Inblue's MBA story

I reached Pearson Centre at 8.25. There were few test takers at the centre already and a couple of them were ostensibly tense. After We checked in, came a very elderly person at the centre. I initially thought, he worked at the centre. It was later that I realized, he is test taker too!! Boy at 51, uncle had thought of writing a GMAT and going to B School. Truly enlightened soul he must be !

The AWA was interesting. The first thing that showed up was the argument . It was one of those easy things were a I was required to present a critique on a work-from-home policy adopted by a company. I finished it with 5 min to spare and revise. The second essay required me to present my opinion on globalization. That was interesting too. I finished that one with 5 mins to spare.

10 minutes break !!!! - I told myself Don't repeat your Quant disaster from GMAT Prep2.

The Quant section( my bad ) was a roller coaster ride. I was dumbfounded on the second question itself. But worked through it some how and moved to the next. ( I guess I got that one correct),the questions grew harder progressively and I found myself running short of time. At the fag end, I had 10 min to spare and 10 questions to go. I guessed the last 5 questions. By the time it ended, I knew, I had messed it up everywhere. I was dreading the 40-41 score again !

Again 10 - mins break !!! - I told myself to forget the Math and hit the verbal head -on.

The Verbal started with Sentence corrections. Though I was doing good, a part of me was succumbing to the Quant disaster. I kept telling myself to hang in there for a while. It worked for a the first 25 questions. I sailed through the RC's and CR's well but a the SC's were a pain at times. By the 30 the Question I was exhausted of the ruminations and hanging in. I had subconsciously surrendered to a 660- 650 score but managed to finish the verbal with 40 seconds to spare.

Then came those things where one fills all personal information. And the final score dawned at the click of the next button. 690 ( 46, 39 ). I was amazed at my quant score and aghast at the verbal. The only relief was that I had a balanced score. With both percentiles > 80, I felt just relieved ( Its over, though it didn't end as well as I wanted it to)

There is this distinct thing one feels when one looses to the winner by a fraction of a second or by a millionth of an inch. The last I felt that was when I wrote my Securities Markets certification exam. I passed by .03 marks. I knew how good it feels to cross a dreaded barrier. This time around, I was on the other side of the barrier.

I was neither elated nor worried. I was just blank. I understood it was just a matter of 3-4 questions as I had been suffering from this 'just-missed' syndrome for the last whole week.

I knew I didn't do as good as I should have or as good as I could. There could have been a lot of reasons to it, but what mattered then was the result. I knew, I had given it my best and hence didn't attempt to find any reasons.

In minutes I was calling people to report my score and Sid calls me saying, "Hey what's up with the Canada MQ ?I don't find a head and tail of it." He he.. Back to work. I spend the next 20-mins 'on-call'