Flashback - The CAT

Woke up at 6 AM. Wasn't able to sleep beyond that, the last time I wrote an exam was almost four years ago! Luckily for me, my life didnt depend on this one. At least I could continue working even if things didn't work out fine. In any case, the butterflies in my stomach were happy at being freed after so long and flitted all around keeping me sufficiently nervous. Against all the warnings and cautions yelled at me by the book, I stuffed myself both with breakfast and some last minute quant fundas before rushing away to the centre at breakneck speed.

Must have reached the centre around 30 minutes in advance, the gates were open and people trudging in to the classes. It took me 10 minutes just to find which building I was in. I finally found my seat and sat down. Got my pencil, pen and hall ticket out. The arrangements were very well done. There were loudspeakers at each corner. The paths to the classes had been clearly marked. People were there to help guide the frantic test takers to their rooms and seats. After an announcement that the test would start at exactly the scheduled time, a bell rang and the papers were distributed.

While writing the paper, I must say things went like clockwork. I had practiced enough tests, and knew my plan of action. Saw the question, could do - attempt, couldnt - leave. Kept looking at the clock every now and then. It's very important to ensure you're ahead of time. If behind time, it's very important to see how far behind you really are and if it's worth it. Since the time allotted was now for the entire paper, and not just per section, I started off with what I thought would let me have enough time to get the speed up for quant, and hence began with verbal. I thought it was a good decision, everyone tells me later that was stoopid. In any case, while working on verbal, when I saw that the time I had allotted for it had elapsed, I went on to the next section - quant. And similarly, at the end, DI. When I was done with the paper, I realized that I had left quite a few questions and had some time left to answer some more. I then went back to the questions over the entire paper, which I had marked knowing that if I had more time, I'd continue working on them.

Finally the bell went off, the paper was submitted, and I left for home. It was only when I reached home, that I let out a sigh and went to sleep. No point bothering about the results, they'll only come out this evening, or the next morning. This was November 16th 2008.

The next morning, I went to the PagalGuy forums, set up my answer sheet on their cool scorecard. Saved me a hell of a lot of time, comparing against the expected results. Within a week, sufficient scores were in to let me know how I had approximately done against other people. Looked like I'd get somewhere around 97 percentile A little anxious and excited, I began the long wait for Jan 2009, when the results would be formally announced.