I’m still trying to sift my way through Tuesday. To say that the day started off like any other day is not only cliched but untrue. For the past couple of days, I’ve been stressing about work, the test, school, and the dog (ordered by highest to lowest level of PITA). Hell, even the Pismo trip was, and still is, another thing on my plate to deal with. With all that hanging over me, I went to work trying my best to not let any of that stuff bother me. My plan was to eat my oatmeal, fix some bugs, eat a lunch, go to Marukai, go to SBUX, and then head on over to Pearsons. I thought that if I could get out of work on a good note, meaning fixing a bug or two, I would be able to put myself in a good state of mind for the test. Things were going according to plan, yet I was having a hard time shaking off some of those bothersome thoughts. Strike one.
I arrived at Pearsons around 2:45 and went over some quant stuff in the parking lot. Strike two. Going over the review somehow made me even more uneasy. Instead of stopping, I continued through to the end, closed the book, and called TL to take my mind off of the test. We ended up talking about mochi and her behavior problems and how we need to hire Cesar Milan to heal us. Strike three. I’m not as caught up over mochi’s problem as TL is, but as Cesar would say, there’s a lot of negative energy in the situation and it’s very distracting.
I went up to the test center @ 3:30 to get processed. After taking care of the administrative stuff, I took a quick pit stop, ate a nutri grain bar, and headed into the testing area. Since I’m out of strikes, I’ll just list out the highlights of the actual test.
- Perhaps this was a sign of things to come, but I ran out of time while selecting which schools to send my test score to. I somehow lost track of time and didn’t even notice! At least I got the five schools in (Foster, McCombs, Kelley, Merage, Marshall) before time ran out.
- I did much better on the essays this time. The extra practice that I put in paid off, although I did run short on time. For both essays, I spent the last two minutes shoring up some of my weaker paragraphs and arguments so I didn’t get time to fully proof read the essays in their entirety.
- Quant. Talk about laying an egg. It felt like someone took an ice cream scoop and scooped out my frontal lobe. I drew a blank on the very first question and that pretty much put me into a talespin till the very end. I must have guessed on at least ten problems, mostly because I was running out of time. With about ten minutes to go, I still had ten problems left. Right there, I knew that it was over. Hell, I should have known that it was over when I forgot what an isosceles triangle is.
Much like the first test, there were a lot of problems dealing with number properties, percentages and averages. There was one section of the test where I got what felt like 5-6 DS problems in a row. One of the DS problems was so horribly worded that I couldn’t believe that it was even a test question!
- After the disaster that was quant, I felt like I could redeem myself in verbal. The only problem was that the thoughts of quant kept popping back into my mind every couple of problems and I didn’t get into a groove until halfway through the verbal section. In the end, I didn’t think verbal was that bad. I finished with more than two minutes remaining on the clock.
I was expecting something in the low 600′s. Boy was I suprised. Shock and awe. Anger and confusion. Deflation and defeat.
So what went wrong? I can’t point to a lack of effort being the cause because I felt like I was putting in a lot of work already. Perhaps it was the quality of the studying, and not the quantity of the studying that got me into trouble. I could have focused more energy on the weaknesses in my quant, or I could have done more timed drills. But the most probable cause of my pwnage was probably my negative state of mind. I hate to use that as an excuse, but at the very least it was a contributor to this fail. The more I think about it, the more coulda-woulda-shouldas keep popping into my head, none of which helps me in moving forward right now.
So what now? Sigh. Well, first I need to figure out what this bomb means. Will this raise a red flag? My first test score is technically within the range of my target schools but its not on the right side of the average. I’ll probably call up the admissions office and see what they say. I hate to have to retake this damn test again, but if I have to I will. I’m almost tempted to retake it just to prove to myself that Tuesday was just one of those days…. Most importantly, I need to refocus. Depending on what happens with this first step, I might have to reevaluate my application strategy. More on this later.
It’s been a long day and I need to get some sleep but before I sign off, thanks to those that gave me words of encouragement before the test and those that asked me how it went afterwards.