Just finished writing the CAT(Common Admission Test) and frankly this experience was a lot different than the last time I took it. I realize that the best way to explain my day is to go by it as I went thru it minute by minute(I will skip some mins though..)
Before I start all I want to say is… the crazy few hours before during and after the test involved… a pretty gal, a guy that fainted, me stepping out of the room just before they handed my answer sheet and the test itself :P.
7:30 AM
So today started like any other day… just that i woke up an hour and a half later than usual :D. Like the last few times I have writen a test I felt absolutely nothing… no fear no anxiety… nothing (guess Im getting immunized to exams :) )
9:45
I reach office. It turns out my exam center is a stone throw away from my office (provided you can throw a stone really far… I mean “olympic throw far”). Im not decent at throwing stones so rode my way to the college. The number of people out side the college was unbelieveable… (Its odd how hard ppl end up trying to get into college to write an exam when all their college life was spent trying to get out.)
10:00
The gates open and I look at the notice board displaying the classrooms and the ids of the students in each one. Mine turns out to be room number 32 in C-block. I follow this huge crowd of people heading in the same direction. A short climb to the second floor and a few secs later I was sitting in my place with about 5-7 ppl in the class with me.
The seating arrangement in the classroom was intresting. They had four columns of ten benches each. The wierd thing is they had the space to put an extra column and probably put a little space between the benches. The benches were one behind the other and they were so close that if I streched my leg I had a good chance of kicking the person sitting two rows ahead of me. This would turn out to be a real big problem to me(as you will read).
10:15
I looked around and there were only guys in the class as of now but only 10 seats were taken. I noticed an anxious skinny kid sitting to the right of me one row back. The rest were ok, all were nervous but nothing exciting about them.
Then she walks in… I always wanted to sit next to a pretty girl during an exam, coz in case I dont have much to write in the exam I can atleast get to look at her. That (unfortunately) has almost never happened( the pretty girl part :) ). Now back to her… She kept waking in my direction and sat righ in front of me. Now the problem was that she sat like 6 inches from me and I kindof like to have a little space when writing the toughest exam in India. That was not even half the problem. She had put perfume… lot of it and as this wall of sweet odour hit my face I just realized… ‘I AM DOOMED’
I had not prepared for the exam and now each time she sat back the fragrance surrounded me(did I mention I loved the perfume). I just told my self… what the heck this will be the first time I absolutly stink in an exam and come out smelling good…
10:30
By now I had got used to the perfume and was listening to the instructions being told over the speakers. I did not hear a mention of what to do with wallets, so I raized my hand and asked the invigilator. He just said go down to the right pointing in the air. I had seen a hugh group of students entering a room there and assume it must be for storing cellphones ect before the exam. I run out and down a flight of stairs. I reach the room to realize it was the toilet. That fool must have heard “Wallet” and thought “Toilet”. I ran back up and put my toilet… err sorry wallet into his hands. Told him I will collect it after the exam.
10:45
I had almost finished filling my form. The first 30mins is given to fill the details like name address ect. I was casuallylooking around when the skinny boy let a small gasp. I turned around and saw him… it looked like he had made a mistake while filling up his form. It didnt look serious coz he just called the invigilator once and looked a little worried(which is common in this kindof exam). The invigilator walked a few steps and suddenly sprinted. The guys behind me suddenly stood up and there was a lot of noise behind me. I turned to realized that the boy had collapsed he was now on the floor his limbs entangled with the wooden benches and he was clearly out.
The invigilator was clearly well experienced and asked a boy to get some water… he did not panic for a second. Soon the boy was back on his seat and the invigilator was explaining him that the error was eazily correctable. Boy seemed to have fainted of sheer fright…
11:00
The exam had begun. There were 90 questions in 3 sections of 30 each. Each section had 2 parts first 10 for a mark each and the next 20 for 2 marks each. I was seriously considering guessing some answers so had divided the 2 hours to 30-60-30 mins. Normally its 60-60 system I follow but this time was an exception. In the normal stratergy 60 min would inturn be divided to 20-20-20 batches. This would be dedicated to each section so by half time I would know if the paper was tough or not and which section I was finding tougher. This was done so the next 60 mins would be dynamically alloted by me to the sections I needed as I want.
This time I had planned a 10-10-10 to do an assesment. Then allot the next 60 and finally use the last 30 to do absolute guess work. CAT questions each have a 1/3 negative mark for each wrong answer. I normally would not dare mark an answer I was not sure in but this time I was not sure of many answers in the first place.
12:00
Every thing was going to plan atleast time wise. I had not taken into account the lack of intrest I had so that had cut my answering speed buy like 25% and the pretty girl’s perfume and her regular habit of playing arround with her hair hampered my speed like 10%. Fortunately the skinny kid was still well awake and that was one problem im happy not to encounter again.
12:50
I decided to finally try some random answeres. I had not looked at my watch again and was well short of the 30 mins I had allocated in the start. I could mark like 5 answeres of which about 3 I acually calculated if it was right or wrong (so they might not exactly be guess work).
1:00
The final bell sounded and I dropped my HB pencil. A short glance at the answer booklet made me realize that I had answered too few questions in the Data Interpretation section.
All in all the exam was over and I was happy. Now to phase 2 whome to blame when the results came thru… The suspects are:
1) Me coz I didnt study: Sorry to say I have more than one allaby.
2) The Invigalator: Made me run up and down before the test for no reason.
3) The guy that Fainted: Well him I dont blame… all I have to say is I understand… its an imprtant exam and the poor kid was nervous.
4) The pretty girl: Well well, she was not nervous enough not to put hell a lot of perfume. Not to mention playing with her hair during the exam(that itself can lead a one way trip to Alcatraz my dear)
So Girl if you are reading this (fat chance of that happening) : My performance in the exam is all coz of you and I expect apologies.
PS: I dont think I will do that well :)