the quant section about 6 minutes early and the verbal section about 8 minutes early, which was basically consistent with the timing of my practice tests. Occasionally there would be the odd question that I wasn't 100% sure about, but I also kept in mind that a lot of the questions (>10 in each section) were going to be trial questions that would not count towards my score, so I never sweat over any one single question, and nothing in particular influenced my performance.

By the end of it, I was pretty sure that I would get 700+. Although, being conservative, I also anticipated the possibility that I might get 680. I chose to veiw my score - you should always view your score, unless something catastrophic happened during the test that caused you to leave half of it unfinished, or something. The only concern is if you've done badly, but so what? You gotta retake it, but if you don't view your score, you still gotta retake it anyway. If you improve on your second attempt, it'll be viewed as a positive thing. Schools don't mind if you've taken it four times, as long as there's a general trend of improvement.

I was then presented with five choices of schools to which I would like my score report sent. Since this service is included with writing the test, one should take advantage of it. If you decide to send an extra report after you've taken the test, there is a charge of $25 or $28 US per school.

The computer took forever to calculate my score, during which time I lowered my head, prayed and kept my fingers crossed. Then, through the corner of my eyes, I saw that a scored had appeared on the screen. I took a deep breath, and looked up.

770

Oh my god. Reality check. Yes it's real. Go me!

In total it took about 3 months of preparation, including trying to decide on materials at the beginning. Much of this preparation was for the essays - my time would probably be much shorter if I wasn't so neurotic about AWA. Incidentally, 3 months was a good preparation timeframe suggested by GMAT instructors. If you take too long, you start forgetting what you did when you first started.