Try a fever!
Yesterday I got up with the thought of having a really low key day. I went scrapbooking in the morning to make a birthday present for a friend. Then I studied in the car a bit to warm my brain up. As I sat there I realized I was hot. I had developed a fever. Then a headache and cold chills. GREAT! So I popped a bunch of ibuprofen and debated not taking the exam. Off to lunch with Kevin, where by surprise we met a two friends, one who doesn't live in town. So we sat with them for a bit.
I drove to the location and got there in plenty of time. I ran through my flash cards one last time. I waited for the car clock to read 1:38 and I sent text messages to some people.
The actual location was difficult to find and I started to panic. Finally I found it. You have to do all of this stuff to check in and it was a bit crazy. So when I sat down at the computer and got to the actual test I was shaking so badly I could barely type.
Luckily for me I know how to write, or at least it doesn't scare me. In fact the two essays sections, while I don't know my score on them, they actually calmed me down. I'm strange, I know.
I took my break. I stretched, ate nuts, drank caffiene and used the facilities. The next section would be eitehr two math and a verbal or two verbal and a math. When the first section that came up was verbal, I knew I had two maths to go. Nothing really stands out here except that I had two reading comprehensions that were over 100 lines long. It's the scroll that kills your concentration.
Next section was math. G had prepared me that she ran out of time, even with 28 questions and 45 minutes. I knew to focus more on the early questions. In the end I had to randomly guess on 4-5 questions at the end.
The third section, I was prepared for this to be math. I thought about getting more scrap paper, but decided against it. Imagine my surprise when a verbal popped up. by now my concentration was broken and the apperance of yet another verbal section with more 100 line reading comp threw me completely. I bet this section counted and that I scored less than the original verbal section. (BTW, I did not notice the research question that supposedly was going to show up in November.)
In the end I scored at least 150 points more than the school requires on the upper end, but ultimately 50 points less than my original goal. (I had really high aspirations. LOL) This was higher than my practice score by about 200 points, so I am pleased. Kevin says I can stay. ;-)
I spent the evening in bed, taking drugs and doing nothing else...