The GMAT is Looming….
This Friday I take the test. Or should I say, the test. The 4+ hour long test, with essay questions for goo’ness sakes. I haven’t taken a test like that since my SAT’s <cough> years ago.
I’m seriously nervous. I know I shouldn’t be, since I’m good at taking tests like this (sadly, test-taking skill doesn’t always predict skill in real life).
The essay questions didn’t look that bad. They’re kind of a series of questions looking for logical holes in a short argument. Go to MBA.com to download some examples. There have been enough documents, technical and otherwise, created by my little typing fingers to give me plenty of experience putting words together.
I have to say that MBA.com does provide some nice tools. They have a sample test you can download and run and they have some study materials online. Every one of the essay questions is provided ahead of time, too. 45 pages worth with about 8 per page. Hmmm, I think I’ll memorize answers to all of them!
Breathe in, breathe out. Relax. Crack my knuckles. It’ll be okay.
The other cool thing is that you get a “provisional” score right away. They must either base this on just the multiple choice questions or they have some neat software that attempts to understand your essay answers. I admit I’m a computer geek, and I know just enough about language processing to know that that would be a pretty kewl program if it worked with any accuracy. Actually, though, keyword lookups would probably give a pretty good first cut. As long as they have real people reading them for the final score.
I also know enough about writing to know that I need to end with something snappy that summarizes everything and makes you, the reader (both of you) want to read again tomorrow. Hmmm.
Hmmm.
Ah, well….
MBA, uh, GMAT, uh, snap! See y’all tomorrow!
