The G-experience...

My humble journey for a 700+ in GMAT was precisely an example of the way i have taken things in life, the way i have aspired, the way i have fought and the stupid last-minute shocks i have always given to myself... :) Not to mention, the way i have always felt - "i could have done better!!!"

The G-date i had selected was Tuesday June 27th, 2006. I wanted to take it on Monday 26th, but there were no seats available and so i had to opt for Tuesday... And frankly speaking, this proved to be a blessing in disguise... :)

After a 750 in PowerPrep -2 followed by 700 in GMATPrep -2, there were hundreds of 'ifs' and 'buts' which ran through my mind.... Although i tried to avoid the GMAT thought as much as possible on 26th, i was just not able to... I tried watching some movie on the television, but while doing that, i was not at all interested in the story of the movie... I was only interested in pointing out grammatical errors in the dialogues and in thinking better ways to present them... :) Sentence Correction was getting over me!!!!

As Monday progressed, i was trying to accumulate the different rules and exceptions in a piece of paper... I would refer to the list that i had prepared after every 2 hours... And surprisingly, on the last day before GMAT, i found that my SC accuracy while practising 1000SCs was closing 100%... :) This was such a relief, it helped me boost my confidence and probably, also saved me from drowning below 700...

I dont know what was wrong with my roomies Monday night!! :) Neither were they interested in sleeping, nor were they ready to let me sleep... :) The jesting continued till 12:30 in the night... As i was about to close my eyes, i realised that the day i was waiting since last few months had started... It was the day when i was going to take the longest and the costliest of all the exams i ever took... :)

Somehow i feel surprisingly chilled before every major exam i take... I do crazy things which i dont do daily, and those things keep me relaxed... :) Nways, lets not dig into the crazy things i did in the morning, and lets straight away move to the examination center...

"Pearson Professional Center", followed by some crap thought on 'future' - was what the board read... After reaching the center at 8, i learnt that the gates were to be opened only at 8:30... So, i had no option but to watch the stray dogs performing their morning exercises... :) The watchman at the gates was quite an interesting character.. I got some statistical updates related to the number of students that come up to give GMAT and more interestingly their reactions after the exam... :)

The lady admin officer arrived around 8:20, in her white saree... She reminded me of one my high school teachers whom i feared like anything... But on the contrary, with a beautiful smile on her face, she politely called me in and commented that i was before time.. :) She then asked me to read 2-3 rules which were written in a frame hanging on a distant wall... Here was the catch... It was then that i realized this --> i was not carrying my spectacles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes.. i am dumb, a jerk or whatever you wanna call... Though i dont wear glasses usually, i am advised to keep them on while in front of that stupid box... I had them on, in all my practice CATs... I knew without having them on, my eyes were gonna water when i enter the crunch minutes in Verbal... But... but.. but.. i had no option... It would have taken me an hour to go home and come back... I checked with the admin officer, on whether i could start my test a bit late.. But she politely denied my request, saying that though she would have wanted to allow me, the company policies do not allow her to do so... The mighty Righty was down and shattered... :( That was such a crime to be committed...

I went to the rest room, sprinkled water on eyes, looked into the mirror and said to myself... "If you think about your spectacles and crib, you will waste all the money and time you have invested... But if you dont think about it, there is a chance that you might still reach the score you are here for..."

I then tried to divert my mind by talking to the fellow aspirants... We were 4 and two amongst us had glasses on their eyes... :) I tried not to look at those two, so that i could keep my mind off that thought and chatted more with the person without specs... :):)

All four of us were asked to place everything from our pockets into the respective lockers... I found this very idiotic... You cant even carry your hankerchief inside!!!! What the hell!!! I asked the admin officer whether i could carry a tissue.. And she again denied very courteously...
I was alloted the system number 2... The gentle man besides me on system 3 was taking his GMAT for the second time and was only 32 years old!!! :) Kudos to him and his attempt!!!

The test started smoothly, with a very simple argument. I had thought of a structure for the argument and i think i have done well there... Then came the issue.... And my Goddd!!! I was blank!! I was literally blank!! Dont know was it the anxiety of the examination or the absurdness of the issue, but i was finding it very difficult to accumulate the thoughts... This was very unusual for me as i have done well with respect to my writing skills in the past... Still managed to type around 30 lines stuff... Dont exactly know how well i will score in AWA... :(

Break number 1: Had some water sprinkled on my eyes, a sip of Tropicana for my dry throat, few smiles for the admin officer:) and off i was!!

Quant: Hmm... My strong point, right? It was only the second question, which made me ponder for a while and that too because of the terms that were used in it... All the other questions were like pieces of cake... I had 2 probability questions, and both of them were very simple... I was getting into my rhythm and it was such a good feeling to have... Its like you start realizing that you are clicking the correct option... I was initially rechecking every answer twice before i clicked the next button, but later i found it to be very boring... and so with all the trust that i have developed in my rhythm, i sailed through the section with more than 9 minutes to spare.... And i knew, i had done well!!

Break number 2: Eyes were paining by now!! There was this burning sensation i was able to feel!!! I just repeated the same procedure of sprinkling, sipping and smiling :) and went inside the test room..

Verbal: Something that i did then, saved my verbal section... I reduced the brightness of the monitor and placed it a bit away from its usual position... And this did work!! I found that my eyes were not burning, and i was not missing my glasses... :) My confidence in Sentence Correction was sky high, and when i started with one of the SCs, it only added to my confidence.. The RCs were ok... 4 of them, with around 15 questions in all... What did me, i feel, were the CRs.. In most of the questions, i was only able to eliminate 1 or 2 and for spotting the correct answer from the rest, i had to rely on my guessing abilities... Though i dint guess in the first 15, i had to do so in the CRs after 15, as i thought i was going to run short of time other wise... Finished just in the nick of time, with 4 seconds left... And the battle called GMAT, for me, was over!!!

You just feel like kicking that Dell monitor in front of you, which asks hundreds of questions you already answered while registering... While i was reading them just for the sake of reading, i heard scores like 650, 670 from the people who started the test with me... And then came the most stupid question of all times... "Will you like to see your score?" I wonder if there are any GMATters who click a No here.. With no one else in the room, and just the admin officer and a office boy viewing me from the security glasses, I clicked Yes with all the zeal i could gather... It tool exactly 4 and a half seconds for it to calculate my score... I had placed my right hand on the screen and was hiding the score for a while, in order to give myself the feeling of a dramatic end... :) I pushed my hand slightly to the left and saw a Zero at the last.. :):) This was very obvious... I shifted my hand to the right now... and ... and.... there you go!! There was a seven (7)!!! I was least interested in the middle number now and so i took my hand off the screen and had a close look at the score '710', the scaled scores '50' and '35' and the percentiles '95' and '75'...

I thought i could have done better in Verbal, especially after a damn good Quant... But nevertheless, i was happy...

The admin lady gave me the prints of my score and escorted me off the PPC.... The watchman too was happy to know my score.. :)

So, this was it... My date with GMAT... Though this was the end of the test, this was just the beginning of a great journey and hopefully, a great success story!!! :)

Now, I just need to save this world a couple of times, get an olympic gold or two and get few promotions in my office.. and then i stand a 50% chance at Harvard!!!! :):):):):)